The Pen Is Back!!!

It’s been a while since I’ve addressed all of the totus bul tata that has been orbiting my personal atmosphere.

For those of you who require some sort of translation, please allow me …

Totus Bul Tata – My own Latin for the total bull shit that seems to need constant release.

Moving on …

WASA: The Ballad of Many a Dry River
Shock of shocks! There is corruption at the Water and Sewerage Authority! People have actually been making money off of the water woes of the common man. WOW … (as my boss would say with that particularly sarcastic drawl). I can attest personally to the fact that we the consumers have been paying for truck borne water deliver for EONS! There have been illegal and ‘almost’ legal connections made to WASA mains for forever!

Why is everyone so shocked by this now? And how dare the new CEO and Chairman talk about the fact that this authority is rotten from the head down and right through the core??! The unions connected with WASA have taken this statement personally, and well they should. The sad thing is that they are taking it to heart for the WRONG reasons. They appear to be genuinely surprised that anyone would ever endeavor to point fingers at their membership for committing such sins.

YEAH RIGHT!!!

Wake the hell up Pilgrims. This shit has been the status quo since time immemorial. The thing is that had it not been for changes at the helm and in the climate pattern, much of this would have gone unnoticed or dealt with … just like the leaks in the roads that have to be repaired 20 – 100 times before the family businesses of WASA officials can be financially sated.

Question – has WASA collected ALL of the outstanding monies owed to them by big business and governmental departments and ministries? Are consumers still being billed for water and sewerage services that they haven’t received? Are ‘favors’ still the order of the day at WASA headquarters if I need to have something done? And are people in certain departments still being paid for a full days’ work when they typically leave after two hours? Just asking …

Drought is apparent all round, financial, moral and actual drought.

I’m all for conservation, but you can’t tell me how long m shower needs to be until you fix the myriad leaks all over the island(s). you can’t tell me that y yard has to become a dust-bowl until your Engineering, Planning and Implementation departments start working COHESIVELY with the Ministry of Works and Transport, thereby allowing for WORKING SMART and not HARD; i.e. don’t wait until Works fixes the road to SUDDENLY remember that there is a need to OPEN A TRENCH for water/sewerage works to be done … EPIC FAIL!

PS: Loving the fact that everyone is wearing their dusty covered cars like a badge of courage! Too cute …

TTRA: An Umbrella? Unheard of …
Welcome to the era of Sophisticated Fuckwittedness. Self explanatory peeps …

So the Trinidad and Tobago Revenue Authority is an umbrella authority that would seek to bring all revenue-based authorities/ministerial departments into one cohesive unit. So far, so good. So discussions and negotiations for this authority have been ongoing since the early 2000’s … talks have been held with the relevant stakeholders … sod was turned for the development of the ministerial campus – INCLUSIVE of offices for same. Okay … we good.

As a result of totally asinine and fucked up decision making and actions by the former leadership of the Public Servants Association (PSA), there’s a new Sheriff in town … we’ll call him Cowboy Y – as in ‘WHY ARE YOU SO FUCKIN STUPID??’ All of a sudden, decisions that were all but made, and settlements that were close doff and accepted are all back up in the air? Again with the Unions. Cowboy Y has NO authority to promise public servants payments … much less say WHEN such payments would be made. So yet again … why are grown people blindly following the Sheriff into certain doom? Can we talk here? Let’s chat about the Pack Rat Mentality (PRM) or maybe it’s Grown Folk Peer Pressure (GFPP) … not sure, but it IS something. Some of those people who are risking aneurysms while marching aimlessly in 36-degree Celsius weather are some of the same people who profess that they are independent and free thinkers. Here’s the thing … these are also the same parents who ask their children if they would jump off of a cliff if little Timmy next door did it. Meantime, they are yelling at their kids for looking at them in THAT tone of voice – the one that says “Are you Freakin’ serious??!”

Again with the massive doses of sleeping pills … WAKE UP!!! You are effectively ‘spinning top in mud’ when you should be doing what you can to prepare for early retirement or career shifts. I never said that it was pleasant … what I am saying is that it is time to stop acting like you didn’t know that it was going to happen … YOU KNEW! Stop drinking the blasted Kool-Aid and take a purge!

