"Pubes" a TV comedy series. Call for ideas.

wildturkeycanoe said :

Jethro said “Refugees, aboriginals, teachers and now public servants… who else can I add to your list?”
Jethros? Good to see you’re burning the midnight oil. Just make sure you enjoy your sleep in, 9:30am start and remember government computers aren’t for private internet browsing, especially not on taxpayer funded time. Let’s see how may responses come through after clock on this morning…starting at post #77.

1. I’m not an office worker.
2. I work part time and have today off.

LSWCHP said :

Jesus Christ Almighty. I hate to be the cloud that rains on the parade here, but this makes me spew. I don’t think it’s hilarious, because I don’t work in the APS, and my money pays for this nonsense. For over 20 years I’ve busted my arse contributing to a company that builds and sells useful things. We live by our wits, and if we don’t come up with the goods every single damn day then we lose our jobs. It’s that simple.

Where I work, bludgers who spend the day surfing the net are counselled, given their 3 chances as required by law, and fired if they don’t shape up. People who don’t show up for work are given a chance to explain themselves and start showing up. If they choose not to, they are fired. People who show up drunk are fired. A senior manager on a 6 figure salary who showed up for 2 hours per day, as described here, would either shape up or be fired within days.

Issues are dealt with. people are treated fairly and with consideration, but issues are dealt with. They have to be, because if they are not then we will not survive. And let me tell you all, we are considered by others to be a pretty soft hearted and considerate touchy-feely organisation.

Come and see what life is like in private enterprise people It may seem a little harsh, but I’d rather drink a schooner of cold vomit than put up with the crap I’ve just read here.

Do you have to read it if it makes you sick

wildturkeycanoe said :

Looks like most of the respondents to this post are pubes, judging by the the fact that the post times are 75% during work hours [I bet the rest of you claimed OT for your efforts]. That means at an average of 10 minutes for everyone to read the story and think of a response, there were 9 hours wasted in total so far, with say a conservative hourly rate cost to the taxpayer of $50/h equating to $450 overall thus far. WHAT A WASTE of space and money. No wonder the government regularly culls the numbers. Get a life and stop indulging the likes of this wannabe going nowhere.
As for you, Kerehona, I thought PS staff are living their dreams….why leave to pursue anything else?? If ABC and the BBC [government funded media] are your target/inspiration, then why even bother……….[oh, revelation, you are part of the government].Good luck in the big wide world.
Sorry for the knee-jerk reaction, it’s normal for someone in the trades who sees you guys having Friday wine and beers every week, free parking, hour long lunch breaks, etc. etc. I’m just jealous. If you want real drama related to PS, just see the comments on Riotact about stealing milk from the fridge, I’m sure it’s worth a thousand laughs [sarcasm attached].
My next post will probably be tomorrow morning at around 5:30, before I go to work, or some time in the evening…if I get a chance before I fall asleep from exhaustion.

Hi WildTurkeyCanoe
Thanks for shedding light on the public’s perception of puclic service culture – obviously negative. This is why i thought it would be good material for a comedy series. I do think that calling me a wannabe going nowhere is a kick in the nuts.

I was a tradie too once and went to uni at 35, did it tough with a baby and several years later landed a PS job. Its not as much money as being a tradie. My mates earn three times more than me and didn’t finish school 🙂

Jethro said “Refugees, aboriginals, teachers and now public servants… who else can I add to your list?”
Jethros? Good to see you’re burning the midnight oil. Just make sure you enjoy your sleep in, 9:30am start and remember government computers aren’t for private internet browsing, especially not on taxpayer funded time. Let’s see how may responses come through after clock on this morning…starting at post #77.

You really need to have a good read through all the archives. There are some absolute gems in there. I’m not sure if it’s possible, but you could try asking mods for the top x hundred posts with the most replies.

A couple that instantly came to mind.

– The woman that didn’t like the smell of bananas in the workplace, and the effort it took to resolve the issue.
– Change of governments, being fired on the friday, and being rehired as a contractor on the monday.
– Meetings + time wasting to make final decisions.

wildturkeycanoe said :

Looks like most of the respondents to this post are pubes, judging by the the fact that the post times are 75% during work hours [I bet the rest of you claimed OT for your efforts]. That means at an average of 10 minutes for everyone to read the story and think of a response, there were 9 hours wasted in total so far, with say a conservative hourly rate cost to the taxpayer of $50/h equating to $450 overall thus far. WHAT A WASTE of space and money. No wonder the government regularly culls the numbers. Get a life and stop indulging the likes of this wannabe going nowhere.
As for you, Kerehona, I thought PS staff are living their dreams….why leave to pursue anything else?? If ABC and the BBC [government funded media] are your target/inspiration, then why even bother……….[oh, revelation, you are part of the government].Good luck in the big wide world.
Sorry for the knee-jerk reaction, it’s normal for someone in the trades who sees you guys having Friday wine and beers every week, free parking, hour long lunch breaks, etc. etc. I’m just jealous. If you want real drama related to PS, just see the comments on Riotact about stealing milk from the fridge, I’m sure it’s worth a thousand laughs [sarcasm attached].
My next post will probably be tomorrow morning at around 5:30, before I go to work, or some time in the evening…if I get a chance before I fall asleep from exhaustion.

