Monday, April 30, 2012
Local politics
At least, as reported in our free newspaper, the Epsom Guardian, always on the look out for cheap copy to place between the advertisements.
The first item was the continuing library wars (see April 9), with this issue containing a letter from a library volunteer who takes her volunteering seriously and is seriously annoyed that some other correspondent, a library employee rather than a volunteer, has been knocking the library volunteers. Knocking which included complaining about their coffee cup behaviour - this being one of the few things that could get a teachers' staff room going back in the days when BH was a teacher. Far more important that the tiresome business of educating our future movers and shakers. I suppose it is not surprising that library staff are not pleased about being displaced by volunteers, but one hopes that displacement can be accommodated by natural wastage rather than by compulsory redundancies and that leaving packs can include an application form so that those leaving to spend more time with their families can reapply for their old jobs as volunteers, it being a pity to throw all those skills away. It is also true the volunteers can be a pain: one cannot enforce work discipline in the way that you can with employees and from time to time one will be lumbered with a volunteer who is a real pain but who is also real hard to dislodge. Maybe the wheeze of having a paid manager to supervise the volunteers utilised by some charities strikes the right balance. At least you can then insist that the paid manager checks the coffee cup situation before he or she leaves at night.
Not clear though how the coffee cup business arises. If a library is entirely run by volunteers, how do staff coffee cups get into the story? While one might want to indoctrinate new volunteers in a proper library, I imagine segregation is best. Keep staff and volunteers well away from each other.
I am also reminded of a German story I heard some years ago. To the effect that it is wrong that white collar workers expect their salaries to go on going up throughout their careers. First, our needs are greater in the middle of our careers that at the end. Second, our output is greater in the middle of our careers than at the end. Third, not affordable if we are to carry on working until we are seventy - and I might say I am very glad that I did not have to.
The second item was the mayoral family team continuing to bang on about the neglected state of a small cemetery on the edge of what used to be one of our mental hospitals. Last resting place for, amongst others, some of the unmarried mothers who had been incarcerated in said hospitals on grounds of moral turpitude and various servicemen who wound up in one of them during one of the world wars. I think the graves are unmarked and I do not suppose that there are any living relatives who know or care about them. And while it is right that we should show some respect for the dead, I also think that it might be more sensible if we had some ceremony for desecrating such a cemetery so that the land can revert to normal use. The desecration ceremony - perhaps conducted by the mayor to avoid the problem of what brand of parson was appropriate - would show proper respect while allowing the world to move on.
Something not very healthy about clinging to the past in this way. Perhaps reflecting, in this case, our guilt about our treatment of the dead and dying. Hopefully not a craving for publicity.
PS: visit to the Epsom Il Ponte (see October 4th) for Sunday lunch yesterday. Lots of well behaved children, large portions and a disabled toilet. Our main course was a cod version of Sunday roast, this Italian restaurant feeling the need to go in for them, perhaps to keep up with Wetherspoons. The piece of cod was large, a bit tired, covered in a rather bland sauce and served with the sort of vegetables which might have gone down better with roast beef. Nothing like as good as the rather simpler cod we had baked at home on Wednesday. Nevertheless, the starter (pizza light) and pudding (tiramisu) were good and the bill was very reasonable. A very pleasant occasion.
The first item was the continuing library wars (see April 9), with this issue containing a letter from a library volunteer who takes her volunteering seriously and is seriously annoyed that some other correspondent, a library employee rather than a volunteer, has been knocking the library volunteers. Knocking which included complaining about their coffee cup behaviour - this being one of the few things that could get a teachers' staff room going back in the days when BH was a teacher. Far more important that the tiresome business of educating our future movers and shakers. I suppose it is not surprising that library staff are not pleased about being displaced by volunteers, but one hopes that displacement can be accommodated by natural wastage rather than by compulsory redundancies and that leaving packs can include an application form so that those leaving to spend more time with their families can reapply for their old jobs as volunteers, it being a pity to throw all those skills away. It is also true the volunteers can be a pain: one cannot enforce work discipline in the way that you can with employees and from time to time one will be lumbered with a volunteer who is a real pain but who is also real hard to dislodge. Maybe the wheeze of having a paid manager to supervise the volunteers utilised by some charities strikes the right balance. At least you can then insist that the paid manager checks the coffee cup situation before he or she leaves at night.
Not clear though how the coffee cup business arises. If a library is entirely run by volunteers, how do staff coffee cups get into the story? While one might want to indoctrinate new volunteers in a proper library, I imagine segregation is best. Keep staff and volunteers well away from each other.
I am also reminded of a German story I heard some years ago. To the effect that it is wrong that white collar workers expect their salaries to go on going up throughout their careers. First, our needs are greater in the middle of our careers that at the end. Second, our output is greater in the middle of our careers than at the end. Third, not affordable if we are to carry on working until we are seventy - and I might say I am very glad that I did not have to.
The second item was the mayoral family team continuing to bang on about the neglected state of a small cemetery on the edge of what used to be one of our mental hospitals. Last resting place for, amongst others, some of the unmarried mothers who had been incarcerated in said hospitals on grounds of moral turpitude and various servicemen who wound up in one of them during one of the world wars. I think the graves are unmarked and I do not suppose that there are any living relatives who know or care about them. And while it is right that we should show some respect for the dead, I also think that it might be more sensible if we had some ceremony for desecrating such a cemetery so that the land can revert to normal use. The desecration ceremony - perhaps conducted by the mayor to avoid the problem of what brand of parson was appropriate - would show proper respect while allowing the world to move on.
Something not very healthy about clinging to the past in this way. Perhaps reflecting, in this case, our guilt about our treatment of the dead and dying. Hopefully not a craving for publicity.
PS: visit to the Epsom Il Ponte (see October 4th) for Sunday lunch yesterday. Lots of well behaved children, large portions and a disabled toilet. Our main course was a cod version of Sunday roast, this Italian restaurant feeling the need to go in for them, perhaps to keep up with Wetherspoons. The piece of cod was large, a bit tired, covered in a rather bland sauce and served with the sort of vegetables which might have gone down better with roast beef. Nothing like as good as the rather simpler cod we had baked at home on Wednesday. Nevertheless, the starter (pizza light) and pudding (tiramisu) were good and the bill was very reasonable. A very pleasant occasion.
# posted by Jim @ 1:37 AM 