Opposition: We Just Say No For No’s Sake
What a frickin’ mess this Motley Crew be! What – I’m supposed to give them a free pass just because the leader is a female? Fuckno! It’s because a woman is rumored to have more common sense that I will NOT. People … if you’re gonna say ‘no’ to a bill/amendment/Chinese take-out restaurant order – give a fuckin’ reason! No for no doesn’t sit well with the public at large. We are a lot smarter than you think we are – honest! Shit like that just pisses us off.

Then there is the latest batch of Parliamentarians. The leader has successfully regurgitated a man so pompous, a man with his head stuck so far up his ass that he is effectively out of touch with reality and common sense. He needs to go back to visiting the damnable Queen.

Another faux pas is the keeping and placing in the front bench … the Automaton of the Panday Era – the Marked one. What purpose can he possibly serve but to be a constant reminder of a bygone time that most of us would rather forget???!

Then there is the addition of the bald-headed, ox-like moron (did I say that out loud???!) – I mean, oxymoron. She began her decades of being the Tirade Queen by going up against the then UNC government – which by the way was made up of the majority of jackals that surround her now – the same ones who spat her out without her long-service award, gratuity and pension. Enter the era of the Bell and Placard – but where is she now? Sitting in the opposition UNC’s lap, of course. But wait – it get’s worse. Every year she parades the highways and byways supposedly in the name of and for the love of children. This includes her recent crying jag at the funeral held for that unfortunate family recently gunned down in the midst of gang warfare. She cried … she cried for the ones gone and she cried for the ones left behind. Yet she stood in Parliament last week and wept for the PRISONERS? Aren’t these the same prisoners, some of whom sit in their cells with their mobile phones and order hits from within those walls??? PICK A FUCKIN SIDE AND BE TRUE TO IT! Y’all waffle more than Aunt Jemima.

Is it any wonder that many view this particular leader’s election of some sort of political gag, with her dangling at the end of some marionette strings???

This is where the Pen pauses … stay tuned for more!

DREAMING AWAY AT NATIONAL SECURITY WHILE VISIONS OF OJT’S DANCE IN OUR MUDDLED HEADS …

It should have been a simple process … it was supposed to be in-and-out in about a half an hour. It was not to be.

Anyone who lives here, has visited here or has even had a layover in our airport has come into contact with the bureaucratic labyrinth that is the Immigration process in Trinidad and Tobago; and none of the aforementioned segments of our society have ever really fully made it out of the maze.

Well … I found myself fully ensconced in the Matrix on Wednesday. I entered the matrix that morning at approximately 9AM when I presented myself to the offices of a REPUTABLE Commissioner of Affidavits, only to find a long line of fellow hopefuls and doors that were firmly shut … AT 9AM in a notoriously 8 to 4 country … STRIKE ONE.

I took myself off to the Hall of Justice to visit with my sister-friend, who is a Clerk to Judges, where I was informed that she was not in the building, only to call her and have her appear from INSIDE the very building that she was supposedly out of … this is a building that is virtually crawling with every sort of security device, cameras a, police and security personnel. RIIIIIIIIIIIGHT! STRIKE TWO.

I went back to the offices of the reputable commissioner of affidavits to find that she was indeed on duty with an office full of people frothing at the mouth to have their wrongs righted by the goodly officer of the Public Domain. I waited, got my form signed and stamped, paid my fees and took myself off to the Immigration Department – a division of the Ministry of National Security.

I opened the doors to two serpentining, intertwining lines – one to the Receptionist … one to the Collections Counter. I had to play a game of FIND MY END to know where I should stand. While shuffling off to my own private ‘Buffalo”, I witnessed four women bedecked in key cards swinging from their necks reading the words ‘MINISTRY OF CULTURE’, sauntering in. One of them stood off to the left and the other three proceeded to the counter to be attended to. Did I mention that they went directly to the SAME counter that approximately TWENTY of us were standing IN A LINE to get to for the same service? No? Well they did. This incensed a few of my fellow shufflers and they proceeded t raise a bit of a stink, one of them even going to far as to take himself to the front of the line. That’s when the policeman on duty decided that he felt the need to act.

Here’s the hilarity … these three women walked STRAIGHT UP TO THE COUNTER and officer chupidy stood by and WATCHED, but one man moved from the ACTUAL LINE and he is angry??? WHAT THE FUCK???! STRIKE THREE.

Another officer came over and spoke to the gentleman and informed him that that sort of thing happens often when OTHER GOVERNMENTAL OFFICERS come in to the office. Note to self: wear a Governmental key card around neck the NEXT time I need to be treated ‘SPECIALLY’ at a governmental office .

