GORDON LIGHTFOOT | Local
BEEN A WHILE
Devon Chalmers, a senior digital advisor at the Ministry of Education, was surprised at the state of his office desk this morning, having not seen it in the last four years.
Chalmers said that the pod his team had been absent from had taken on a real ‘haunted house’ vibe, after many years of everyone working from home.
“Quite a lot of cobwebs across our desks. Found a cockroach in one of the wooden drawers, which also looks like it could have borer, haha!
“Amazing how things can just decay after a few years of total neglect,” he laughed.
Chalmers’ also found a printed copy of the MoE’s 2019/20 annual report, which has never been opened.
The 33 year old’s role at MoE involves making updates to content on the ministry’s various public facing websites, which he says is easily done from home on a laptop.
“I don’t think anyone in our team is going to be more productive in the office. If anything there’ll be more distractions and we’ll get through the jobs at a slower rate,” he said while batting away a large spider.
“We’ve never really done team meetings either, just worked through everything over email and through the job request form.”
Some believe the push for public servants to get back to the office is part of a quest to reinvigorate Wellington’s hospitality industry. This median-earning staff member however is reportedly not a coffee drinker and will be generally unhelpful in that domain.
“Buying lunch has always been an expensive waste of money for me. But the system can squeeze a little more from my bus fares at least.
“I’m not complaining though, it’ll actually be good to catch up with people face to face again. Definitely miss that side of it, and a change of scenery is good.
“But it is odd that a centre-right government isn’t willing to just let the market adjust to the work from home trend. Thought that would be right up their side street!” he smiled.
The government would not respond to our questions about the total spend on insect and bug killer following this directive.
More to come.
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