Refugees, aboriginals, teachers and now public servants… who else can I add to your list?

Jesus Christ Almighty. I hate to be the cloud that rains on the parade here, but this makes me spew. I don’t think it’s hilarious, because I don’t work in the APS, and my money pays for this nonsense. For over 20 years I’ve busted my arse contributing to a company that builds and sells useful things. We live by our wits, and if we don’t come up with the goods every single damn day then we lose our jobs. It’s that simple.

Where I work, bludgers who spend the day surfing the net are counselled, given their 3 chances as required by law, and fired if they don’t shape up. People who don’t show up for work are given a chance to explain themselves and start showing up. If they choose not to, they are fired. People who show up drunk are fired. A senior manager on a 6 figure salary who showed up for 2 hours per day, as described here, would either shape up or be fired within days.

Issues are dealt with. people are treated fairly and with consideration, but issues are dealt with. They have to be, because if they are not then we will not survive. And let me tell you all, we are considered by others to be a pretty soft hearted and considerate touchy-feely organisation.

Come and see what life is like in private enterprise people It may seem a little harsh, but I’d rather drink a schooner of cold vomit than put up with the crap I’ve just read here.

Looks like most of the respondents to this post are pubes, judging by the the fact that the post times are 75% during work hours [I bet the rest of you claimed OT for your efforts]. That means at an average of 10 minutes for everyone to read the story and think of a response, there were 9 hours wasted in total so far, with say a conservative hourly rate cost to the taxpayer of $50/h equating to $450 overall thus far. WHAT A WASTE of space and money. No wonder the government regularly culls the numbers. Get a life and stop indulging the likes of this wannabe going nowhere.
As for you, Kerehona, I thought PS staff are living their dreams….why leave to pursue anything else?? If ABC and the BBC [government funded media] are your target/inspiration, then why even bother……….[oh, revelation, you are part of the government].Good luck in the big wide world.
Sorry for the knee-jerk reaction, it’s normal for someone in the trades who sees you guys having Friday wine and beers every week, free parking, hour long lunch breaks, etc. etc. I’m just jealous. If you want real drama related to PS, just see the comments on Riotact about stealing milk from the fridge, I’m sure it’s worth a thousand laughs [sarcasm attached].
My next post will probably be tomorrow morning at around 5:30, before I go to work, or some time in the evening…if I get a chance before I fall asleep from exhaustion.

1. The ASO4 who was provided the interview questions and suitable answers by the chair and sat at her desk reviewing them an hour before she went in for the interview, upon leaving for the interview she threw the page in the bin where it was discovered by one of her colleagues. The recruitment process was re-started and she eventually won the job.

2. The ASO 6 who missed out on the job she had been acting in for 18 months and refused to come into work for 7 weeks, they relented and gave her the position.

3. The EL2 who had used so many lies and excuses for continual absences, eventually got exhausted with making shit up and simply decided that turning up at 11.00am and leaving at 1.00pm was for her. No one lifted a finger for 2 years until a new SES arrived.

kschoey said :

What about the mentally unstable alcoholic who was hired via phone interview from overseas to a SES role and submitted her staff to a 3 month reign of terror before being terminated and given a golden handshake consisting of a years salary and a car. Reign of terror included:
– smashing into a fellow SES officers brand new car in the carpark and not saying a word. When confronted by the owner, calling her staff into the office and interrogating them to ‘fess up before admitting it was me
– taking the tv from her office home and then faking a break in where it and her work issued laptop were purpotedly stolen only to come undone when she said that the only way she could sleep at night after the break in was to watch the tv
– coming to work wearing the same top 2 days in a row although the second day it was worn back to front with a jacket over to hide the massive coffee stain on it. Taking the jacket off to reveal said stain
– sending emails to all staff in the branch accusing them of conspiring against her (in a combination of all capitals and lower case) and that she was a nice person if they got to know her

After her reign had ended, the staff were sent off to group counselling conducted by a man named JoJo. Nothing like a bunch of public servants doing yoga in their suits and being asked to make up poems to describe how the experience had effected them.

There’s another character!

TheSenator said :

Love the idea, love the concept, have considered the idea myself. However have always hit a number of stumbling blocks along the way

In order to get this show off the ground though you do realise that you are going to have to get a Discussion Group together to formulate a Working Party to look into establishing a Project Team to come up with the terms of reference for a Taskforce to produce a submission that will go to a Sub-Committee for their approval to implement something that surely will need to be QA’d by the Secretariat before the Division Head can take it to the Department Committee so a brief can be written to the Ministers Office to tell them something that they really don’t want to know about and will not approve….

