Strange Tales from the Municipal Crypts & Vaults !

(Some may find this Politically Incorrect. - 'Go Ballax !' )

Had to laff recently. Used to be surrounded by 'Town Hall Twats' in a former life until that day came when a man's gotta do what he should have done years earlier. They're not all twats that work in the Town Hall, - the twats to whom I refer are the ones who are so intent on 'Being Somebody' that they have no time to actually DO ANYTHING which is of any use to the public whom they are supposed to serve. That's where the money goes, but you already know this.

Their next step up is to build their own little empire and start the Fourth Reich, or slide effortlessly from Officer to Member status then climb the grease pole until they can become a Westminster Wanker, because when you get there you can waste twelve hospitals, thirty-seven schools, forty thousand hip replacements for old soldiers and their wives, and more . . . . and build a thing called a Dome or something equally vital to this great nation instead, and the crowning glory comes when you make such an utter cock-up of it that your name will be linked with fiasco in perpetuity, and you'll still get a nice pension and four Quangos to sit on. Now THAT is the kind of immortality the Town Hall Twat aspires to. You get your name on a plaque outside a shithouse . . . takes 'em forty years . . . whereas it takes the average illiterate twelve year old forty seconds with a paint spray can ! - (I'm not condoning either route !)

( Note the funny three way handshake ! - And where's that fat bugger's left hand ?) 

In the meantime, if you're lucky enough to be 'Gaffered' by one of 'em, they'll take the credit for YOUR successes, and they're generous enough to let YOU take the blame for THEIR failures. Got an A4 memo from one of 'em once, he must've sent out a few thousand, and on this sheet of A4 he'd written a three line message urging the entire workforce to save paper. I kid you not.

I thought the Seventies & Eighties were a chronic time for jargon and pretentiousness. Every Monday morning you could spot the one who'd been sent on 'A Course' the week before. You'd cheerfully ask, in all innocence, if they fancied a cuppa, and they'd come back with "Is there something you're trying to tell me ?" Then they'd be observing your non-verbal communication for the next hour to see if they could 'empathise' or 'connect with your Free Child' . . . And they said Television killed conversation. No, it was courses like that that done it. It was them all right, them and "Manwatching" !

Another thing - Where did all that nautical imagery come from, the stuff that came in on the tidal wave of re-organisation ? Every day you were exhorted to keep 'taking it on board', because if you didn't 'swim with the tide' all the way up to 'safe haven of higher ground / calmer waters' to meet the challenge of the 'new high water mark' of service delivery standards - (two jobs for one wage !) - then you were bound to 'flounder and sink without trace' . . . .blah . . . etc . . . until you'd find yourself up a creek without a paddle, presumably.

Thinks : "Yes, there does appear to be a very generous bollock factor dialled in here, but I'm going with the flow of the New Restructure. Tonight it's Squash Club with the Assistant Director, and she talks nothing but bollocks ! "

The litany proper, apparently, included bids and responses along the lines of :

"I hear what you're saying." (Where the unspoken, but implicit rider is : "But you're just a little jobbie, whereas I, personally, myself am an UnderManager, and I'm much more important than you, so if you expect me to do anything about it you'd better not hold your breath.")

(Hmm. I know THAT rider ! Did they miss me when I'd gone, though ? - Nah ! Not 'til they needed another idea to steal and then bastardise hoping they can pass it off as their own . . .)

"Can you unwrap that a little ?" (Spoken by one who isn't following things too well, if at all. Can be very confusing when directed at a self-conscious pocket billiards player, the sort who had this hitherto innocent, but now vulgar foible highlighted on last week's 'Course' by one of the newly assertive 'Wimmin'.

(NB. These 'Wimmin' and The Fair Sex are two radically different species and should not be confused. 'Wimmin' are terminally miserable, because they don't know how to find happiness, only spread misery - OK ?)

"Portuguee Man O' War off the port bow, Cap'n ! - Shiver me timbers and Heave away, me Johnnies !" (Light relief at nearly home time. Usually they got the message.)

