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Non-job of the day (18/04/2007) As advertised (where else?) in the Guardian:
Equality and Diversity Manager
Organisation: MERSEYSIDE FIRE AND RESCUE SERVICE
Location: Merseyside
Salary: £31,653 -£33,315
Your challenge will be to ensure that a culture of fairness, equality and opportunity for all permeates through every Level of the organisation. You will achieve this by developing and implementing strategies, providing expert advice to managers. An innovative thinker, you will have experience of managing equality and diversity at a senior level within a complex organisation.
Get your applications in now!
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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Sweet ! I’m getting sick of work, I’ll apply now.
That’s an awful lot of money for… er…
Even more ridiculous (if such a thing is possible) when you consider that the people who do the actual putting out fires bit of the job get about 26k. I’d have thought ‘ensuring a culture of fairness’ might involve sorting this strange situation out, for starters.
That said, if I had to admit to people that I was an Equality and Diversity Manager, I’d want an awful lot of money to compensate for the shame.
Wow, I thought things like this were only found in satire.
Un-dirty-word-believable.
I wonder if he’ll also get to charge into burning hellhole rooms! You know promoting equality and all..
pah! that’s nothing. I’ll match your Equality and Diversity Officer and raise you a ‘Wellbeing Manager’ with Waveney District Council.
Organisation: WAVENEY DISTRICT COUNCIL
Title: Wellbeing Manager
Location: Suffolk
Salary: £48,777 – £53,388 plus benefits
Closing date: 7 Mar 2007
Do you have a high commitment to public service and a passion to improve performance in the delivery of services to the community?
Salary £48,777 – £53,388 and a generous relocation package of up to £5,000*
For all posts a drive and commitment to the development and improvement of the Council as an ‘enabling’ authority is essential. You will have good change management, communication and organisational skills.
You will develop the Council’s approach to user focus and diversity by devising a strategy for consulting and engaging with the many diverse groups to offer an excellent service to our whole community. You will lead on diversity issues including children and young people initiatives, community engagement, community safety and social inclusion.
Waveney District Council is an Equal Opportunity employer, offering a range of family friendly policies and welcomes applications from all sections of the community. We are currently under represented at Senior level by disabled people, people from ethnic communities and women and would particularly welcome applicants from these areas.
I sent my application in a month ago but haven’t heard back yet.
Thaddeus, you realise that being a comedy writer has never been easier- just repeat whatever governments tell you for instant laughs!
You’d never have to make up stuff! No wonder British comedians do so well at the Melbourne Comedy Festival, they just repeat news from back home, and we think they’re making it all up! (I think they’d better hand those prizes back- we wanted originality!)
If life in Britain is so humourous, where do all the gritty dramas come from?
Alisa, there’s no need for that kind of language! You can use @#$%^&*, or (Censored), just like everybody else.
I’m an inventor; how much would they pay me for a ‘Diversity Meter’?
Or how about using implantable censors to record divergent(not ‘diverse’!) conversations and automatically send out a powerful delta-wave to enforce sleep for five minutes, like a ‘sin-bin’?
Wir Kommen!Wir Kommen!
Truly incredible – the really scary thing is it’s real.
We are used to ‘celebs’ making significantly more money than someone who puts their life on the line for others. Now we are seeing the political correctness parasites doing it as well.
It’s enough to make you despair.
In order words “you are responsible for making sure some thieving scouser doesn’t nick the hubcaps off the fire engines”.
Pommygranate,
Just to say you scooped Thaddeus there. I actually have no idea what said person would do for their 50K pa. I really mean that. I have absolutely no idea. “Implementing strategies”. Marshall Zhukov implemented strategies but somehow I suspect that they’re not after someone who can plan an encirclement of the Wehrmacht’s sixth army.
Pietr,
A diversity meter – I prefer the idea of marketing it as a “diversometer”. Just don’t point it at the village people – you’d get full-scale deflection. Did ya know that only one of the village people was gay? Guess which?
Nick g.: now it’s time for you to go chew on some soap!
Phil: “parasites” was the word I actually was looking for.
I don’t think one has to be a libertarian to be appalled by this. The thing about libertarianism, is that it shows that this kind of thing is part and a consequence of a larger problem, rather than a specific bug, that can be solved within the frame of the current system. The larger problem, of course, being the system itself.
Speaking of Zhukov, even the communists never came up with crap like this. Diversity? What’s that? Oh, the simple old days of the Workers’ Paradise!
the really scary thing is it’s real.
Actually, no. The really, really scary thing is that it is being paid for with my money.