If you’re not considering engaging a highly expensive consultancy firm to come in and tell you that the show could be a viable alternative given an adequate amount of funding injection that currently isn’t available in the current budget or foreseeable future given the current financial climate then you’re really not serious about the show either…..

Surely the show would have to be set around some sort of Coordination Team that really acts as middle-man management between one silo (ie. Branch/Division) and another silo and doesn’t actually have any direct involvement in producing, delivering or achieving any of the outcomes of the relevant area…Basically the literal definition of ‘paper-pushers’ between one area and another.

If I was you I would be getting your Reg 9 in order to get that RFT completed and approved by a FAS so that you can make sure that there will be no PPQ’s or QTB’s resulting as consequence of this EOI. Also the CFO will want everyone to adhere to the CEI’s before any MOU’s are in place. You also might consider what kind of FTE you will need to get all this done, Id be talking to your HRM area about that. For the lead roles Id look at the ILS to give you some guidance on who to engage. Alot of the people wanting to help out might need some L&D though and you can expect that you will have to achieve some pretty hard KPI’s to get it all done on time. Of course given this current climate and any MOG changes that might occur you will probably have heaps of OHS issues to contend with. And we all know that no APS person is capable of making an effective decision and the SES wont want a bar of it….so all should go pretty smoothly (NOT)…..

Look forward to it…cant wait

incredible… I think this this the winner!!

Or the well meaning ASO5 who, when explaining to a female colleague how to assemble a display stand, said: “Just take this rod with the male thread and screw it into the female thread on that rod . . . “.

Next thing he knew he was explaining himself to the Sexual Harrassment Contact Officer, followed by counselling from his director.

I know, because I witnessed the incident.

A great collection of stories here.

Here are a few I know about :
1. A departmental head launched a full scale search of his department to find the junior pube who said “Good Morning” to him in the lift. The department was the sprawling Defence, and the search took all day. When found, an SES officer was despatched to “counsel” the young pube to not greet “Sir Arthur”.
True story.

2. Back in the day, when attendance books were in common use, one pube would sign the attendance book, then walk across East Row into Youngs (a department store of the era), and commence his usual daily work at the store. At the close of business he would walk back to his department and sign off for the day. He was finally discovered after about five years.

3. An older pube who was an inveterate newspaper reader and radio listener in Customs was finally challenged about his habits, and lack of work output. His exasperated supervisor finally asked him “why don’t you just retire ?” The reply was ” why would I retire on 60% salary when I can keep coming here on 100% ?”

4. A young pube was attending an interview for a promotion. He was offended that he was asked job-related questions and challenged the panel’s right to ask such things !

Love the idea, love the concept, have considered the idea myself. However have always hit a number of stumbling blocks along the way

In order to get this show off the ground though you do realise that you are going to have to get a Discussion Group together to formulate a Working Party to look into establishing a Project Team to come up with the terms of reference for a Taskforce to produce a submission that will go to a Sub-Committee for their approval to implement something that surely will need to be QA’d by the Secretariat before the Division Head can take it to the Department Committee so a brief can be written to the Ministers Office to tell them something that they really don’t want to know about and will not approve….

If you’re not considering engaging a highly expensive consultancy firm to come in and tell you that the show could be a viable alternative given an adequate amount of funding injection that currently isn’t available in the current budget or foreseeable future given the current financial climate then you’re really not serious about the show either…..

Surely the show would have to be set around some sort of Coordination Team that really acts as middle-man management between one silo (ie. Branch/Division) and another silo and doesn’t actually have any direct involvement in producing, delivering or achieving any of the outcomes of the relevant area…Basically the literal definition of ‘paper-pushers’ between one area and another.

If I was you I would be getting your Reg 9 in order to get that RFT completed and approved by a FAS so that you can make sure that there will be no PPQ’s or QTB’s resulting as consequence of this EOI. Also the CFO will want everyone to adhere to the CEI’s before any MOU’s are in place. You also might consider what kind of FTE you will need to get all this done, Id be talking to your HRM area about that. For the lead roles Id look at the ILS to give you some guidance on who to engage. Alot of the people wanting to help out might need some L&D though and you can expect that you will have to achieve some pretty hard KPI’s to get it all done on time. Of course given this current climate and any MOG changes that might occur you will probably have heaps of OHS issues to contend with. And we all know that no APS person is capable of making an effective decision and the SES wont want a bar of it….so all should go pretty smoothly (NOT)…..