"Mmm, yah, mmm, for sure . . yes, mm . . uh, huh". (Invariably followed by the Number Two shibboleth) "I can see where you're coming from". (Oodles of it, very very 'touchy-feely-luvvy' sometimes. Even more confusing for one who has forgotten to adjust one's dress before leaving. I believe you can get good ointment for it.)

"Yes, I'm beginning to firm it up now . ." (A great one to throw in for your mates to choke on . . )

"Ooh ! Tell me some more." (Or the more highbrow "Just run that by me again.")

(This has more than one connotation, depending on the Perceived Inherent Symbiotic Sincerity (aka piss) factor : e.g.

  1. So I can use it as an excuse to cancel that 3.30 meeting and piss off as soon as this one finishes. Squash at Four, yah ?

  2. I have been asleep whilst you were talking, you insufferably boring git who was promoted for arse-licking above and beyond, so I would like you to go through it all again so I don't have to say or do anything, plus I know how you love to talk so I'm looking forward to another forty winks. Then it'll be my mate's turn to ask you to do it again, and so on 'til time's up, at which point we'll have to arrange a meeting to arrange another meeting to do it all again, but next time we'll piss off to the pub and throw a sicky, and you can simply piss off.)

and then the one that PISSES ME OFF THE MOST !

"Thankyou for sharing that with me / us." (Swivel on it !)

And there's loads more I refuse to try to recall. You know, that 'Whole Raft' we spoke of a while ago ? Some pillockess depping for Bunty was still 'sharing' stuff with the Dawn Patrollers t'other day. Do they talk to their Grannies like that, I wonder ? . . both o'mine woulda clouted me an' no mistake !

(Thinks)

STOP IT ! - Only pillocks talk like that. Are you a pillock ? - Are the good people reading this pillocks ? - NO. - So stop it. Sorry.

(End of 'Thinks' bit.)

We had a hook, line and sinker (ah, a pun) merchant of a 'THT' mis-managing us for a time, but he was so thick he was forever mixing his metaphors and making even less sense than the others. (We used to respond in kind with stuff like, "When the going gets tough, the Pope shits in the woods !" He hadn't heard that one, but you could see him thinking about whether he could use it at the next management meeting . . Yes, he was THAT THICK ! )

"Do it MY way or hit the highway".

He once ran something laughingly termed 'A Workshop' with an equally dim colleague-stroke-UnderManager and the handout contained the instruction to perform some exercise "seperatley" (sic). (He was, quite literally, illiterate.) A chum of mine feigned his usual Nice-but-Dim type nonplussed air and asked them, in all apparent innocence, "Can you spell separately, or are you allowed to put your heads together ?"

They somehow knew he was being insubordinate (BIG crime), but they couldn't fathom how. (Chum 2 - UnderManagers 0) You gotta score now and then !

Thick 'THT' once read "The One Minute Manager" and it only took him about three or four months !

His favourite Boss-line was "Do it MY way or hit the highway". As luck would have it, he himself met the highway rather forcefully not long afterwards.

Sweet Justice ? . . . . . No ! - Not 'til that particular evil bastard's dangling from a rope . . .

Anyway, they're still at it, needless to say. I do still have occasional contact with the inhabitants of those hallowed corridors of bungling bureaucracy - (how many of 'em can spell THAT ?) - and one was so busy last week that he "didn't have a big enough window" for whatever it was he wanted to 'share' with me.

"So, yon Town Hall's still pretty much like Grozny, then ?" sez me.

(Some old habits die hard. It's not just years o' practice, it's a basic survival tool.) He passed no comment. Says he'll ring me when he's able to free himself up. (Mebbe he has to throw a six or summat.)

Any way, it seems the poor bloke had been shat on from a great height, in time honoured fashion, by a suddenly (read as 'strategically') vacationing bone idle, lazy-arsed Town Hall Twat middle manager, (you know the sort, probably a part-time lavatory seat dealer from Otley,) and he had inherited the awesome task, (are you ready for this ?) of "Back-filling six vacant Outreach Workers before the end of the week."

(It might have been 'In-filling' but I care not. Either way it sounds like quite a bummer !)

Boy, am I glad I got out o' there.

I think they can still touch you for that, can't they ?

Soma . . . Soma . . . !