I was thinking the other day of writing a travesty generator on the lines of the Postmodernist Travesty Generator for these guardian adverts but Pomegranate’s example shows this to be quite redundant. I have never seen such a density of buzzwords, including some I would never have thought of.
Just to show how whipped I am – my first reaction was “that’s not much money for an affirmative action czar.”
There was a time when the job firemen was to put out fires. But now the “fire service” concentrates on this P.C. stuff instead.
If the powers-that-be insist that government organizations get involved in this P.C. stuff it is time that the government “fire service” was closed down. Let voluntary fire brigades take over.
This stuff is more dangerous than it looks. Several years ago my dad had a heart attack. He weighed about 125 pounds. (Very light weight) We were on the first floor in the dining room.
When the rescue squad arrived, they realized they would need to use a stretcher to transport him (duh!). They had to call for a another unit to send out ‘stronger’ (male) personal to carry the stretcher. So we sat and waited.
Diversity nuts. I want people appropriate to the job description.
even the communists never came up with crap like this
Well, the communists had their comissars – but their duty wasn’t to enforce diversity, but rather to enforce un-diversity – that is: to see to it that all were good communists. It does not matter what you enforce – they all enforce something.
Firemen should be ther to put out fires and rescue people.
If I ever had the misfortune to be stuck in a building on fire I would like to see a 6ft 14stone fireman coming to rescue me not a 5ft 4in Fireperson, well trianed in diversity.
Jon: LOL!
An innovative thinker…
What about people who can’t think innovatively? That’s discrimination that is!
nick g: Actually I think this is the worst time possible to be a comedy writer; what is the point of them when real life is so totally beyond satire?
On reflection I think that we take too lightly the ever increasing numbers of these parasites. The sacking of several hundred thousands of useless mouths would at ,least, reduce their environmental footprint
Pommy, good spot. I actually used to live in north Suffolk, and my parents are paying for these sort of non-jobs.
If David Cameron’s Tories were not a total joke, they would be making constant political hay out of this. But instead they have been remarkably keen not to offend public sector workers. But if we are to have any serious control of public spending and tax, offence will have to be caused to these parasites.
Sadly Johnathan, these are exactly the sort of people that Mr Cameron is targeting as potential supporters.
I want that diversity job.
(Okay, you can all stop laughing now.)
Oddly enough I did know only one was gay.
Can’t remember which one though.
And now I think of it, the ‘Diversity Meter’ was somebody elses idea originally, but I don’t have the feintest recollection of whom.
You mean you don’t have them already???
The money has to come from somewhere: the volunteer fire department where I live has only about 10% of their roster paid. However, fire engines are ridiculously expensive (close to 750,000 for the Mack engine they just bought, plus fuel and maintenance and etc.) and that’s not funded by bake sales.
That being said: if its anything like policing over there, there has to be a better way. From here, it looks like nothing says “freaking disaster” like Home Office involvement.
…you will have experience of managing equality and diversity at a senior level within a complex organisation.
I suppose to some parasite who is writing this advertisement, the Merseyside Fire Service is a complex organisation. Given it has one geographical area of operations, local employees, no product, no stock, few material requisites, no schedule-driven projects to achieve, operates in one language and has no shareholders to satisfy, I’d guess it is rather uncomplex in comparison to, say, BAE Systems.
Steve P- you need to think laterally. Quit your job, quit Britain for any other English-speaking country, and go on their comedy circuits describing life in modern-day U.K.! As Edison said that inspiration was only 1%, can I claim 1% inspiration fee from anyone who earns a fortune thusly? I think you’d become as rich as Connelly!
As in the old soviet era joke that “There’s no pravda in Pravda, and no izvestia in Izvestia”, neither the purpose of these positions nor their effect is what the advertisers claim.
Unspoken in both ads is the very clear message that the applicant must buy into all the PC, multi-culti party line.
The only diversity that is sought are the superficial ones of different genders, a range of skin tones, and a variety of sexual orientations. But, rest assured, the mindset will be an uncritical acceptance of every cliche’ assertion of the PC canon, and the only rebellious thoughts will be to further expand the realm of the protected classes and victim groups, so even more “clients” can be coopted into the land of perpetual victimhood.
As for wellness, I can’t imagine anyone being considered who had any definition that did not contain a firm committment to cultural sensitivity, enforced gender equity in every conceivable circumstance, and a recognition that the excesses of individualistic, greed driven capitalism was the root cause of peoples’ mental, psychological, emotional, and physical ills.
The concept of the non-political civil service whose main concern was the efficient delivery of governmental services has long been honored more in the breech, and has now been utterly abandoned.
