Monday, November 29, 2004

Redeployee Blues

In the midst of our ever-continuing home renovations, I noticed this poor fly, stuck to the lacquer on our newly-polished floorboards. The poor little bastard had just landed for a moment and found itself forever and lethally stuck to the varnish. We can't pick him out, he's embalmed better than Nicole Kidman at an awards night.


It got me thinking: sometimes you're the one holding the floor roller and sometimes you're the fly.......



(sung to the tune of Nirvana's 'Smells Like Teen Spirit'):

"Re - de - ploy - ee
You're a loser
Redeployee
We don't want you
Redeployee
We can do this
Redeployee
We have power!
Suck eggs, suck eggs, suck eggs, suck eggs, suck s**t ......."

As you can see from my wallowing lament above, the battle with Bulldog and the almighty organisation 'Puny Melee' (using Aussie rhyming slang there) continues.

Despite not technically being a redeployee because my job actually still exists, the head office of Hellfire and Recrimination (HR for short) don't know what else to call me. Being labelled 'redeployee' makes me about as attractive to potential managers as my being tattooed on the forehead with 'I fling poo at people for fun.'

As such, a couple of genuinely promising positions have suddenly evaporated when some carcinogenic cardigan from HR calls the supervisor and says the most threatening sentence a manager of staff gets to hear: (raspy, heavy-breathing voice): "The redeployee ~~rasp, wheeze~~ fulfils all of your selection criteria ~~rasp, wheeze~~ so you are obliged to take her on unless you have some ~~rasp, wheeze~~ extenuating circumstances you haven't advised me of."

The quivering, cowering supervisor of course naturally thinks, 'Oh geez, I'm being backed into a corner here. Puny Melee employs over 2000 people, so what the hell's wrong with this particular freak?' Then, of course, said supervisor advises the HR cardigan that they have just decided that they no longer need to fill the position because - take your pick - the funding's dried up; the existing staff are absorbing the duties; it's already been filled by an external expert; the role's been transferred to another school; they forgot to add the requirement of being able to speak in both Parsil tongue and Ancient Greek coupled with the ability to teach fellow staff how to prove the existence of God and make an edible meal with tofu.

My eight year old daughter, Sapphire, has been picking up on my sombre mood of late and took me by the hand into her room, pointed at her wardrobe and said, "Try one of these, Mum."

Hmmmm. '(Daily) Thoughts of Guidence!'.


It was hard keeping the tears back when I read her advice:


Wise words indeed. As for me, I think I'll just lie down for a while and have a good long think about exactly what I want to be when I grow up.....

8 comments:

River said...

Do you have to be employed within the same institution? Is it possible to find a job somewhere else, or are you bound by some kind of contract? Does the bulldog and her bootlicker have to have a hand in your future position? No way around it? That's really sucky.

Anonymous said...

Is saphhire 8, or 68?

deepkickgirl said...

Hey MM, why not try the corporate world? You'll still get treated like poo but you'll get heaps more money and be able to afford the top shelf grog to drown your sorrows. Surely the "egalitarian" world of the public service has stuffed you around enough in the last few years...

Kath Lockett said...

You're both right, River and Deep Kick - it could be time for a change. I've always had a sensible 'day job' and may be I need to try life *without* being a boss or working for one.....

Anon - Sapphire is indeed only eight years old, but a wise one. That said, she's still obsessed with Beanie Kids and has done a gorgeous little Christmas scene that I'll be featuring in an upcoming blog. She truly dazzles me every single day.

River said...

(Just kidding here, unless you're looking for a DRASTIC change....)
Chaos, er Coles, is hiring christmas casuals............
Could tide you over until something better comes along--no, wait, that was my story. 5 years later I'm still here.........Urk!!
Seriously, I hope something good turns up for you soon.

davey said...

Just received word over the wire that Sapphire has been nominated for Most Hip to The Jive Street Urchin of '07.

I mean really, what 8 year old writes 'Be Cool'?

Clearly I need her expertise the next time I'm laying down the law in my 'hood. Let's talk mates rates, Milly.

cube said...

Your fly story reminded me of a similar experience I had except mine involved a small toad and the shooting of the concrete walls of our pool.

I asked one of the workers to grab it for me. Otherwise it would've forever been trapped in the concrete.

I washed it & watched it hop away
happily.

Rosanna said...

She sounds absolutely beautiful! Not to mention down with the lingo.

I hope things settle down soon - for the christmas holidays and for the long term.