The sick men (and women) of Northern Ireland

Have to get a laugh at this - Finance Minister Peter Robinson has let the world know that Civil Servants in Northern Ireland take an average of a fortnight off on the sick per year and in a written answer to the Assembly, he said that 'managing sickness absence was a key priority for government'.

Is this prick for real?

Let's remind ourselves that Mr. Robinson, along with 107 other right honourable members, spent four years - yes, four fucking years - sitting on their collective backside doing dick-all and getting paid for it; now they have the audacity to turn round and lecture their poorly treated, poorly paid staff about managing sickness and giving taxpayers value for money.

It appears that now the hands on the greasy levers of power are local, those who have the misfortune to be Civil Servants are going to get it in the neck. Just remember one thing Mr. Robinson - this time, we voted you in and we can throw you out on your hole again.

Stick your 'developmental opportunity' up your hole

Always willing as I am to better myself, and to escape the cunt-infested farce that I currently work in, I decided a few weeks ago to apply for an internal 'developmental opportunity' that came up. I sent off the application, and after the Christmas holidays I received my invitation to attend their testing session at Wellington Park Hotel.

Now, I hasten to add to that this was not a promotion, it was a sideways move. An IT Technican job at Stormont Castle. I would be staying at the same grade. So off I went to the test.

When I got to the hotel, there was literally a couple of hundred people there. 'Not good', I thought. With tests over five days, around 2000 people would be tested. For 20 fucking jobs.

When I opened the test paper, I expected to be asked questions on aspects of IT, like protocols, network topologies, that sort of thing. Stuff that I'm qualified in. Oh no. What I sat was a glorified IQ test that Stephen Hawkings would have had trouble finishing. I left the room that day feeling demoralised and deflated.

I got the 'wise up and fuck off' letter today, which was what I had been expecting. With no disrespect to those who were successful, you can bet your bollix that those who will get the jobs will know fuck all squared about IT, which makes me think the whole thing is a stitch-up designed to give a veener of legitimacy (ie, Equal Opportunies and Fair Employment compliance) to a process in which who was getting what job was decided long before the competition was even advertised. Think I'm bitter? Cynical? Fucking right I am, and I'll tell you why.

The department that I work in has a very high turnover of staff. Which is no big surprise, because the senior management are about as much use as tits on a nun. The wrong people are filling the wrong jobs, and it shows, because you have cunts working in IT sections that know nothing about computers and people with severe personality disorders in charge of staff. The Chief Executive is a complete and utter wanker, and his fluffers that works directly beneath him come up with hare-brained like moving masses of people from building to building every couple of months solely to make it look like they're 'doing' something. They waste thousands of pounds a year on monthly glossy in-house magazines and hiring Samaritians-type counselling firms to listen to staff whinging, while most people in the department have to take on another part-time job solely to keep their heads above water because they are not paid a decent wage. Promotions are decided on whether you join your senior managers in the bar on a Friday night. Nepotism occurs on such a scale that it makes Fianna Fáil look like a child's fucking picnic party.

Never, EVER, get a job in the Northern Ireland Civil Service.

Grotesque, Unbelievable, Bizarre and Unprecedented

I must have been a complete bastard in a previous life because, unfortunately, I work for the Northern Ireland Civil Service, which is a bit like being back at school, except there's no Christian Brothers checking to see if you're 'wearing clean underwear'. So that makes the Oh Great Bronzed One, Northern Ireland Secretary (and for Wales, and for wherever the fuck else he feels like being in charge of this week) Peter Hain, my ultimate boss.

Now, Peter is a man of ambition. When Tony Blair pisses off to the lecture circuit and the House of Lords later this year, he'll take 'Two Shags' John Prescott with him; so when Gordon Brown takes over, he'll need a new deputy doormat, and our Pete wants to be the one that spunks his trunks when Gord says to him: 'Nip next door to the Spar and get me 20 Regal and the Daily Mirror, there's a good lad'.

So, in playing to the Old Labour gallery for support, our Pete decided to stick the boot into the whizz-kids in the City of London, criticising their £25 million bonuses. You won't get any complaints from me on that one. However, Hain goes on to say that 'Most people find it pretty grotesque that a couple of dozen City executives can share a billion pounds of bonuses between them'.

I'll tell you something else that most people, especially in our own Occupied Six Counties/This Here Pravince* (*delete as appropriate) find grotesque, Pete. They find the fact that you can pay your own employees just a fraction above the minimum wage 'grotesque'. They find the fact that someone doing the same job in the Welsh Office is paid more than someone in Northern Ireland 'grotesque'. They find the fact that you have given your top dogs in the NICS an £8000 backpay while ordinary Joe Soap gets a couple of hundred quid 'grotesque'. AND they find 'grotesque' the fact that you use that all that saved lolly to fund your sadist weekend naked mud-pit wrestling sessions with Carol Vorderman, Iris Robinson and Pat Butcher from Eastenders taking it in turns to pierce your bangle with a strap-on while wanking you off into Ronan Keating's gob. (OK, so I made the last bit up, but hey, it could explain why he looks so brown).

Let someone in London worry about the bonuses in the City. My only concern is my own backyard Pete, and you're not paying me a decent wage. So take your finger out of your fucking hole and do something about it.