Look forward to it…cant wait

What about the mentally unstable alcoholic who was hired via phone interview from overseas to a SES role and submitted her staff to a 3 month reign of terror before being terminated and given a golden handshake consisting of a years salary and a car. Reign of terror included:
– smashing into a fellow SES officers brand new car in the carpark and not saying a word. When confronted by the owner, calling her staff into the office and interrogating them to ‘fess up before admitting it was me
– taking the tv from her office home and then faking a break in where it and her work issued laptop were purpotedly stolen only to come undone when she said that the only way she could sleep at night after the break in was to watch the tv
– coming to work wearing the same top 2 days in a row although the second day it was worn back to front with a jacket over to hide the massive coffee stain on it. Taking the jacket off to reveal said stain
– sending emails to all staff in the branch accusing them of conspiring against her (in a combination of all capitals and lower case) and that she was a nice person if they got to know her

After her reign had ended, the staff were sent off to group counselling conducted by a man named JoJo. Nothing like a bunch of public servants doing yoga in their suits and being asked to make up poems to describe how the experience had effected them.

^^^ Sorry not CTRL-ALT, but ALT-TAB (again, using it now)

The obsession with extravagant morning teas for any reason at all
One drink too many at the Xmas party
Standing in kitchens with a cuppa complaining how much work is on but still leaving at 4pm
The footy tipping comp and the heroism of the winner
Totally botched fire drills
CTRL-ALT to hide the internet window (using it now)
The (over) use of acronyms (soon we’ll be using acronyms for single words)
Casual Friday fashion show
The power of the EA network
Meetings about meetings about restructure after restructure
The monthly fridge clean out and what is found at the back of the bottom shelf
The smoker’s area, and the scheming and skull-duggery that goes on there

The list goes on…

Me no fry said :

Androyd said :

…obnoxious SES person…

The word obnoxious is surely redundant when used to describe somebody in the SES.

My own example (partly covered by others): – working on the planning for the redevelopment of an large-scale database system I wrote heaps of doco outlining the various alternatives, costings and time-lines. Then the consultants (from a well-known IT company with close links to the department) arrived – one spent most of his time big-noting himself, telling everyone how fast his car was and how expensive his collection of wine was. The other one was OK (in that he wasn’t a lazy braggart), but it was apparent that they both were mainly concerned with collecting any existing doco on the proposed redevelopment rather than doing any detailed investigations of their own.

Sure enough, when the report came out, most of my work was in there, word for word, along with the unchanged costings and time-lines. The consultancy firm was basically paid tens of thousands of dollars to plagiarise my work.

Consultants aren’t in the SES. They may be paid as much, but that’s a different issue.

Waiting For Godot said :

Why don’t you make it a tragi-comedy?

Include a storyline where a courier working in the Department of Defence wears a red nose on Red Nose Day and has somebody file an official complaint. The courier is then dragged through a two week investigation, interviews are held with everybody involved, the complaint is upheld, the courier is formally reprimanded and the incident is used as justification for annuling the courier’s appointment a few months later.

Hold on, that isn’t scriptwriter fantasy, that actually happened and the courier was me.

Serves ya right. That’ll learn ya

Kerehona said :

poetix said :

The proposed title is really tacky. Not funny, just tacky.

Yes I agree – Pubes serves a purpose for now as a working title for development purposes

I like the title.

Sometimes small details count:

1) Promoted to team leader, a friend was responsible for minutiae/inane crap eg. one shining light of independent thinking requested permission to recycle a broken drinking glass!

2) Team meeting: team leader once asked if any matters needed to be brought up. A disliked guy (secretly nicknamed “the great poof”) complained about “chumminess in the office”. He was disgusted that 2 girls had hugged when saying hello one morning (they were friends beforehand). It made him “feel sick” & not want to come in.

3) Fitness/life coach; someone left the APS after training to be a fitness coach. APS drudgery has now been replaced with early morning bootcamps for obese public servants. Someone else got mixed up with some crazy new age ‘manifesting’ group & occasionally tries to convert people. Dunno how that one is going

4) Staff training: often run at a footy club (larger rooms and catering) & with pokies for the gambling addicts. Every break they’d be off smoking & gambling. One had joined the APS to pay off several grand of gambling debts, but failed that income was gambled away too! Someone else ran out of $ to buy food one week. These people never seemed to learn either.

poetix said :

The proposed title is really tacky. Not funny, just tacky.

Yes I agree – Pubes serves a purpose for now as a working title for development purposes

johnboy said :

I’d actually been thinking about a webisode based show with a working title of “grads”.

Make the graduates the focus because you’ve got the fish out of water angle, the audience can empathise with the outsider to canberra angle, there’s a reason to explain things to the protagonists, and they’re so loathesome it’ll be OK with the audience to put them in horrible (yet funny) situations.

That is a good angle for sure – Grads is more universal too

Nicholas Jones said :

I have to say this is amazing timing, Kerehona. You see I’m in the midst of writing my own show which centers around the failures of budding ‘writers’ consulting a public internet forum for source material. I’m considering calling the show “Hacks” but I haven’t consulted my public service buddies yet.

Really? That makes me feel like a failiure sourcing material from a public internet forum.

Androyd said :

…obnoxious SES person…

The word obnoxious is surely redundant when used to describe somebody in the SES.

