A fine use of taxpayers money

Genie said :

When was the last time you purchased stationery for a Government department…. ? Post-it note are quite expensive through the “must use” providers. In fact a lot of the stationery, esp post-it notes are cheaper at Costco than places like OfficeMax, Cos etc

A fine example where the need to be able to show you are doing the right thing prevents you from actually doing the right thing.

You go through the process of setting up a panel of preferred providers – an expensive exercise in itself. Then you buy stuff from those providers, whether or not you can get the stuff cheaper elsewhere. If people query this you can always say that you followed the required process.

This isn’t meant to be a criticism of individual public servants, but of the systems they are forced to work under. I understand the need for accountability when dealing with public money, but sometimes it leads to contrary outcomes.

Genie said :

When was the last time you purchased stationery for a Government department…. ?
Post-it note are quite expensive through the “must use” providers. In fact a lot of the stationery, esp post-it notes are cheaper at Costco than places like OfficeMax, Cos etc

Buying a single 5 pad pack of multicoloured sticky notes (not 3M brand) from a place like Officeworks retail, that whole window would have cost $2-3 to do.

I am assuming that government departments but in bulk, using combined accounts to achieve some bulk savings. If that’s not the case, then I think we may want to make this article about the fault of managers and bean counters in the public service to achieve better value for the taxpayer’s dollars.

I don’t think you quite understood my comment… It is in fact cheaper most of the time to go purchase stationery at places like Kmart, Big W, Costco…

I order stationery through COS at work… A ‘cabinet pack’ of post it notes (usually 18 to a pack) is about $30-$40 each.

I recently just bought myself some giant memo blocks for a massive $2 each at Kmart. Prob equivalent to about 5 post-it pads.

Government departments are required to buy their stationery through these providers, even though we could go to the shops and buy it cheaper.

On the upside, this thread has bought attention to the level of appreciation that the public has for random street art. The day just won’t be the same without walking past space invaders…

Best public art in Canberra in the last year or more. And for $10 – not $100,000.

I’d like to see someone replicate the artwork on another office window somewhere in Canberrra….

Roundhead89 said :

And I suppose all those stories about public servants not having enough work to do are an invention by the shock jocks and Murdoch newspapers …

“All thsoe stories'”? If you cant believe a rumour mill what can you believe? But yes . Public sevants are slackers, everyone else are jolly hard workers who are an example to us all.

Antagonist said :

And the cost of the time…?

Happy staff are productive staff. I imagine the cost of time has been repaid a thousand times over thanks to improved morale. It certainly have a dozen or so Rioters something to do with their time 🙂

Yeah quite right. The whole concept of being chained to a desk doing solid work between allotted times has well and truly being debunked as aiding productivity.

Genie said :

When was the last time you purchased stationery for a Government department…. ?
Post-it note are quite expensive through the “must use” providers. In fact a lot of the stationery, esp post-it notes are cheaper at Costco than places like OfficeMax, Cos etc

Buying a single 5 pad pack of multicoloured sticky notes (not 3M brand) from a place like Officeworks retail, that whole window would have cost $2-3 to do.

I am assuming that government departments but in bulk, using combined accounts to achieve some bulk savings. If that’s not the case, then I think we may want to make this article about the fault of managers and bean counters in the public service to achieve better value for the taxpayer’s dollars.

It’s now been posted twice that the person that posted it up paid for it out of their own pocket and that it was done in their own time. Can we stop repeating the same tired lines now?

Of all the people in Australia to bash public servants, I thought Canberrans would have been the most reasonable. It appears not.

And I suppose all those stories about public servants not having enough work to do are an invention by the shock jocks and Murdoch newspapers …

Neil sees street art
Attention leads to removal of 80’s icons
tears flow freely on RA

damn you…now they’re gone…RIP post-it video game characters

*hits table with fists

zorro29 said :

taking it down???? noooooooooooooooooooo. it’s adorable!

+100. Bunch of kill joys.

sorry to the public for people being allowed to have some colour in their work station…jesus christ

Little boxes on the window,
Little boxes made of post-its,
Little boxes on the window,
Little boxes all the same.

There’s a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they’re all made out of post-its
And they all look just the same.

DoityBoid said :

Congratulations Neil & Johnboy/Riotact.
Those have been up for weeks, and I’m sure the bosses didn’t have a problem with them.

Were you guys also the school prefects or hall monitors?

It’s a fine line we run often with street art.

Br profiling it we make it much more likely the government will remove it.

A couple of years ago I had a chat to some of the country’s biggest street artists at the National Gallery about the issue.

