The Christmas Rant

December, 2005 :

This may be a bit obscure to those out there, but I think that my place of work has probably a lot in common with many out there, the names may be different but the people are the same.

A Christmas tradition, the rant......

As the year 2005 slowly phiffs and pharts it’s way out, we find ourselves still here, disregarding all the warning signs that the iceberg is winning. It’s a strange phenomenon however that, for some odd reason, there appear to be more passengers on the boat, even though all the lifeboats have left.

The Christmas trend of reducing numbers at the company party continues in spite of the burgeoning head count. Although, it would be nice to be there for the performance awards, I can see Dicky, our lean engineer there, accepting the chrome plated broom handle for “Best cupboard the Australians have ever seen” with the rising crescendo from the crowd encouraging him to “take it for his son”. I wonder if he’ll be left standing alone on the iceberg, drinking his own urine and lighting farts to keep warm, celebrating the complete five-essing of HMS Dowtee.

It’s all gone a bit far.

As if it wasn’t serious enough that we hit the iceberg, here we are bobbing about aimlessly in the sea while the Global Harmonization torpedo speeds in, through the choppy waters, off our starboard bow. In the same moment. to our left on the distant horizon, I see the Carpedia types, sailing off, with pockets full of money. They came, they consulted, they sailed off and ignored our SOS signals, or was it SSSSS signals?. (interesting note is that ISO actually stands for I Sailed Off).

We’re leaning, that’s for sure.

We’ve seen our share of contract stress people over the side, jumping into the icy waters. We lost Kenny “Chief” Marltoon at the close of last year, plus Yong “u haf to frow a dubbl 7” Yeo soon afterwards. They bravely jumped into another ship, that promptly sank, and then both swam off to find something that would float. It’s a surprise that more have not jumped as the telegraph office here is constantly flooded with requests from other boats to join the crew, even some big luxury liners are spamming the airwaves with promises of unlimited martinis and cocktail snossidges.

And what does the New Year hold for us all?, we can rest assured that no matter how much effort we put into pumping that water out of the forward hold, some factions of the organization will be drilling more holes in the hull. The poor contractors, trapped in steerage, will surely be the first to drown as we slip below the surface, of course, there’ll be nothing for the permanent members of the crew to be smug about as they bob about in the icy waters, waiting for their packages to be frozen.


Will the last person off please switch off the light……….


Merry Christmas Everyone.