My own example (partly covered by others): – working on the planning for the redevelopment of an large-scale database system I wrote heaps of doco outlining the various alternatives, costings and time-lines. Then the consultants (from a well-known IT company with close links to the department) arrived – one spent most of his time big-noting himself, telling everyone how fast his car was and how expensive his collection of wine was. The other one was OK (in that he wasn’t a lazy braggart), but it was apparent that they both were mainly concerned with collecting any existing doco on the proposed redevelopment rather than doing any detailed investigations of their own.

Sure enough, when the report came out, most of my work was in there, word for word, along with the unchanged costings and time-lines. The consultancy firm was basically paid tens of thousands of dollars to plagiarise my work.

I have to say this is amazing timing, Kerehona. You see I’m in the midst of writing my own show which centers around the failures of budding ‘writers’ consulting a public internet forum for source material. I’m considering calling the show “Hacks” but I haven’t consulted my public service buddies yet.

I’d actually been thinking about a webisode based show with a working title of “grads”.

Make the graduates the focus because you’ve got the fish out of water angle, the audience can empathise with the outsider to canberra angle, there’s a reason to explain things to the protagonists, and they’re so loathesome it’ll be OK with the audience to put them in horrible (yet funny) situations.

PBO said :

About a month ago I had to teach an EL1 how to do and send an email, I looked down at him in disgust thinking about how much more than me he gets paid.

Did they get promoted because they were “willing to take on new tasks and learn?”

The proposed title is really tacky. Not funny, just tacky.

About a month ago I had to teach an EL1 how to do and send an email, I looked down at him in disgust thinking about how much more than me he gets paid.

Same vein as the 1.5 degrees of separation in Canberra PS:

Be careful who you slag off = you may be talking to his/her current or ex partner. Also, dynasties in certain departments = be careful who you slag off, you may be talking to their son/daughter, mother/father or brother/sister etc…

I’ve learnt to keep my mouth firmly closed around here.

Ctrl-c & Crtl-v = the only education you need in the PS.

Brilliant.

Mozzie said :

PantsMan said :

Ctrl-c & Crtl-v.

I still remember the day I learnt about format painter and paste text only. Those two gems save me so much effort.

Bill Gates’ shortcut innovations have made me question why I even bothered to spend 7 years at uni. In fact, not cutting and pasting and instead attempting to write fully-formed sentences and paragraphs from scratch just “shows how difficult I am” and my “inability to work with other people.”

I remember ages ago signing a mass farewell card for an obnoxious SES person with “Best of luck, and glad to see you go.” Others thought it a little odd. I thought I was restrained actually!

too many golden ideas from personal experiences – it all seems ludicrous and we all sound cynical, but the ironic point here is that its mostly all true and there is an impressive amount of content in less than 24 hours.

PantsMan said :

Ctrl-c & Crtl-v.

I still remember the day I learnt about format painter and paste text only. Those two gems save me so much effort.

Anyway, the public service isn’t complete without under performance. There is the 54-11 manager cruising to retirement (or a consultancy), the person who has been promoted beyond their capabilities, the person who is incompetent, the person who is being underutilised, the person who has been screwed over, the person who is milking their wage, the person who has just stopped caring and the list goes on and on…. Almost every character in this TV show could be an under performer in a different way.

Although not everyone is an under performer, there are average people who plod along and high achievers who actually do the lots of work.

Unlucky in love public servant meets chick at grad party – sends lame email to whole Department about meeting the love of his life – but turns out chick cant even remember who he is or meeting him. Star character gets a short period of internet fame and media interviews telling sob story. Could only happen in APS in canberra

This is a seriously golden idea!

– We can’t leave out the chick that sued her department for compo when she got donked on the head, while having sex in her hotel room, when travelling for work.

– Could have a side story about someone trying to actually apply for a job in the PS, hating the stupid selection criteria, having a panel interview, waiting to hear, waiting even more, being told there is a recruitment freeze due to budgets etc, waiting some more….

– The really important new teams that are created and all the junk that goes with that, most importantly working out the name and what the team is actually going to do.

So many more things… it is endless.

How about being tight with money all financial year, and then at the end the entire division spends money on copious catered planning meetings, team building activities and artworks for the office in order to prevent their budget being cut for the next year…

* Employing and admin assistant for $65,000 per annum, then refusing to let them order $50 worth of stationary because it is too decadent.
* All Staff email saying A/g Statutory Commissioner has been fired because they had faked their qualifications.
* Arguing with manager because “You can’t just give me things and expect that I can read them.”
* An ill-judged All Staff email being forwarded to the Daily Telegraph for national derision; stress leave. (http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/joehildebrand/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/personal_matter)
* Waiting one and a half years until the next election so you can write back and say: “Sorry, we’re in caretaker mode.”
* Briefing ministers on legislation/policy/reports that you have not read.
* Ctrl-c & Crtl-v.

gotta have that disillusioned pube who wants to be a standup comic and tries out all his material on desparate but compliant colleagues, the ultimate captured audience, that and the pube who masterbates in the toilet, the SES who couldnt tell the difference bw an ewok and a wookie, the grad who doesnt know to suck up, the pube who impersonated Martin Bryant at a happy hour look a like contest and made in on the front cover of the Brisbane courier mail, oh…and international womens day when kitty flanagan rolled up and gave advice to the ladies about how to scratch an itchy muff!!!

