30 July 2013

Public Servants celebrate the good times

| Barcham
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Yay!

In work and play is a celebration of all the super fun and amazingly interesting things that happen in the public service.

They are trying to collect stories about the public service to celebrate the centenary.

I look forward to viewing this website and reading the stories of people who work in the public service.

I hope APS web security won’t block it.

Some quotes from the media invite:

Public servants past and present are being asked to share their memories in celebration of the Australian Public Service (APS), its people and their part in the development of Canberra.

The APS Centenary of Canberra Committee will launch In work and In play – building the Canberra community, an online crowd-sourcing website on Wednesday 31 July.

The website is part of a wider APS Centenary of Canberra initiative to acknowledge the APS’s contribution to the Canberra community.

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The website is now live, launched this afternoon:

http://apscentenaryofcanberra.gov.au

Tara Nichols, National Archives of Australia

YeahBuddy said :

bulldog600 said :

Roundhead89 said :

Oh come off it! As someone who was driven out of the APS twice due to constant bullying and had a nervous breakdown to boot (not to mention ongoing PTSD as a lifetime legacy), I would have thought even *acknowledging* the APS in the Centenary celebrations would have been unthinkable. I’m sure that website will paint the rosiest picture about the APS and it will be dripping with faux nostalgia. Meanwhile I have documented the truth about the APS experience. These are the stories the APS Centenary of Canberra initiative *don’t* want you to hear:
http://www.youtube.com/user/JohnMoulis

PTSD is very loosely diagnosed these days. Happy to hear you made it out of the war oh sorry the APS but you have PTSD.

what a joke. Australia is becoming obsessed with PTSD diagnosis when no doubt many people suffered more traumatic experiences in life but thats not PTSD but if something happens in the workplace than bang bang its PTSD.

get over yourself pitty.

Ouch – but +1

I say this in the nicest possible way but …. if it happened twice, do you think that maybe you are the common denominator here?

The common denominator is an organisation with a rotten culture which encourages people to submit formal complaints against someone else on the flimsiest grounds, and to have those complaints not only taken seriously but always upheld. If you’d watched my videos objectively you would understand how difficult it is to work under such conditions when you are constantly under seige. A pack mentality is hardly conducive to encouraging productivity or positive morale in the workplace.

ToastFliesRED4:28 pm 31 Jul 13

goggles13 said :

p1 said :

switch said :

“Oh goody! The new paperclips have arrived.”

Your department can afford paperclips?

such a shame there is still a reliance on clearing documents on paper – photocopiers and paperclips are from the dinosaur age

Still more reliable than a whiteboard ….

bulldog600 said :

Roundhead89 said :

Oh come off it! As someone who was driven out of the APS twice due to constant bullying and had a nervous breakdown to boot (not to mention ongoing PTSD as a lifetime legacy), I would have thought even *acknowledging* the APS in the Centenary celebrations would have been unthinkable. I’m sure that website will paint the rosiest picture about the APS and it will be dripping with faux nostalgia. Meanwhile I have documented the truth about the APS experience. These are the stories the APS Centenary of Canberra initiative *don’t* want you to hear:
http://www.youtube.com/user/JohnMoulis

PTSD is very loosely diagnosed these days. Happy to hear you made it out of the war oh sorry the APS but you have PTSD.

what a joke. Australia is becoming obsessed with PTSD diagnosis when no doubt many people suffered more traumatic experiences in life but thats not PTSD but if something happens in the workplace than bang bang its PTSD.

get over yourself pitty.

Ouch – but +1

I say this in the nicest possible way but …. if it happened twice, do you think that maybe you are the common denominator here?

goggles13 said :

Primal said :

miz said :

At least paper records mean you still have it and it has not disappeared somewhere irretrievable or been lost completely.

I have never met a records system that couldn’t fail miserably.

+1 I heard about several paper files that have gone missing, never to be seen again

Me too. And you’ll never prove that I shredded them.

Roundhead89 said :

Oh come off it! As someone who was driven out of the APS twice due to constant bullying and had a nervous breakdown to boot (not to mention ongoing PTSD as a lifetime legacy), I would have thought even *acknowledging* the APS in the Centenary celebrations would have been unthinkable. I’m sure that website will paint the rosiest picture about the APS and it will be dripping with faux nostalgia. Meanwhile I have documented the truth about the APS experience. These are the stories the APS Centenary of Canberra initiative *don’t* want you to hear:
http://www.youtube.com/user/JohnMoulis

PTSD is very loosely diagnosed these days. Happy to hear you made it out of the war oh sorry the APS but you have PTSD.

what a joke. Australia is becoming obsessed with PTSD diagnosis when no doubt many people suffered more traumatic experiences in life but thats not PTSD but if something happens in the workplace than bang bang its PTSD.

get over yourself pitty.

Primal said :

miz said :

At least paper records mean you still have it and it has not disappeared somewhere irretrievable or been lost completely.

I have never met a records system that couldn’t fail miserably.

+1 I heard about several paper files that have gone missing, never to be seen again

It will be censored for sure.

I’m sure all the unfavourable stories will not make it to the site.

And of course there’s that pesky Public Service Act that stops anyone from telling stories about anything interesting that might have happened on pain of legal action.

miz said :

At least paper records mean you still have it and it has not disappeared somewhere irretrievable or been lost completely.

I have never met a records system that couldn’t fail miserably.

Goggles, we still use paper because as a rule, software applications (having been sold as wizzo to higher ups and IT geeks who never do any of the ‘real work’) are completely useless and don’t work with the software we already have. At least paper records mean you still have it and it has not disappeared somewhere irretrievable or been lost completely.

To quote Terry Pratchett, “It is well known that any drive to reduce paperwork only results in extra paperwork”!

p1 said :

switch said :

“Oh goody! The new paperclips have arrived.”

Your department can afford paperclips?

such a shame there is still a reliance on clearing documents on paper – photocopiers and paperclips are from the dinosaur age

Oh come off it! As someone who was driven out of the APS twice due to constant bullying and had a nervous breakdown to boot (not to mention ongoing PTSD as a lifetime legacy), I would have thought even *acknowledging* the APS in the Centenary celebrations would have been unthinkable. I’m sure that website will paint the rosiest picture about the APS and it will be dripping with faux nostalgia. Meanwhile I have documented the truth about the APS experience. These are the stories the APS Centenary of Canberra initiative *don’t* want you to hear:
http://www.youtube.com/user/JohnMoulis

Meanwhile, Centenary of Canberra’s “official partner”, the ABC, can’t be bothered keeping the web links live … I wonder how much we are paying the ABC …

http://www.abc.net.au/pool/projects/canberra-full-circle-2013

Holden Caulfield2:29 pm 30 Jul 13

I didn’t know big Jim was a pube.

pink little birdie2:06 pm 30 Jul 13

it will be stuff like the meeting partners in the place where all public servants used to live before being assigned a house, things that happen at work christmas parties and balls.
All the choirs and sports clubs and things like that.

switch said :

“Oh goody! The new paperclips have arrived.”

Your department can afford paperclips?

switch said :

“Oh goody! The new paperclips have arrived.”

That about sums it up !!

I keep a nerf gun on my desk next to my phone. Is that the sort of thing they are talking about?

“Oh goody! The new paperclips have arrived.”

I chuckled when I read this thread heading….Having just got out of the evil empire for the second time (and this time NEVER going back), I certainly wouldn’t have anything good to celebrate. The upper levels of this culture are pretty much full of self-serving narrow thinking people who couldn’t get a job anywhere else. Thanks for the two VRs, by the way.

I suspect a few Values and Conduct sections in various agencies are a tad nervous!

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