18 October 2019

Canberra lucky to have some of Australia's finest

| flyingpuck
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Some of you may have seen a prominent Australian, who recently moved to Canberra as a graduate recruit in one of those esteemed central agencies, featured in Crikey’s daily mail recently (Click on “Item 7. Tips and Rumours”):

In short, an email from this upstanding APS employee to his fellow graduates regarding the SNoG (Social Network of Grads) executive committee elections was leaked to Crikey and published, providing invaluable insights into the mindset and talents that our top agencies seek in their staff. Here is the email in full:

Nominations for SNoG Executive close this Thurday 3 March with voting from next Monday 7 – Friday 11 March.

Through an agreement of reciprocal voting with DIISR, FaHCSIA, ANAO and DMO (other departments potentially to come), I think I’ve managed to reserve the President position for one of us, in exchange for us voting various people of other departments to lesser positions (where they belong!). Hopefully this coalition should be enough to get us over the line.

I think it would be useful if one us held the position (and have no interest in running myself). Is anyone interested? If so, let the group know before Thursday’s Grad Meeting. It’s on the agenda then, so we can finalise our nomination and submit the form that afternoon.

Of course, you are welcome to run for any SNoG Executive position by yourself.

Cheers,

Alan Wu
Strategy and Policy Advice Unit | Attorney-General’s Department

Brilliant stuff, right? So bold! So insightful! So selfless! So much strategic policy advice, packed into such a short email! Surely a man to keep an eye on, one who will go very far!

But the question on everyone’s lips is, who is Alan Wu, this ethical giant who now wanders among us ordinary denizens of this great Capital?

Well, let the following handy websites enlighten you. First of all, Alan has his very own wikipedia entry, befitting a man of such stature.

And this tastefully laid out personal website has even more information, so you too can learn how to follow in Alan’s footsteps and, maybe one day, work at AGD.

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Pommy bastard1:13 pm 15 Mar 11

Alan consults to a wide range of organisations in the education, government, media, philanthropy and non-government sector. He is available to speak about, or help develop strategies around the participation and engagement of young people and ethnic communities, and sustainable development issues.

Not any more he aint..

BTW, This SNog.

Tongues allowed?”

bryansworld said :

First time i have ever seen diisr dmo and fahcsia described as greater departments…

lol agreed! One can only wonder at the response of said “lessor” departments. I hear the other departmens are not impressed.

First time i have ever seen diisr dmo and fahcsia described as greater departments…

Josephine__ said :

Your comments show that you are all far smarter and far wittier than Alan Wu 😀

Be sure to let me know if this acknowledgement of your undeniable intellectual and moral superiority wasn’t what you were looking for and I’ll take another stab at it

I may not be wittier than Mr Wu, but I feel quite confident that I’m smarter than him. Unfortunately, this is a very trivial and insignificant claim.

More significantly though, I also feel that I have a much better grasp of how to behave in a decent and ethical manner than Mr Wu. This is a very substantial claim, particularly given Mr Wu’s role on the classification board, where at the age 25 or so he gets to make moral/ethical decisions about things that I can view.

So overall, yeah, your little spray has done nothing much at all for me. Feel free to have another tilt at this windmill if you wish.

Oh dear!

Skidbladnir said :

Link fixed

Even has this fine young man’s mobile number. Could be fun!

To spoonalious……..

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Your comments show that you are all far smarter and far wittier than Alan Wu 😀

Be sure to let me know if this acknowledgement of your undeniable intellectual and moral superiority wasn’t what you were looking for and I’ll take another stab at it

Argh, stupid bottom comment box. >_<

Sounds like somebody got caught in the transition between university politics and the real world.

Always good value in a "you all need to get a life" post, though. With apologies to old Eleanor, I'd suggest that small minds quote people who are smarter than they are, in the hope of looking like they have something significant to say.

BallOfMonkey9:00 am 11 Mar 11

spoonalious said :

Comments #1 through #5, typical shiny arsed public servants – living such meaningless lives that you feel forced to comment on such a minor detail said in humour and jest. I do not know Alan Wu, do not work for the Government but absolutely hate tiny nick-picking like this.

Ahem. To “Nit Pick”

–verb (used without object)
1. to be excessively concerned with or critical of inconsequential details.
–verb (used with object)
2. to criticize by focusing on inconsequential details.

Nice try though.

Was he in that Indigeridoo play?

neanderthalsis8:53 am 11 Mar 11

spoonalious said :

Comments #1 through #5, typical shiny arsed public servants -…

you really have to internalise and look at your own behaviours. He would’ve come to Canberra full of hope, and to have petty little APS2’s try to bring him down is utterly disrespectful to your follow person.

“internalise and look at your own behaviours”

Did they teach you thank wankery in your grad Program?

Sorry sunshine, you just gave yourself away as a fellow shiny arsed pube, probably one of the polyester suit and pointy shoe wearing grads who will rapidly absorb the worst of the APS culture.

