I had a wonderful pile. As a left hander I was able to make a variety of special requests...that made the stationary nazi unhappy. My favourite was the left handed calculator...the catalogue had one in it! Fuck me. Anyway it was significantly more expensive than the rest and it went up to our director for approval. He knocked it back as he couldn't figure out why I needed a scientific calculator to edit online documents. I tried to explain it was for coding. He didn't buy it. I felt bullied.
Aren't they a fun mob to mess with? I ordered a kilo of coffee beans once and a fancy leather attache. Both were denied. I did have a great set of scissors though.
Then there was the glare reduction screens...in the ye olde days of monitors there was a lot of glare and I was having some trouble with it. I asked for a glare reduction screen, cost ~$85 for oh&s budget. It was barred as too expensive. Not being one for getting fucked with I set up a campaign among my union members and presented the case again. This time that 10 people needed screens. Again it was knocked back...and I put forward the case that everyone who wanted a screen should have one or I would initiate an oh&s assessment of the entire floor regarding the screens. this would be time consuming and result in additional workstation issues coming to light and not to be used notices in place until the work point issues were remedied. This of course (being the public service) saw me lead an oh&s project to determine the needs and solutions for each person in the area, about 120 people. Almost everyone took a screen. Most of them were used, some just ended up in draws. I felt like I had won something important.
lol well i think this is the public service in a nutshell , too much time on there hands to do this shit.
I worked in govt doing a apprenticeship but found it to be soul destroying and boring unless you sucked up the bosses and kissed there arsses. I worked in about 6 areas of the department and found that 4 out of the six bosses didnt give a shit about teaching . The first day of my job my boss turned up at 930am, me being keen turned up at starting time of 8am and sat around for a hour and half.
To say the first day was the only bad exp is a undertstatement, i had bosses that must of sucked up the higher up people to get there job, cause most of them lucky if they worked 4 hours outta there 8 hour day and would turn up at least hour or more after everyone else. Also they would complain that they were so busy that they had to work after hours even though they would turn up to work late, so in reality that they were really working the same hours.
I had a boss who worked part time, meant to work 25 hours a week, lucky if he was there for 15 hours a week. He one day said to us he had to go early to pick up his new tv, remeeber he was part time.Also him not even hiding the fact he was leaving early.
I think after so many months you give in and become like them, made up meetings, hair appointments during work hours and 2 hour lunches. It is bit hard for bosses to complain when they left the same time as you and come back late as you.
I found that the govt work was for people who liked to make out they are busy all the time , i couldnt stand it and finsihed my apprencticeship and left.
Also them promoting people that had no idea about the job , instead of people working that job for a few years. Also funny thing was that person who got promoted to boss running to the person who didnt get promoted and trying to pick there brain about there job. Of course they told them in so many words to get stuffed and figure it out themselves.
So i found that if you wanted actual knowledge never ask the boss as 90% of them had no fucking idea what they were doing but ask fellow collegues doing the actual work.
I did have 2 bosses that were brillant, they gave me work and the time flew by.
Also one thing is that you can only ask for work from bosses for so long before you give up , cause in reality i dont think they had fuck all to do ,considering that most were lucky to actually be working 20 hours outta of 40 hours . Also outta that 20 hours alot were at long lunches or personal appoitments.
