We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Death and taxes Clearly nothing escapes the hawk-eyed attention of these rapier-witted and attentive public servants:
A tax office official in Finland who died at his desk went unnoticed by up to 30 colleagues for two days.
The man in his 60s died last Tuesday while checking tax returns, but no-one realised he was dead until Thursday.
Getting a fiddled expenses claim past them must be a doddle. Let’s all move to Finland!
He said everyone at the tax office was feeling dreadful – and procedures would have to be reviewed.
From now on, mandatory pulse-checks every 24 hours.
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I don’t get it.
Those blood sucking vampires are supposed to be dead already.
I know that, purists forbid, as opposed to zombies the vampire classify technically as “undead”, but still…
Finnish citizens pay among the highest taxes in the world, but enjoy one of the best welfare systems.
Have we come to the point that such editorial additions to news items go uncommented upon? I read that and about pitched into my paperwork in a similar fashion.
As an accountant, this little incident doesn’t help much with the bias that those in this field don’t have much personality, going unnoticed for two whole days. He really must have been the life of the office. But I suppose it says something positive about our general hygiene.
Can I also deduce that office cleaning/custodial services aren’t a daily occurance in Finland? Or did they just vacuum/straighten around him?
Maybe the guy was a temp. You could blow your own brains out in the office and no one would notice until they wondered why you hadn’t asked for a signature on your timesheet that week.
It’s quite a sad story actually. He clearly had no friends whatsoever.
Bullfighting a sport!! Give me a break. Definition of sport. A contest where two adversaries or two teams compete to see who is best. The term sport originates in the early greecian times when athletes competed for nothing more than a crown of leaves with honor. The Olympics which are held every four years are a challenge for athletic supremacy in many disciplines of true sport. How can one possibly ascribe the word sport to bullfighting? What we see is men on horse back spearing a helpless beast for a prolonged period until the blood starts to flow profusevly and weakens the bull to half of his strength, then we see the picadors drive smaller spears into the neck muscles until a further weakening of the happless animal occurs, and finally the little fairy like matadors enter the bullring not one but a minimum of three or more, they will engage the bull until they are sure that every last bit of strength is drained from his body, but the gory spectacle does not end there. They will now delay the eventual slaughter to insure the bull is drained even further of the blood that gives it life. Finally the pixie like satanic devil prances into the ring to the cheers of the sadistic crowd who by this time are in a state of frenzy screaming Oley! Oley! and finally their hero will prod the helpless beast to make a final charge so that he may drive the sword into it`s heart cavity, and only once in hundreds of atempts does he succeed in doing it correctly, and because of his failure to end the gore quickly he must therefore use a knife like object and drive it into the bulls brain. Oh! what glory, these events happen all over Spain every sunday, where six bulls are slaughtered in this way and the estimated tally annually is in the thousands of these majestic creatures being slaughtered in this way. Several years ago when the King and Queen were interviewed and asked why this despicable activity was allowed to go on, their answer was QUOTE: If the slaughter of a few bulls every sunday brings pleasure to my people why should I stop it? end of Quote. Hitler was once asked a similar question why the slaughter of six million jews was necessary, and his answer was, if the slaughter of six million jews brings enjoyment and pleasure to the german people, why should I stop it? Time for the world to stand up and take notice and do something about the atrocities we humans commit on the animals in our world. Suggestion lets put one matador in the ring with six enraged bulls that would be entertaining would it not?
“Hitler was once asked a similar question why the slaughter of six million jews was necessary, and his answer was, if the slaughter of six million jews brings enjoyment and pleasure to the german people, why should I stop it?”
— Do you have a source for that quote? It seems obvious rubbish not only on grounds of the purpose to which it is deployed, but also on internal evidence: (1) Hitler was undoubtedly in favour of the death of Jews, and scarcely given to representing himself as an innocent or disinterested bystander. (2) The pleasure and enjoyment of the German people had nothing to do with it: the Nazis most often claimed to be nobly shouldering a distasteful duty on behalf of the German people in furtherance of an historical mission. (3) How would Hitler (or any contemporary) have known the final best-estimate total of 6 millions? And him with his notorious lack of interest in detail or evidence? The target would have been more. That the deaths stopped when they did was an accident of war caused by the Allies reaching the death-camps and being able to save many. And the numbers are only precise for western and central Europe. The less controlled slaughter on the eastern front is almost beyond understanding, even numerically.
I’m not sure how one dead, Finnish tax inspector makes any difference.
If a body isn’t discovered in a commercial business, does that make all capitalist companies incompetent and evil?
This smells of soundbite politics, of the kind that makes interviews with mainstream politicians so unwatchable.
Dissident Frogman, you raise the unholy spectre that it might not have been his death that was the problem but that he was spotted still at work while being “noticeably” dead!
If the new trainee hadn’t been so quick to open the curtains :[
“Can I also deduce that office cleaning/custodial services aren’t a daily occurance in Finland? Or did they just vacuum/straighten around him?”
