Proudly Serving Canadians

This is National Public Service Week, an annual observance solemnly entrenched by an Act of Parliament; it is meant to be an annual week-long celebration of public servants, and as anyone who reads a paper in Ottawa knows, we are criticized annually for spending any money to do it.

As an employee of Public Works, I'm here to say that this week represents a chance for a bunch of very stressed out people who work in scattered work units all across the city to hang out together, interact, be given important information, then maybe have a few laughs and share a BBQ meal.

There's nothing like a game of golf, or volleyball, or softball, or racing in a sack. Bill Gates knows that, so does every Fortune 500 CEO. Employees should be celebrated at least once a year.

A PWGSC staffer is a curiously schizophrenic creature -- we have survived two reorganizations, four Ministers, three Deputies, and two elections in the last four years. Our mandate is transforming dramatically, and we have an enormous change management challenge. We run hot and cold: we can be extremely passionate about our work, enthusiastic and creative. Then we run smack into our own system: the bureaucracy takes hold, and all of the foibles of working in an enormous ecosystem of egos and rules can turn you into the biggest bunch of cynics. I have young friends who are in therapy, on medication, whose marriages are being stressed by the uncertainty and paranoia which is raging around us. Will we still have work? Who's going to be around next week? OK, so it's not Northern-Telecom-stress, but it chips away at your joy like some kind of demented water torture.

So we laugh about it. Our favourite lunch buddies are the ones who can help us laugh. And then maybe once or twice a year, you go off and do something fun together. And it keeps you going.

So tomorrow, we're getting together for a Town Hall, a BBQ and some games, and are celebrating our stressed-out team.

But we're getting to the Sportsplex on our own steam -- no buses, I promise.

why I hate special events

it's the waiting. You know how it is, it's three weeks to go -- time to make firm commitments, and spend some coin -- and you've got six people signed up. A week away, and there might be 30. It drives me right up the wall.

The waiting. Arrrggghhh!! And when you're running with a crowd that is notorious for leaving things to the last minute, it drives you even crazier. For a special event, the stakes are so much higher, than, say waiting for Part Two of a great two-part episode of Buffy, you know? Reputations are at stake; funds are needed. No, those months of waiting to see how Spike has come through the summer -- at least, for those of us who don't visit spoiler sites -- is a blissful agony. That I can enjoy. But for special events, just shoot me now.

Or sign up early, OK?

monkey see, monkey blog...

my friend Johnny, as usual, got here first. We talked about it, attended the seminar together, but Johnny set up his blog first.
Thanks, Johnny, you always stick your toe in for me, and tell me how the water is.
So how is it so far?

It's hard not to get excited about yet another place for us all to meet and talk, no matter where we are in the world. Even a jaded old flack like I can't help but see the potential for influence, and salivate just a little... at last, an audience!

I only wish I could explore this further for my current employer, the federal government. Our internet security rules prohibit us -- electronically -- from visiting any such outside sites. Just think, there are hundreds of revealing conversations taking place right now amongst Canadians regarding their government, conversations anyone can join -- except for the government itself.

I think that's the biggest frustration for a communicator in a bureaucratic setting this size. It's like trying to turn the Titanic on a dime -- it's physically impossible to respond at all nimbly to changes in technology. I just wish it weren't so very, very slow...

ah, well, as my father always says, "evolution, not revolution"....