I once sat in a meeting where a consultant got confused and thought the painted wall onto which a projector was aimed was a ‘smart board’, and annotated a slide with a permanent marker.

Awesome.

Postalgeek said :

John Clark et al in The Games did it best. Wish they would bring out a new series.

What, like say… “The Games: London Calling”, which is scheduled to air on Nine next year?

The public service has so much comedy gold to be mined and I think it would be funny seeing the sad, sad flip-side equivalent of Hollow Men.

Some things you might consider exaggerating:
1. An officer level agreement that results in a letter being drafted, cleared by an EL2, cleared by an SES1, cleared by an SES2, cleared by an SES3, cleared by the Secretary, sent to the Minister to sign to be sent to another minister to be passed down to the original agreeing officer to be put on file.
2. Grads wasting their new found wealth on cars and travel and new suits because they don’t have mortgages and kids.

troll-sniffer said :

There was the story a few years ago of the Tax Office employee who was, shall we say, a tad offside with his peers due to some monumental backstabbing, who found alternative gainful employment in another department. As often happens admittedly. But not often do the same backstabbers rally around and organise a grand send-off complete with a large sponge cake, and invite the scorned one, as though atonement were that easy.

The scorned one duly attended, pretended to be suitably impressed and forgiving, then in a master stroke, picked up the cake, threw it against the wall, made some suitably pointed comments, and strode out amidst a sea of jaws hitting the carpet.

(Third hand account – corrections, embellishments welcome from anyone who was there).

Completely and utterly awesome !!!!

Ryoma said :

– The ACT Government (mwahahaha) !!!! 😛

– The most beautiful thing of all would be to weave a storyline that gets lots of people, at many levels, in strife, due to the 1.5 degrees of separation in Canberra. Reveal a different link between various characters episode by episode, and then build to a climax where everything hits the fan at once in all directions :D!!!

OH YES! YES! YES!

Would you consider calling your doco, I’m sorry, “comedy series”, Magical Magical Canberra” 😉

Perhaps I’m being a tad forward. I haven’t worked with you, either of your parents or your mother’s best friend yet, so please excuse my eagerness to be involved.

Because in Canberra…..

ANYTHING is possible.

John Clark et al in The Games did it best. Wish they would bring out a new series.

I heard a story about a pube that was asked to help get the supplies for morning tea. So he grabs the gold collection and heads out the door.

2 hours later everyone is wondering where the h#ll he got to. When he finally turns up he is soaking wet and carrying a couple of plastic bags with some crushed cake boxes. Some strange expressions and then the obvious question. “What happened?” …

“Well, I didn’t know where to get cakes from around here” (note, office space is located in Civic) “so I caught the bus up to the cheesecake shop in Dickson and then had to walk back, and I got rained on ’cause I didn’ have an umbrella”… “WTF!!! Why didn’t you just go to one of the bakeries around here, or at least drive to Dickson or catch a cab?” Well, I didn’t want to use up the collection money on the bus fare on the way back and I didn’t have any pre-approved travel expense or cab vouchers, and I didn’t really want to use my own vehicle ’cause it’s off-pay week and I’m running low on petrol”

At this point everyone is gobsmacked… not the least of which is since it is now lunchtime

I’d love to hear me…yes, well. (blushes furiously)

Would you accept that I meant to say “would love to hear more”.

I’ve gotta say that the following things are amusing at times:

– the housing situation, especially for graduates and Uni students. I’m aware it’s similar in Sydney and Melbourne, but there are many young people who try to get around to all of the Open Houses on a Saturday using buses. It is rather funny seeing the same group of people turn up several weekends in a row, and a good way to make friends after a while 🙂

– ACTION buses. You could call them any number of names that imply the opposite, and have a rich cast of characters on the bus that the rest of Australia doesn’t realise exist in Canberra – the homeless, the mentally ill, the refugees trying to understand the My Way system without much English…

– Canberra’s versions of customer service and sophisticated nightlife. You could show a young bunch of grads who’ve heard how Fyshwick is the place for some action….only to get out there, get completely lost, and find that’s everything’s closed.

– The embassy staff who don’t pay their parking tickets (not all of them, but it’s not exactly unheard of, either).

– The ACT Government (mwahahaha) !!!! 😛

– The use of consultants to do anything more complicated than dot points, and the need to spell out for them (a) not to write anything which the answers are not already known about, and (b) the disappointment from public service managers when they discover that said consultants will deliver the bare minimum required to justify their fee (probably written by the work experience kid).