The consensus I got from them was that getting the work seen was the big thing, so they were fine with publicity even if it did get the work painted over.

taking it down???? noooooooooooooooooooo. it’s adorable!

sorry to the public for people being allowed to have some colour in their work station…jesus christ

Congratulations Neil & Johnboy/Riotact.
Those have been up for weeks, and I’m sure the bosses didn’t have a problem with them.

Were you guys also the school prefects or hall monitors?

As a child of the 80’s, I love it. I’d gladly give up $10 to the Department involved to keep them up.

Aladdin1963 said :

GrumpyMark said :

Aladdin1963 said :

Its been there for months and now watch this space as the bosses make them take it down because some clown has complained about the waste!

I like it, but I agree now they will be told to pull it down – not because the bosses particularly want it to be brought down but because threads like this have drawn attention to it.

It’s just a little bit of harmless fun and worst case scenario ask the person/people who did it to pay for the PostIt’s, if the “waste of public money” is seen to be that big an issue, and let’s move on.

My son did it. He paid for the post it notes himself.

I am currently watching them take this fine artwork down.. Such a shame 🙁

GrumpyMark said :

Aladdin1963 said :

Its been there for months and now watch this space as the bosses make them take it down because some clown has complained about the waste!

I like it, but I agree now they will be told to pull it down – not because the bosses particularly want it to be brought down but because threads like this have drawn attention to it.

It’s just a little bit of harmless fun and worst case scenario ask the person/people who did it to pay for the PostIt’s, if the “waste of public money” is seen to be that big an issue, and let’s move on.

My son did it. He paid for the post it notes himself.

Aladdin1963 said :

Its been there for months and now watch this space as the bosses make them take it down because some clown has complained about the waste!

I like it, but I agree now they will be told to pull it down – not because the bosses particularly want it to be brought down but because threads like this have drawn attention to it.

It’s just a little bit of harmless fun and worst case scenario ask the person/people who did it to pay for the PostIt’s, if the “waste of public money” is seen to be that big an issue, and let’s move on.

I’ve calculated how many post-it notes where used.
I’ve then costed a per unit price of each post-it note from officemax and it would have cost approximately $8.06

I’m more than happy with the cost of that art compared to the cost of the other art being paid for.

Its been there for months and now watch this space as the bosses make them take it down because some clown has complained about the waste!

Jon Stanhope would have paid $250000 for such a fine effort. People should thank the artist for doing it for free!

oh get over it…these have been up for a while, i walk past them everyday and they make me smile.

thebrownstreak69 said :

c_c™ said :

You’d be lucky if theres was 30c worth of notes on that whole window. Given government departments manage to lose hundreds of laptops in a financial year, I think it’s the losses you don’t see that really count.

And the cost of the time…?

Happy staff are productive staff. I imagine the cost of time has been repaid a thousand times over thanks to improved morale. It certainly have a dozen or so Rioters something to do with their time 🙂

Regardless of the debate over their creation, those post-it note artworks are fantastic!

c_c™ said :

You’d be lucky if theres was 30c worth of notes on that whole window. Given government departments manage to lose hundreds of laptops in a financial year, I think it’s the losses you don’t see that really count.

When was the last time you purchased stationery for a Government department…. ?
Post-it note are quite expensive through the “must use” providers. In fact a lot of the stationery, esp post-it notes are cheaper at Costco than places like OfficeMax, Cos etc

miz said :

Gotta do something to personalise those drab office interiors.

Hear, hear.

You put people in soulless boxes all day, you have to expect – indeed hope – that they’ll do something to add some personality and humanity to them. Good on them.

c_c™ said :

You’d be lucky if theres was 30c worth of notes on that whole window. Given government departments manage to lose hundreds of laptops in a financial year, I think it’s the losses you don’t see that really count.

And the cost of the time…?

buzz819 said :

What? I bought the post it notes with my own money and used my lunch break at my desk to do it.

I think its kinda cool,and no i’m not a geek or a public servant 🙂

Gotta do something to personalise those drab office interiors. In relation to resourcing, section staff (including me) had to buy our own Xmas cards to send to valued interstate work contacts, for the second year running (AGD). Not even a Departmental electronic one was provided this year (AGD) – not that our contacts can receive those anyway given computer security!

You’d be lucky if theres was 30c worth of notes on that whole window. Given government departments manage to lose hundreds of laptops in a financial year, I think it’s the losses you don’t see that really count.

What? I bought the post it notes with my own money and used my lunch break at my desk to do it.

Somebody hire this peep to curate all of the new public arts,

Awesome.

Efficiency dividend obviously not biting very hard in that work area.

Quiet start to the year, that’s all..Nothing to see here. At least they weren’t pressing their backsides up against the glass.

Can we just give the various Government buildings several boxes of post-it notes instead of spending some ludicrous amount of money to install a giant butt plug in the footpath? Hell we could have different ones every week for decades for the same expense.