Author’s note: The civil service went on strike. No one noticed.
The UK stood on the brink of “total breakdown” today as 100,000 civil servants withdrew their labour imperilling vital services for the nation.
The strike represents a co-ordinated industrial action by a number of key civil service departments is in response to “appalling pay and conditions” experienced by the “vast majority” of civil servants. Strike leader for the Department of Paperclip Administration, Derek “Fidel” Gadd promised widespread misery for the country unless his demands were met. “Let the nation know the despair of improperly bound reports and loosely attached memoranda” he yelled via a loud hailer to the massed ranks of “fastening and attachment operatives” outside their offices in Bermondsey.
Mr Gadd was supported in his exhortations by Stephen “Dark” Knight, senior administrative assistant for the Department of Adding Up in the Office of National Statistics. Mr. Knight pointed out the many hours of arduous cumulating, collating and “occasionally inventing” statistics that his fellow officers had to carry out. “Many of us are expected to start before 10:00 and leave after 4PM, with only the occasional lunch hour, flexitime holiday, stress related sick leave visit to Alton Towers, working day at home or offsite training week to sustain us.”
Police have confirmed that they had switched to a state of high alert in anticipation of widespread panic as the public learned of delays to issuing industrial growth figures and anxious unemployed students were told of postponed jobseeker assessment interviews. A series of emergency measures has been put in place to provide coverage for the lost services. A contingent of ancillary police workers is already producing large numbers of meaningless reports filled with incomprehensible figures for release to the public. These are allegedly based on the officers’ own timesheets and senior officers’ expenses claims.
The army also remains on standby with a selection of Sergeant Majors ready to take over at job centres as soon as the need arises. The NCO’s will provide mentoring, counselling and “shouting very loudly” services to the unemployed. “We have undergone extensive training in yelling ‘Get back to work you ‘orrible, lazy scum’ and ‘What do you mean your disabled? Let’s see how disabled you are when I chase you round the parade ground with this bayonet sticking up your arse?’ at the good-for-nothing slackers, I mean unfortunately jobless,” shouted Sergeant Major Chris Jones, marching up and down a local job centre, beating the hands of job seekers with his parade stick.
Strike leaders have promised further industrial action with even larger numbers of civil servants throwing down their biros and refusing to action Government information leaflets, provide new reports on ethnicity in central Birmingham or distribute farming subsidies. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, has promised to look into the pay claims, shortly after completing the next round of redundancies and “just as soon as I’ve finished laughing.”
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