– The most beautiful thing of all would be to weave a storyline that gets lots of people, at many levels, in strife, due to the 1.5 degrees of separation in Canberra. Reveal a different link between various characters episode by episode, and then build to a climax where everything hits the fan at once in all directions :D!!!

Finally, I think that the public service stuff, particularly any meetings between departments, is comedy gold, as is just the paper trail up and down within any Government building. But I’d stay away from the Parliament, for two reasons:

a) Frontline/Yes Minister and the like, has already been done.
b) More importantly, I think it would be cool to show that Canberrans are actually an interesting group of people in their own right. We might happen to host the House on the Hill, but we are no less annoyed by its actions from time to time than anyone else – and we are often the ones who have to deal with the consequences of their guff.

Anyhow, good luck with it. I’d love to hear me, so PM me if you wish.

I once knew someone who tried become a specialist wholesaler/middleman/importer(?). Details are scant, but he was in the APS and concurrently trying to get rid of ~$60,000 of coffee. He was approaching cafes, supermarkets etc directly & probably wasn’t successful (he only ever managed to service small orders). He joked that he might be drinking the coffee for the rest of his life! He may have had to work in the APS to get by because his ‘worldly assets’ were beans. This required the usual reams of paperwork to declare concurrent employment. I wish I knew how/where he kept it (his garage?)…

Jethro said :

Gungahlin Al said :

I’m sure you could have some fun with all the Defence families with half a street emptying out on the same day with removalist trucks everywhere.

Then there’s the obsession with private schools…

You could write a funny episode about someone from a political party leaving a fundraiser pamphlet on the office colour photocopier and someone else finding it. Oh…..hang on…

Or some guy emailing his entire department trying to find a girl he met at a party on the weekend.

Or a bunch of people breaking a new building by taking up Zumba

Gungahlin Al said :

I’m sure you could have some fun with all the Defence families with half a street emptying out on the same day with removalist trucks everywhere.

Then there’s the obsession with private schools…

You could write a funny episode about someone from a political party leaving a fundraiser pamphlet on the office colour photocopier and someone else finding it. Oh…..hang on…

Or some guy emailing his entire department trying to find a girl he met at a party on the weekend.

I’m sure you could have some fun with all the Defence families with half a street emptying out on the same day with removalist trucks everywhere.

Then there’s the obsession with private schools…

You could write a funny episode about someone from a political party leaving a fundraiser pamphlet on the office colour photocopier and someone else finding it. Oh…..hang on…

Coda said :

Each episode could show the angry sign in the kitchen area – (you know the one about who has left mouldy cups in the sink) each episode the sign gets more hostile..

Also – I know 2 people who have worked in Adult shops and the APS and therefore know who in the department likes what porn..makes for some lowbrow humour

Umm, do we work together?

Northsidechick said :

I like the idea you have! I have done a rough draft of a story revolving around a school canteen and the parent committee that runs it – the material I have is gold, all taken from personal experience. It was a nightmare but in hindsight so rich in schadenfreude.

**which isn’t helping your original post at all, sorry. I have one anecdote to tell you re the public service – be careful you find out which department someone belongs to before mouthing off about the weird buggers who work in **** and how your friend had to go in and train them on interpersonal skills. Cue awkward silence before a response of: “Well, we’re not all like that”

There was the story a few years ago of the Tax Office employee who was, shall we say, a tad offside with his peers due to some monumental backstabbing, who found alternative gainful employment in another department. As often happens admittedly. But not often do the same backstabbers rally around and organise a grand send-off complete with a large sponge cake, and invite the scorned one, as though atonement were that easy.

The scorned one duly attended, pretended to be suitably impressed and forgiving, then in a master stroke, picked up the cake, threw it against the wall, made some suitably pointed comments, and strode out amidst a sea of jaws hitting the carpet.

(Third hand account – corrections, embellishments welcome from anyone who was there).

Kerehona said :

Oh yes – which makes think what would the name of the Govenment Department be? the Department of Governmental Policy Strategy and Review?

Well Yes Minister had ‘Administrative Affairs’ and The Thick Of It uses ‘Social Affairs’. It’s got to be believable, yet broad enough to let you get them involved in a wide range of issues.

I like the idea you have! I have done a rough draft of a story revolving around a school canteen and the parent committee that runs it – the material I have is gold, all taken from personal experience. It was a nightmare but in hindsight so rich in schadenfreude.

Ex Warrior said :

Funniest PS moment to date, going around ‘the team’ to see wtf everyone has been up to and the young lady explains she’s been busy writing procedures on how to write procedures!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh yes – which makes think what would the name of the Govenment Department be?
the Department of Governmental Policy Strategy and Review?

poisonivy said :

Consider an alpaca breeder, a winemaker, an olive grower a truffle farmer – all rich pickings as alternate careers for public servants.

these are all really good, but the alpacca breeder is gold! I can see the character in one of those fluffy alpacca wool jumpers!