I am rather thankful that the APS has these grad programs to keep these numpties out of the private sector.

spoonalious said :

Comments #1 through #5, typical shiny arsed public servants – living such meaningless lives that you feel forced to comment on such a minor detail said in humour and jest. I do not know Alan Wu, do not work for the Government but absolutely hate tiny nick-picking like this…

I think you all need to get more value in your lives, don’t sit on blogs, Crikey and your email all day and actually live something worth living instead of living lives criticising others.

“Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people.”
-Eleanor Roosevelt

Bam. You got Rossevelt’d.

As did you spoonalious, by yourself. Irony much?

You wouldn’t be Wu by any chance?

oxycodone said :

The personal website has been taken down. You can run….

Websites never quite die .

The personal website has been taken down. You can run….

I’m still reeling that someone has the time to spend on a vote swap to be the President of SNOG??? Really??

Comments #1 through #5, typical shiny arsed public servants – living such meaningless lives that you feel forced to comment on such a minor detail said in humour and jest. I do not know Alan Wu, do not work for the Government but absolutely hate tiny nick-picking like this.

With the amount of sheer mobbery going on to a new graduate (I assume new given it’s the start of the year), you really have to internalise and look at your own behaviours. He would’ve come to Canberra full of hope, and to have petty little APS2’s try to bring him down is utterly disrespectful to your follow person.

I think you all need to get more value in your lives, don’t sit on blogs, Crikey and your email all day and actually live something worth living instead of living lives criticising others.

“Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people.”
-Eleanor Roosevelt

Bam. You got Rossevelt’d.

And the link to his personal website is broken as at 21:35 10-Mar-2011. Must’ve curled up and died like a cockroach.

I wonder what he did to piss off the person who leaked this most tasty email to the world?

Allan Wu is, quite obviously, not as bright as he thinks he is. Anyone who believes that they can send out such a Machiavellian email without getting dirked in the back by *someone* is naive to the point of…well…I dunno…words fail me.

Here are some truths Allan. A little too late for you, but what the hell. All microphones are live. All conversations are on the record. All mobile phones can quietly record conversations these days. All emails can be forwarded to the media. And nobody, in the wheeling and dealing line of work, is to be trusted.

Sadly, any ambitions he may have had to be a man of influence, a wheeler and dealer, an apparatchik, a mover and shaker, a faceless man, a backroom policy maker etc have now turned to ashes and rust in his mouth. I say “sadly”, because it would’ve been nice to have someone so trustingly gormless amongst the faceless men, at least for a short while. Natural selection means that he won’t make it to the back rooms, so someone much more talented and less pleasant will.

Anyway, I’m still comforted by the fact that he’s now pretty much guaranteed never to advance much past his current role as the sinister manipulative force influencing events behind the scenes of…what was it?…yes…SnOG. Hahahahahah…..

Skidbladnir said :

That would be Alan Wu, Moral guardian of Australia.

Thank you, Skidbladnir, for uncovering yet more of the good that Alan Wu spreads simply by existing. I feel honoured to breathe the same air as he does. ALAN WU FOR PM!!!!

agd – australian government dropkicks?

and ‘snog’ is such a prestigious organisation to branch stack for… [wu’s webpage failed to open for me – telling?]

georgesgenitals7:38 pm 10 Mar 11

Looks like someone caught politics…

Congratulations, Wu. you’ve just painted yourself and your colleagues as elitist, egotistical and arrogant. You also just highlighted why many Graduates in the APS are looked down on by more mature employees. Bad start to your APS career. I hope they now have you doing a rotation in the mailroom or HR.

I’d love to know what staff of the other Department’s think of his comment that they work for lesser Departments and are therefore somehow inferior.

I for one would love to hear Wu’s public apology on this. Though, he probably thinks he’s above such things.

far_northact6:48 pm 10 Mar 11

Argh, I would love to post emails from my Department.. what are the rules on this… anyone?

Certainly an insight into what grad recruits do when they are not out getting me coffee.

Come on guys it’s hard to be humble when you are so perfect and others are so clearly undeserving.

luther_bendross5:45 pm 10 Mar 11

I would hope that if I spent that much time telling everyone how good I was and (well, it does appear this way) attempting to rig voting systems then I would appear successful too. Until it all come unravelled at the hands of teh interwebz.

That would be Alan Wu, Moral guardian of Australia.

So yes, he’s an arsehat.
(And quite apparently fond of the term ratf***er.)

el_presidente4:38 pm 10 Mar 11

Yes! I’m so glad someone posted this – I read it in Crikey the other day and have been laughing ever since.

Alan Wu – You sir, are without question an A Grade arse hat.

I assume that shortly, if it hasn’t already been sent, we’ll see an internal AGD e-mail re’ the sensible use of the internet in the workplace.

This ‘master of the universes’ Deputy Secretary will not, I think, be happy.

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