Toolkien: I’m currently working in Norway and believe me, the cleaning lady will enter my office and clean right round me without asking if it’s okay to disturb me. On one occasion she dusted all the patches of clear desk around my keyboard / mouse while I was sitting there. Quite entertaining actually.
Must be a Scandanavian thing…
“Finnish citizens pay among the highest taxes in the world, but enjoy one of the best welfare systems. ”
Erm… how about this.. from the Helsinki Times from article , “Myths about Finland”.
>2. Spending on health care is high in Finland.
>
>Nonsense. Finland does not rank among the thirty >countries that invest the most in health care >relative to their gross domestic products. >Lebanon, Zimbabwe, Kenya, and Slovenia are all >among the nations that beat us with this criterion.
It reminds me of Dorothy Parker’s famous comment about the laconic president Calvin Coolidge. When told Coolidge was dead she asked, “How did they know?”
“Can I also deduce that office cleaning/custodial services aren’t a daily occurance in Finland? Or did they just vacuum/straighten around him?”
Yes. They probably did. For two reasons: 1. They are illegal immigrants. And 2. They can’t communicate in Finnish.
How did the subject of Bullfighting arise from a discussion about vampires and welfare?
So this is job security, if you work for the Finnish government, you can pretty much get nothing at all done and no one will fire you. I work in a pretty laizez-faire environment, but I still have to actually accomplish things every day. I cant believe this guy didnt have a supervisor check to see what he had done for two days, especially since there was certainly no new additions to the poor man’s outbox. To me, this is a phenominal show of government inefficiency, as well as how much the government really cares about its employees and people.
“How did the subject of Bullfighting arise from a discussion about vampires and welfare?”
Yes I was rather astonished by this as well.
Personally I’d suggest that bullfighting is a sport. If hunting is a sport then bullfighting is a sport. If it isn’t a sport then might I suggest you try it? It takes a lot of courage to get into an arena with a really angry bull and with nothing but scrap of cloth to defend yourself.
“If it isn’t a sport then might I suggest you try it? It takes a lot of courage to get into an arena with a really angry bull and with nothing but scrap of cloth to defend yourself.”
Damn straight it does. And The Sun Also Rises is a bloody straight book.
Hi Gang!
This smells of an urban legend. I note that snopes has a similar case:
http://www.snopes.com/horrors/gruesome/fivedays.htm
The BBC (which hasn’t exactly established itself as an avatar of media accuracy lately) printed a previous “dead at work” story:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1113955.stm
So I’d be very wary about this tory.
Still, it was funny.
Oops, my bad. Snopes makes reference to this pecific case:
http://www.snopes.com/horrors/gruesome/fivedays.htm
“In January 2004, several news outlets picked up a similar story from the Finnish tabloid Ilta-Sanomat, which claimed that a tax office official in Finland died at his desk, but his death went unnoticed by up to 30 colleagues for two days.
Last updated: 19 January 2004”
All this begs the question: if a government subsidized Finnish Bullfighter died at work, would anyone notice that some do not consider bullfighting a sport?
“How did the subject of Bullfighting arise from a discussion about vampires and welfare?”
Yes, I was wondering the same thing myself.
Back to the subject — more or less — Mark Steyn says in the Telegraph today that in the mysterious Hertfordshire shooting case the police failed for three hours to notice that the dead body had in fact been shot.
I haven’t been particularly attentive to this one. (Though the prospect of being unexpectedly and instantly shot dead seems attractive, and I wonder if maybe there’s a mailing list…) But Steyn usually has his basic facts right.
The official mind isn’t open to the unusual. There’s nothing in the manual about clerks dying. No one has reported a shooting. If it isn’t on the checklist, it hasn’t happened.
as a civil servant myself, i thought the whole point of being in the civil service was too look dead and spend a lot of time not getting anything accomplished. at least this is what i was told when i first got this job. if i wanted a real job i could have gotten a job in industry or something. i think this guy should’ve gotten a posthumous medal for reminding all of us who live off the public tit how things are supposed to be done.
I know that Finn’s have a reputation for being “unemotional and cold”, but that is ridiculous.
Fred
Kai asks:
How did the subject of Bullfighting arise from a discussion about vampires and welfare?
I respond: It didn’t. The poster, who probably is a member of PETA and other unsavory organizations, just thought to insert his notions here.
To answer the poster’s question (which admittedly is a bad idea, but what the heck): In place of the term “sport,” insert the term, “ritual sacrifice to … uhhhh … we can’t remember.” All will become clear.
Question: Did they dock his pay for two days? Or pay him overtime?
Since he would have most likely have been getting a salary rather than hourly pay, then his two days solidly at his desk would make him the most hard-working and dedicated chap there.
We got this story relayed in Hong Kong. We can’t understand what is unusual about it. Isn’t working long hours and doing nothing normal?