Having finally gained the front of the ACTUAL line, I presented my documents and was about to explain about my lost passport and form regarding same when I was told that all they needed were the ID Cards involved. I submitted same, was told that the passports were ready and that I needed to have a seat and wait for my name to be called. I complied.

I sat there observing the colourfully dressed members of staff, wondering how come they weren’t wearing the prescribed blue and grey uniform of the Division. I dismissed the thought as I continued my penance – yes my penance because it was almost three hours before I was called to the Issuance Counter. I produced the documents required only to be told THEN that I was unable to collect my passport because my LOST PASSPORT FORM was printed on the WRONG SIZED PAPER and not two sided as recommended. I am standing at the counter with a form, signed by the Police and a Commissioner of Affidavits (A signature and stamp that I had to pay for as previously stated!) and you’re going to tell me that it’s the wrong sized paper when your fuckin’ PDF files feed at lettersized???! And how exactly is this my fault???!

I am then sent to the receptionist who then proceeds to tell me that I “Cyah get a form until yuh have ah appointment.” I then inhale as DEEPLY as possible so as not to blow this little fuckwits brains out and inform the little brightly dressed OJTer that I was in fact COLLECTING MY ALREADY PROCESSED PASSPORT … that I already had my appointment and was sent to her to see if the form would be accepted. She then informs “Well I have tuh talk to my Supervisor!” I then went back to the other brightly dressed person who sent me to her in the first place to ask why I can’t get the passport on submission of the form, only to be told that they have to INVESTIGATE whether my passport is REALLY lost – as if I would go through this insipid shit all over again – because no one is to have two valid passports. I tell miss thing that my passport was expired and that all she has to do is check the form in front of her. eyes are rolled at me … “Ma’am … be that as it may we HAVE to investigate!”

Question – If I lost my passport and couldn’t find it, having traced and retraced my steps, how de arse are they going to investigate the whereabouts of my passport? Is the plan to stand on every corner in Port of Spain and shout ‘HERE PASSPORT, PASSPORT, PASSPORT!” in the hopes that it fuckin answers???
When the illusive Supervisor finally turns up forty five minutes later the woman – another TEMP – informs me that I ‘Should have KNOWN that I needed to ADJUST the PDF FEED so that it would print on Legal paper” and then proceeds to ask me in her own ‘warm’ way “YOU TINK YOU IS DE ONLY PERSON WHOEVER PRINT DIS FORM ONLINE?” I open my mouth to tell her just what I think of her fuckwitted and nasty-ass attitude but she cuts me off with “:ANYWAY WE EH ARGUIN ABOUT DE FORM. IT WRONG AN’ IS NOT OUR FAULT – START OVER!” and then she shoves a printed form at me … looks over my head and shouts “NEXT!”

Now I ask you --- what would you have done then? How would you have felt, having been so unceremoniously dismissed by a PUBLIC SERVANT WHOSE SALARY AND BENEFITS ARE PAID BY YOUR BLOOD, SWEAT, TEARS AND TAXES? In fact how would you react having been assaulted by an entire fuckin system???!

Honestly, I felt raped, taken advantage of and thrown on a heap for speedy disposal.

I know that temps and OJTers are a part of life in the government service – heck, I’ve been a temp in the service – and kudos to the powers that be for trying to train out young’uns for the world of work; but that’s just it – THESE PEOPLE ARE NOT TRAINED!

After what I and the other pilgrims went through on Wednesday – I suggest that the Ministry of National Security Passport office is NOT the place for priggish, ill-mannered temps and pregnant, impatient, short-tempered OJTers – people are already in a state of shock and annoyance when they open those doors and enter the Labyrinth of Bedlam … the Matrix of Mayhem. It would so ease the pain and frustration to be served by a PROFESSIONAL member of staff who has a clue, some manners, and proper CSR training, but I know that somewhere in the dark and cobwebbed filled corridors of the Ministerial Human Resources Department, some grey-headed clerk just had a fuckin heart attack because they can’t remember the last time they heard CSR Training and Staff in the same sentence! That shit just ain’t done!

So as a result, we are doomed to remain like Charlie One Note … dancing in our sleep and dreaming of the day when someone cracks the code and we can finally escape THE MATRIX OF BUREAUCRATIC DOOM with the simple words “Good Morning, How can I be of service to you today?”

NB: For those of you who don’t know, an OJTer is an On The Job Training participant.