The sugary tactic of jollying people along just adds insult to injury

DON’T Tell Anyone is a short, unassuming poem by Tony Hoagland that centres on a slightly odd conversation he once had with his wife, in which she revealed to him that she screams underwater when she swims.

‘She has been screaming for years,’ he informs us, ‘into the blue chlorinated water of the community pool where she does laps every other day.’

The poem continues in this same wry, conversational tone – a style that has earned Hoagland a loyal following over the years – and so you hardly notice it worming its way under your skin. But it does.

It’s hard to say why, exactly, but I think it probably has a lot to do with the fact that, as weird and surprising as his wife’s confession is, Hoagland never seems to greet it with anything other than humorous affection.

There’s something very appealing about the way he just accepts what she’s telling him. He understands that, on balance, it’s probably quite a healthy reaction to the stresses and strains of life, and he credits us with understanding that too.

As he says, ‘maybe everyone is screaming silently as they go through life, politely keeping the secret that it’s not all fun’.

I hadn’t thought about Hoagland or this poem for a while, but then something happened last week that made it pop into my head.

The States of Jersey staged their inaugural One Gov awards.

These are (or, at least, they will be from now on) our public sector’s annual awards to recognise above-and-beyond commitment from its employees – people in key areas of the organisation, like youth workers, health professionals, and so on.

And very nice it was, too, to see the boost it so clearly gave the people who won. You can’t fake looking that chuffed.

When you’re working hard and you get some recognition, it’s a great feeling. And only a pre-seasonal Grinch of epic proportions would find anything to argue with in that.

But here’s the thing.

I speak to a lot of civil servants, right across the public sector. I speak to them daily – and in fact, until very recently, I was one of them myself – and never in the decade or more that I have been closely associated with that organisation have I known it to be in such a deep crisis of morale.

And so I couldn’t help thinking, when I saw the shiny, happy, award-winning employees smiling out from the official press release, that there would also be many hundreds of others in every department and service who were silently swallowing their discontent.

Screaming into the water, as it were.

This is a workforce, let’s not forget, that is being pushed to the verge of strike action. They have been subjected to round after round of non-elective organisational surgery, and they can see even more of it coming down the track.

It’s not about whether the cuts are needed or not (we’ve all got our examples of public services that are crying out for reform). It’s about the way it is being done.

You can’t jolly people along.

Intelligent, qualified, dedicated workers need to be spoken to with respect, not mollified with platitudes and bombarded with photos of their great and glorious leader handing out trophies.

That’s not what makes everything okay.

As I’ve said, those award-winners undoubtedly deserve the recognition they were given. But perhaps, too, the rest of the workforce also deserve an award – like, say, a cost-of-living pay rise.

After all, we know that millions of pounds can be found when there are consultants, interims and directors who need paying, so the cupboards can’t be all that bare.

In the BC era (‘Before Charlie’ is how civil servants refer to the time before Mr Parker took over) there was a huge amount of talk about ‘equal pay for equal value’.

It was a central tenet of what used to be called the Workforce Modernisation Programme, but has since become just another of the toppled pillars among the ruins of previous reform efforts.

Perhaps Charlie Parker’s aggressive plans will yield more fruit, perhaps they won’t. No one (him included) knows the answer to that yet.

What we do know, though, is that he has been given way more power than anyone else who has tried – not to mention housing perks and whatever other aspects of his contract the public have not yet been allowed to see.

It will be years before we can tell for sure whether any lasting change has taken root, and there is no guarantee that those who are currently so busy breaking all the omelette eggs will still be around to do the clearing up.

That’s the truth of the matter.

And if I can see that, then so too can the civil servants, the nurses, the teachers, the emergency responders and everyone else.

Set pieces and ceremonies are not going to change their minds. Nor are blanket emails, One Gov high-fives or any of that other PR nonsense.

It’s going to take something real.