Sir Bob Jones
nopunchespulled.com
It’s common to make fun of public servants and dismiss them as dullards, which in many cases they are, notably with the larger over-employing Department personnel.
My company rents offices to dozens of government agencies. We specialise in providing superior quality suites which it’s appropriate they should occupy. I refer to the likes of the Ombudsman or the court judges and such-like, plus numerous other governments in the form of their embassies. It’s fair to say we have excellent relationships with them all.
But from time to time we’ve bought a building then occupied by a large Government agency and encountered the dullard end of the Public Service.
The worst we ever experienced was with LINZ a couple of decades back. I’ve never encountered a more miserable lot of screaming no-hopers and we took great joy in booting them out at the expiry of their lease.
A few days back I was reminded of this when I was shown some correspondence involving their Christchurch office. This was from an Alex Woodham, ungrammatically described as “Senior Advisor Research and Evaluation” and underneath that mouthful, “Strategy, Policy and Design.”
But brace yourself, for also printed on his letterhead after his name, in brackets, was “he/him.” This bloke has to be drowning wet. One suspects Her/She might be more fitting, or better still, so as not to offend the rich array of purportedly sexually confused, surely “it” might be appropriate.
Well, it transpires that he/him, at your expense, is conducting a survey entitled, “Toitu Te Whenua Property Rights and Models Surveys” so doubtless that’s very clear to everyone. To do this he’s written to real estate agency principals, God only knows why, in a mixture of Maori and gibberish.
Specifically, he seeks their views on “property right and models,” whatever that means, “in Aotearoa,” “as a professional in an industry that intersects the property space.”
I’m not making this up. In the unlikely event he/him is married one wonders whether he talks like this at home. I doubt it as any spouse would quickly intersect the space between his head and shoulders with a carving knife after an earful of that.
Busy Wellington commercial property agency identity Chris Gollins, unwilling to have his day “intersected with time-wasting”, responded perfectly, specifically,
“Alex. Given your confusion about which country you are in – completing your survey would be a waste of my time.
Chris Gollins.”
NOTE: You may find this amusing but to put a damper on it, you’re paying for it.
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