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.
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