Stress

     Goddam it. I thought 'stress' was civil servant jargon for work.
     For a male, lifting a ballpoint or shifting a heavy mouse is obviously physically tiring
and can cause excessive toe-jam and pre-nuptial baldness.
     And females (the stronger sex) suffer from hairy armpits and collapse gracefully with
head cradled in arms after much discussion as to whose turn it is to make the coffee.
     Surely such minor work hazards could be solved with a little compassion and an electric razor? There's nothing under the office pot plant that causes the sky to fall on civil servants. After all, if they take a month off for a funeral, nobody notices they're missing. The business of administering the much vilified public continues regardless of personal difficulties.
     Mind you, I suffer from work related 'stress.' Every morning I wait impatiently for my
local bar to open. Then I have to place the twenty dollar note the right way up in the
gambling machine to register the credits. The treadmill repetitition of pushing the button causes Occupational Overuse Syndrome. Plus the sheer tediousness of waiting for the machine to play a catchy tune causes emotional starvation. Not to mention the long wait for my just winnings.
     It's not easy being a professional gambler. You've got to know when to quit and
know when to have another vino. And learning to stare down the machine takes years to
master. But if I can stoically survive the horrors of the machine age. Why can't our civil
servants survive a few work related incidents?
     New Zealand has a slow paced work environment and putting things off until
tomorrow is standard procedure. Nothing is 'that' urgent. Yet we have people taking leave due to occupational inconveniences.
     We pay out large sums for 'stress' indulgers. One must ask the obvious.

                                        Are our priorities correct?