/ 2 May 2017

A Workers’ Day for deadbeats

'Neither of you turned out the way I hoped you would.'
'Neither of you turned out the way I hoped you would.'

I think it’s fair to say that President Jacob Zuma has given notice and is exhibiting all the characteristics of an employee seeing out his notice period. There is a lack of enthusiasm and the notion that it is now okay to steal staplers and state money.

The laziest worker in all of the land is running down the clock like an old pro. He has given his full 55% for the duration of his contract and is now clinging to the one goal he set for himself when he signed up for the job: he will walk out of here laughing and never look back.

I know the feeling of walking around the office like a nonentity all too well. I’ve seen the mix of envy and disgust in the eyes of my colleagues; conversation with the receptionist dries up to greetings only; a damp spot on the ceiling above my desk grows larger every day.

But Zuma is not quitting — as I used to do — and politics is nothing like the workplace.

Although supposedly given the position by the people, a president never answers to them. In politics you can quit in a huff, but negotiate the terms of your exit from the union — like still swinging by for Friday drinks — because, hey, you’re just over the road.

In politics you can celebrate your 100-day probation period with the largest pat on the back that your tiny hands can give you.

The whole thing is upside down. If you’re young and innocent and reading this you might as well know it now: politics, and by extension the world, is messed up and so are the adults who run it.

In South Africa, getting fired on Friday means pitching up on Monday to show them exactly who’s boss.

When the courts declare you unfit to hold a position you split your personality, refer to your balls in the third person and claim to hold many positions at the same time, as I did on Workers’ Day when I simultaneously assumed a sitting position on the couch and a standing position in the shower.

Kids, adults will tell you, with a faraway look in their eyes, that these things are “ironic” or “a real Catch-22”. That calling an empty bank account a “savings account” is “surprising” and seeing T-shirts marked down before winter is “odd”.

To understand the logic behind what they’re saying you’ll have to read the book Catch-22 but — and here’s that irony again — when you’re at school there’s hardly any time to read for fun.

It’s crazy, I know. So here’s to the next Workers’ Day, when we’ll all sit at home doing nothing, watching our president going through the motions seeing out his notice period and ruining office morale.