The Angry Exile: Gissa job

The Hangman

Into our town the Hangman came,
Smelling of gold and blood and flame.
And he paced our bricks with a diffident air,
And built his frame in the courthouse square.
The scaffold stood by the courthouse side,
Only as wide as the door was wide;
A frame as tall, or little more,
Than the capping sill of the courthouse door.
And we wondered, whenever we had the time,
Who the criminal, what the crime
That the Hangman judged with the yellow twist
of knotted hemp in his busy fist.
And innocent though we were, with dread,
We passed those eyes of buckshot lead --
Till one cried: "Hangman, who is he
For whom you raised the gallows-tree?"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
And he gave us a riddle instead of reply:
"He who serves me best," said he,
"Shall earn the rope of the gallows-tree."
And he stepped down, and laid his hand
On a man who came from another land.
And we breathed again, for another's grief
At the Hangman's hand was our relief
And the gallows-frame on the courthouse lawn
By tomorrow's sun would be struck and gone.
So we gave him way, and no one spoke,
Out of respect for his Hangman's cloak.
The next day's sun looked mildly down
On roof and street in our quiet town,
And stark and black in the morning air
Was the gallows-tree in the courthouse square.
And the Hangman stood at his usual stand
With the yellow hemp in his busy hand;
With his buckshot eye and his jaw like a pike
And his air so knowing and business-like.
And we cried, "Hangman, have you not done
Yesterday, with the foreign one?"
Then we fell silent, and stood amazed,
"Oh, not for him was the gallows raised."
He laughed a laugh as he looked at us:
"Did you think I'd gone to all this fuss
To hang one man? That's a thing I do
To stretch a rope when the rope is new."
Then one cried "Murder!" and one cried "Shame!"
And into our midst the Hangman came
To that man's place. "Do you hold," said he,
"with him that was meant for the gallows-tree?"
And he laid his hand on that one's arm.
And we shrank back in quick alarm!
And we gave him way, and no one spoke
Out of fear of his Hangman's cloak.
That night we saw with dread surprise
The Hangman's scaffold had grown in size.
Fed by the blood beneath the chute,
The gallows-tree had taken root;
Now as wide, or a little more,
Than the steps that led to the courthouse door,
As tall as the writing, or nearly as tall,
Halfway up on the courthouse wall.
The third he took -- we had all heard tell --
Was a usurer, and an infidel.
"What," said the Hangman "have you to do
With the gallows-bound, and he a Jew?"
And we cried out, "Is this one he
Who has served you well and faithfully?"
The Hangman smiled: "It's a clever scheme
to try the strength of the gallows-beam."
The fourth man's dark, accusing song
Had scratched our comfort hard and long;
"And what concern," he gave us back.
"Have you for the doomed -- the doomed and Black?"
The fifth. The sixth. And we cried again,
"Hangman, Hangman, is this the man?"
"It's a trick," he said. "that we hangmen know
For easing the trap when the trap springs slow."
And so we ceased, and asked no more,
As the Hangman tallied his bloody score.
And sun by sun, and night by night,
The gallows grew to monstrous height.
The wings of the scaffold opened wide
Till they covered the square from side to side;
And the monster cross-beam, looking down,
Cast its shadow across the town.
Then through the town the Hangman came,
Through the empty streets, and called my name --
And I looked at the gallows soaring tall,
And thought, "There is no one left at all
For hanging, and so he calls to me
To help pull down the gallows-tree."
So I went out with right good hope
To the Hangman's tree and the Hangman's rope.
He smiled at me as I came down
To the courthouse square through the silent town.
And supple and stretched in his busy hand
Was the yellow twist of the hempen strand.
And he whistled his tune as he tried the trap,
And it sprang down with a ready snap --
And then with a smile of awful command
He laid his hand upon my hand.
"You tricked me. Hangman!," I shouted then,
"That your scaffold was built for other men...
And I no henchman of yours," I cried,
"You lied to me, Hangman. Foully lied!"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
"Lied to you? Tricked you?" he said. "Not I.
For I answered straight and I told you true --
The scaffold was raised for none but you.
For who has served me more faithfully
Then you with your coward's hope?" said he,
"And where are the others who might have stood
Side by your side in the common good?"
"Dead," I whispered. And amiably
"Murdered," the Hangman corrected me:
"First the foreigner, then the Jew...
I did no more than you let me do."
Beneath the beam that blocked the sky
None had stood so alone as I.
The Hangman noosed me, and no voice there
Cried "Stop!" for me in the empty square.

Maurice Ogden

Sunday 17 July 2011

Gissa job

One that pays handsomely for doing literally nothing at all would be lovely, especially if they have to bribe you a further ten thousand dollars to clear your desk and go do something productive, though I don't really want to move to New South Wales.

THE state has handed almost 150 bludging public servants a bonus of $10,000 each to quit and get a real job.

The $1.4 million worth of handouts are on top of their usual entitlements.

Good, eh? But even better when you can say no.

Astonishingly, a further 250 "unattached" public servants - some being paid $100,000 a year to do nothing - have knocked back Premier Barry O'Farrell's generous $10,000 payout offer.

Why would they? Ten grand's a decent lump sum but if they're getting that every six weeks or so and not having to do anything for it then a lot of people aren't going to take you up on it. That's not surprising, really. What is surprising, if not downright astonishing, is how long some of these people have been on a payroll and not been doing anything for it.

A TAFE worker, who has been pulling a wage for 16 years despite not actually having a job to do, and two RTA workers without a position for a decade are among the state employees refusing to take the handouts to quietly get off the state's books. Taxpayers are paying $16 million in wages each year to 390 public servants on the notorious "unattached list" - those who have had their positions axed but, incredibly, have held on to their jobs because the previous state government refused to order any forced redundancies.

I don't want to encourage stereotyping here, and anyone who reads my stuff a fair but will know that I'm not much of a fan of the Australian Liberals, but for completeness of information I'd like to point out that the previous government of New South Wales was a Labor government, and that it had been Labor from 1995 all the way up to the election four months ago. The guy who's been paid without having any work to do for 16 years could well have had his position eliminated in 1995 just after Labor took the state, and he stayed there through no less than four Labor governments and leaders. Make of that what you will.

Those who do not accept the cash incentive before the end of the week will be given three months to find a job or have severance payments cut.

And yet nearly 400 have said no. Make of that what you will. Even more interesting:

The longest time spent on the list by a staffer taking up the offer is 6.4 years.
Another seven departing public servants have been on the list for more than five years, while 35 have been displaced for two to five years.
The figures show 54 employees taking up the offer have been on the list for less than a year.

So the longer they've been getting money for nothing the less keen they seem to be on taking the ten grand. Gosh, another huge surprise.

A government source said many staff were still hoping to find a permanent role before choosing to accept the offer.

I'm sure they are, I really am. Let's face it, if the public service in New South Wales is anything like the UK's there are probably no shortage of jobs that pay pretty well and do actually exist but still produce roughly two fifths of fuck all. It's not as good as sitting around doing nothing on full salary but it's not a bad result all the same, and if you've spent 16 years without being asked to do any work it probably looks a hell of a lot better than heading into the private sector.

What's a real shame is that this kind of thing makes it tempting to tar all public servants with the same brush and treat them all as feckless and lazy. I do know a couple in the Victorian public service who work quite hard and are not bludgers, and I don't doubt that they're as appalled by this kind of thing as I am. However, governments waste money and rather than be seen as nasty bosses sacking workers they're as happy to waste it on needless staffing as they are anything else.