TriumphAnt

Your tax dollars at work.

Here’s a happy little message we recently received at work – announcing the program for that most dreaded of all public service exercises – the departmental “retreat”.

This year, they’ve outdone themselves (If you’re wondering about the capitalization of “MAZE” in the first line, the site is home to several open field mazes crafted annually in a large stand of corn.). Employees' being asked to "confirmer" their attendance was in the original -- the original original no doubt having been produced in French where "confirmer" in that context would have been très OK.:

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"Hop on the wagon with us! Get ready to be aMAZEd! You are invited to attend a branch all-staff retreat on September 18, 2008, at Saunders Farm!

The theme of our fall retreat is Life on the Farm, so put on your plaid shirt and your straw hat and join us for an adventure through mazes, a tour of the farm, interesting presentations and much more! N.B. Please confirmer attendance by end of day, Monday, September 15.

DETAILS:
Date: Thursday, September 18, 2008
Time: 8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Location: Saunders Farm, 7893 Bleeks Road, Munster, Ontario

Click here for directions to the farm.
Dress code: Casual, country (cowboy). We will be doing outdoor activities, so dress accordingly!

TRANSPORTATION OPTIONS:

Charter buses will be provided at Phase IV (on Laurier Ave., near the shuttle bus stop) as well as Place Vanier (on Selkirk Street, behind Tower A). Boarding will take place at 8 a.m. sharp at both locations, so please be on time.

If you plan on using the charter bus, please CONFIRM YOUR ATTENDANCE A.S.A.P by e-mailing [name]. Please indicate your boarding preference (Phase IV or Vanier). Space is limited.

Employees are also encouraged to carpool to the retreat location. It is a great way to mingle with one another en route!

MENU PREFERENCE:

Please indicate your preference of a beef or veggie burger for the BBQ lunch; confirm via e-mail to [name].

Agenda to follow."

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Notwithstanding the hilarity occasioned by the thought of “mingling with one another en route” (Is that what the kids are calling it these days?), I’m thinking I can save them some planning time. Taking their lead, “Life on the Farm”, here’s what I propose as a possible agenda:

Morning 1: Divide into pairs. One of each pair will be a banker; the other will be a farmer. In the first hour, the farmer must try to persuade the banker, with whom he is already mortgaged to the eyebrows, to loan him $250,000 to buy a new combine to replace his 1944 Massey-Ferguson or his hay crop is going to rot in the field. After a ten minute break, reverse roles. Each pair will then be asked to outline their arguments’ main points on a flip chart and submit them for judgment by the group. The best “farmer” arguments will be forwarded to the Canadian Federation of Agriculture; the best “banker” arguments will be forwarded to the Canadian Bankers’ Association.

Morning 2: A large patch of Saunders farm will have been previously worked to simulate the results of a devastating early fall hailstorm. Employees will be divided into teams of four and assigned a pre-measured section of the field. The goal is to try to extract enough flattened produce to feed a family of six for a week. The winning team will be the quartet that is able to do this without having to supplement their produce harvest with actual dirt.

Lunch will consist of the total harvest collected in the Morning 2 exercise, prepared as soup.

Afternoon 1: Half the group (A) will be designated “Prince Edward Island strawberry growers”. The other half (B) will be designated “Mexican temporary foreign workers”. The purpose of this exercise is for the members of Group A to persuade as many members of Group B as they can to work on their farm, hopefully attracting enough to bring in the fast-ripening harvest. Growers in Group A must highlight the many benefits offered by choosing to work on their farm: no injury compensation; no basic safety equipment such as masks to wear while crops are sprayed with insecticide; no one who speaks their language; transportation to and from work in a multi-passenger van whose last safety inspection occurred when Lester B Pearson was Prime Minister; bed space shared eight to a room; no complaining or face immediate deportation back to Mexico; no mention of forming a union or face immediate deportation back to Mexico. The winning group will be the one that achieves the highest number of workers in the time available before the entire crop is bought off at fire-sale prices by McCain Foods.

Afternoon 2: Each person will be given an actual Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) tax return for farmers and the website address for Farm Credit Canada (FCC). Using the end line “Net worth and assets” calculated by the time you reach the end of the CRA form, you will then produce a passionate appeal to the FCC to give you enough of a loan to buy seed for the coming year.

Wrap-up: We have scheduled a lively party to wrap up the day in the Saunders Farm barn after your authentic day-long “Life on the Farm” experience. Scheduled activities include a festive dinner featuring the leftover soup from lunch and live music provided by Billy and the Hoedown Down Ho’s. (Be sure to ask them to play their most requested song – a cover of Murray McLaughlin’s “The Farmer Song”.) After a 15-minute line-dancing lesson and yodelling competition, the evening will end at 7:30 since real farmers have to be up at five the next morning to milk the dairy herd.

Yee-HAH! We’ll see you there, pardners!

Until la prochaine…