I joined the public service last year after several years of unemployment, dishwashing, NGOs, call centres and uni. It’s been an interesting culture shock, and I feel like a Viking invading a doll’s tea party, slicing off guests’ hands with my +5 Strength Twin-Bladed Axe of Trying Too Hard. I started this blog after an incident during my graduate program in which my communication skills were called into question – an incident for which I was penalised financially, offering an unusual opportunity to put a monetary value on people thinking you’re a cockhead.
The intention is to reflect on and discuss workplace etiquette (since I apparently don’t have any) – how does your workplace handle timekeeping? Popping out of the office to do some reading (not an unreasonable thing to do in my line of work)? Bringing the kids to work when you can’t find a sitter? Although I’m a public servant and I do want to discuss public service issues (or civil service, or government employee or whatever you call yourself), a lot of this stuff will apply to anyone – I vividly remember my time in the private sector and it has NO business pretending it is significantly different from the public sector in terms of the presence of petty jobsworths, nuff-nuffs and all-round earlobes (so called because an arsehole is actually useful). If you enjoy Guy Kawasaki’s blog, I can’t hold a candle to it but I hope to provide similar useful and fun information.