This post sums the whole thing up really.

TVStar said :

deye said :

Spoono said :

Great news, that’ll free up some cushy EL1s and 2s!

Cushy ?? not likely for a lot of them.

I think many public servants have already retired. They continue to attend the building they notionally work in however, so as to continue to receive their welfare cheques each fortnight.

The APS Career:

APS4-5: Learn how to use the computer. Organize the Christmas Party.

APS6: Cut and paste dot points.

EL1-2: Go to meetings and purport to be on the cusp of introducing a plan to assist with the cuting and pasting of dot points. Never deliver the plan because your job will immediately be redundant, and your unit may have its budget cut. Walk out of meetings saying “I don’t think we have to do anything until they come back to us with something.” Complain about not being a SES.

SESB1: Develop a high level framework (two pager) that guides the cutting and pasting of dot points. Tell minister that the plan is being further developed. Never implement plan. Meetings.

SESB2-3. Ask people in your organisation, whose entire future is contingent upon your view of them, if they agree with you. Talk about supporting the Government’s policies until your budget looks like being cut, then background a journalist to destroy the policy. Tell people about leadership and efficiency in the Public Service. Mock the private sector. Tell a story about something that happened in 1985 which solidified all your views about public policy ever since.

FYI: The collective noun for pubes is “A merkin of pubes.”

Hank said :

Firstly well done, I think this has the potential to be a very funny series.
I think there was a story here on Riot about public servants leaving to try their hand (so to speak) at running an adult parlour, then failing.

Thanks Hank – That is a Canberra-centric story for sure (which I neglected to include in the speil)
Has the potential of the Public servant being a creepy guy then turning to making adult movies too?

Each episode could show the angry sign in the kitchen area – (you know the one about who has left mouldy cups in the sink) each episode the sign gets more hostile..

Also – I know 2 people who have worked in Adult shops and the APS and therefore know who in the department likes what porn..makes for some lowbrow humour

PBO said :

You should base it around the poor admin guy who has to know how to do everyone elses job but does not get paid the same. It could revolve around the bitterness they experience when they do not get promoted and the humorous revenge that they partake in.

That is a very good over-arching theme for one character! Thanks!

Keijidosha said :

In before Dilbert plagiarism. (Be careful about crowdsourcing creative ideas.)

I haven’t read Dilbert

Waiting For Godot said :

Why don’t you make it a tragi-comedy?

Include a storyline where a courier working in the Department of Defence wears a red nose on Red Nose Day and has somebody file an official complaint. The courier is then dragged through a two week investigation, interviews are held with everybody involved, the complaint is upheld, the courier is formally reprimanded and the incident is used as justification for annuling the courier’s appointment a few months later.

Hold on, that isn’t scriptwriter fantasy, that actually happened and the courier was me.

That’s a tragedy alright – Sorry to discover your story actually happened to you. But on the funny side, I can see (the character) in those investigative interviews still wearing the red nose.

la mente torbida said :

this post makes me sad….
you have an idea to make a comedy series (based on…) but no ideas
pls correct me if i’m wrong

Sorry for bothering you – you’re indeed correct

Why don’t you make it a tragi-comedy?

Include a storyline where a courier working in the Department of Defence wears a red nose on Red Nose Day and has somebody file an official complaint. The courier is then dragged through a two week investigation, interviews are held with everybody involved, the complaint is upheld, the courier is formally reprimanded and the incident is used as justification for annuling the courier’s appointment a few months later.

Hold on, that isn’t scriptwriter fantasy, that actually happened and the courier was me.

You should base it around the poor admin guy who has to know how to do everyone elses job but does not get paid the same. It could revolve around the bitterness they experience when they do not get promoted and the humorous revenge that they partake in.

Funniest PS moment to date, going around ‘the team’ to see wtf everyone has been up to and the young lady explains she’s been busy writing procedures on how to write procedures!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Who could forget the milk-thief saga: http://the-riotact.com/how-to-catch-a-milk-thief-in-the-public-service/46831

DermottBanana said :

Wasn’t it Sir Humphrey Appleby who said that the civil service is entirely bereft of humour?

I fail to see the humour in that.

Boom-tish.

Wasn’t it Sir Humphrey Appleby who said that the civil service is entirely bereft of humour?

this post makes me sad….
you have an idea to make a comedy series (based on…) but no ideas
pls correct me if i’m wrong

Oh, and coaching. Don’t forget coaching – the comic possibilities are endless there.

Consider an alpaca breeder, a winemaker, an olive grower a truffle farmer – all rich pickings as alternate careers for public servants.

Firstly well done, I think this has the potential to be a very funny series.
I think there was a story here on Riot about public servants leaving to try their hand (so to speak) at running an adult parlour, then failing.

In before Dilbert plagiarism. (Be careful about crowdsourcing creative ideas.)