These are not adverts for jobs, but invitations to advance in the brotherhood of the elite for those already among the “chosen”—those whose sensitivity, cultural awareness, consciousness, and compassion were so developed that they could judge whether things were “diverse” or “well” enough.
And, since that could never, ever be, these are the superior people who can lead us poor laggards into the promised land of “true diversity” and “holistic wellness”.
I can hardly wait to see who the new commissars–er, um, I mean–diversity and wellness directors will be. I just know they’ll be ever so superior.
Why, I just bet they will be practically perfect in every way.
Alisa, stop lolling about and tell us about any incidents in Israel. Has P.C.-ness struck there yet?
Organisation: WIFFLY DISTRICT COUNCIL
Location: Suffolk
Salary: £48,777 – £53,388 plus benefits
Closing date: 7 Mar 2007
Have you realised that public service provides a cosy pension in a dismissal-free zone and have a passion to hamstring the delivery of services to the community?
Salary £48,777 – £53,388 and a generous relocation package of up to £5,000*
For all posts a drive and commitment to the development and improvement of the Council as totally unfocused, paranoid and distracted authority is essential.
You will have a desire to create work for others and send endless emails to people on a frighteningly regular basis. Experience of wasting other peoples’ money and byzantine bureaucracy are also essential requirements for these posts.
You will develop the Council’s approach to user focus and diversity by devising a strategy for consulting and engaging with the many diverse groups to offer an excellent service to our whole community i.e. no specific, measurable, achievable targets. You will support and facilitate the Local Strategic Partnership, a group of similarly parasitical busybodies, and promote the Council’s distracting and irrelevent responsibilities in Suffolk’s Local Area Agreement. You will lead on diversity issues including children and young people initiatives, community engagement, community safety and social inclusion, i.e. another list of meaningless, unmeasurable, vague wiffle that gives ample scope for interference and zero value-add. You will also be asked to subversively assist the EU in their regionalisation agenda headed by PVC-skinned, teflon-haired Miliband clones and their male counterparts. Compliance with this will open scope for off-site, on-expenses junkets at hotels that your diverse community would not know about, let alone afford to stay in.
Wiffly District Council is an Equal Opportunity employer (thick, stupid, lazy, corrupt, capable, incapable, suitable or not – all have an equal opportunity), offering a range of family friendly policies and welcomes applications from all sections of the community. We are currently under represented at Senior level by disabled people, people from ethnic communities and women and would particularly welcome applicants from these areas so will reject all those from white middle-aged married males trying to feed their family as they clearly disempower their partners by reducing them to domestic chores and create adverse role-models for their birth-childs.
* Your desk is a long way from your new office.
TimC: you just have to put it in the jobs’ section – I’ll chip in!
Nick: hell, no, not nearly as bad as this, anyway. Luckily, we have more serious matters to concern ourselves with. Not the least of those are the consequences of 50+ years of socialism, among them rampant corruption, the disintegration of the civil society, the ever-increasing demands of the nanny-state to deliver whatever it is we feel
wethe poor/the children/the elderly/the single mothers (was it I that forced them to have children outside of marriage?) are entitled to, etc, etc, etc. Not to mention a very serious issue of state and religion. Or, and we have some nice neighbors that keep us occupied, too:-)I can do this job on Mersyeside easily. I would put up posters demonstrating equality with the simple message: “All fires are equal and must be put out.”
For diversity, I’d have another poster telling that “Some fires are bigger than others. See poster 1 for further information.”
There, job done. Now, where’s my cheque?
Watcher in the Dark- Whilst you have most of the needed requirements, you seem to have some measure of wit, and thus miss out due to affirmative action. I have always wanted to be known as a wit, but my friends tell me I’m only halfway there, so this job will probably be mine for the asking.
Alisa- I gave a speech in my toastmasters club a few years ago about Irony. The main point of my speech was that if you don’t use up irony in small ways (treasurers who can’t count, listening critics who need hearing aids, etc.) the irony content builds up and zaps the whole club in one massive discharge. So how does Israel get its’ comic kicks? With all that seriousness, what lightens life?
Nick: contrary to what some have suggested on that thread about Imus, the best laughs are at one’s own expense. We Jews became very good at this over the generations:-) (Now this reminds me of another inmportant omission I made on that humor quiz by Jonathan: Sholem Aleichem). We laugh (and cry) a lot, and in general have lots of fun, partly because our situation is often so absurd, and partly because we want to make the most of life while we can. In short, for better and worse, it is a real madhouse here. (Check out our entry for this year’s Eurovision: that’s a good example). That’s part of the reason why I left the US and came back.
Hey, would Merseyside let me telecommute from Texas?