Marryatt: L'Oreal man 'cause 'he's worth it'
JOE BENNETT
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Joe Bennett
OPINION: Is there a public-spirited private detective out there? If so, I would like him to snoop on Mr Marryatt, the head of the Christchurch City Council. This is partly because Mr Marryatt has set a detective to snoop on me. Tit, as it were, for tit.
At the same time, as one of Mr Marryatt's 400,000 employers, I would like to know whether he is still whacking my rates around a golf course while claiming to be at work, and, indeed, seeking sympathy for being at work.
(Mr Marryatt's defence that he "needed to clear his head" was, I presume, an attempt at humour. Public servants should never attempt humour. Indeed, if Mr Marryatt promises never again to try to be funny, I promise not to apply for his job.)
The city council is clearly unwell. With my habitual generosity, I shall show it how to get better. But first I exempt from criticism the council workers.
They have performed wonders, restoring the water supply, fixing sewers and reopening roads.
Most of them earn less in a year than Mr Marryatt has received as a pay rise and their chances of getting a 14 per cent increase are the same as my chances of getting a kiss from Mr Marryatt.
The sickness, as always, shows up in the language. Mr Marryatt, for example, is known as a CEO. But he is not a CEO. A CEO runs a competitive business that has to earn money. The council is a monopoly that does not have to earn money. It just demands money from ratepayers. So Mr Marryatt's job is merely to oversee the spending of a guaranteed income. Spending is easier than earning.
Mr Marryatt's role used to have the more accurate title of town clerk. I think we should revive it. It is an honourable title but it stresses that the role is clerical. No-one pays a clerk half a million bucks.
I propose that we all refer to Mr Marryatt from now on as Clerk Tony. For one thing, it might improve his popularity. The name suggests a jolly Chaucerian pilgrim, toddling towards Canterbury in his jandals, telling stories as he goes and stopping for the occasional head-clearing round of medieval golf.
And it's an improvement on other names I have heard him called. A lawyer, who rang me the other day to offer support, referred to Mr Marryatt as L'Oreal Man.
"Why?" I said. "Because," said the lawyer, "he thinks he's worth it."
The interview that Clerk Tony gave to justify his pay rise has been described as a PR disaster. It was just the opposite. By speaking with unguarded honesty, Clerk Tony let the public see his corporate mindset and his disdain for the ratepayers.
The corporate mindset bedevils the council. In imitation of the business world, it has a legion of managers with inflated titles. This helps them to forget they are public servants. Public servant is another honourable title I hope to revive.
Henceforth I plan to address the regulation and democracy services manager as Servant Mitchell. I doubt that it will improve my standing with him, but I am long past caring.
The council has a vast communications department. Yet it is lousy at communicating. This is because in corporate speak "communications" does not mean communicating. It means propaganda. It means press releases expressing concern for my safety when the council is only concerned about its own legal liability. It means the boastful semi- literate flier that accompanies your rates demand and tries to disguise the fact that the rates keep rising faster than your income.
The communications department performs the same task for the council as an advertising agency performs for a corporation.
For reasons I do not understand, the council also has a marketing section. It was this mob, I'd imagine, that gave the Municipal Works Department the touchy-feely title of "City Care". They coined the ludicrous slogan "Love your Rubbish" and they wrote "Your city; Your people" on the side of council vehicles. If this last statement needs to be made, it is probably untrue.
All of it is propagandist puffery, in imitation of the exciting corporate world. And that in the end is what is wrong. The council is not a corporation but a public service that has lost sight of its purpose.
That purpose is to serve the people with honesty and humility. The people are not consumers to be duped and milked, nor yet peasants to be bullied, nor yet innocents to be protected, nor yet idiots to be patronised. They are autonomous adults and they are the council's masters.
Setting a snoop on Clerk Tony would be no different from marking the gin bottle to ensure that the butler isn't sly-grogging.
- © Fairfax NZ News
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The Christchurch I leave over ten years ago was proud to refer to itself as the People's Republic of Christchurch. What ever happened to public servants like Vicki Buck and Garry Moore? Now the city has Guy Smiley and this clown...
Joe, You could be the next Wizard or Bird man or something for the council. Obviously the 99% are starting to get voices. Use it wisely now!
Wow, Joe, you've certainly hit the nail on the head! CCC has lost its compass entirely, adrift in a sea of corporate-speak.
Unlike Roger Sutton who accepted a substantial dive in salary to assist Christchurch's recovery, Tony Marryatt believes his $68,000 pay rise is justified, fiercely and arrogantly defending his position, insisting he deserves it!
Obviously our society’s new elite are so accustomed to their high life, so out of touch with everyday reality, so filled with an inflated idea of their own worth, that they view a wage hike of this magnitude "normal".
Our city lies in ruins and our civic leaders are merrily emptying the depleted coffers on their own self-indulgence. And doing it in the current austerity climate where other workers are denied even a few cents per hour raise. It’s criminal! Isn't this the very thing the "Occupy" movement is protesting about?
Bob Parker has defended the relocation of the Council call centre to the North Island as a precaution against an extreme event. Yet he claims that finding a replacement for the mysteriously indispensable Marryatt would take at least two years. So if Chief Clerk Tony were to be hit by a hypothetical bus, there's no provision made for an event that Parker claims would paralyse Christchurch. The cult of Tony becomes more bizarre by the day: http://asstdgoodies.blogspot.com/2012/01/seismology-101-with-mayor-bob.html
The Emperor's New Clothes? The CEO would appear to be the consummate tailor.
The only way to show what we really think is to turn up to the Feb 1 protest! This must happen. 12pm council's Hereford St offices. I am taking an extended lunch break to voice my concern, and show what I really think about this disgusting pay rise.
Brilliant piece! Let's revive "clerk" all around the employment universe. And "salesman" instead of "consultant".
@ #144 Lesley McTurk. She was also extreamely divisive.
Great stuff - agree with Joe.
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@Mark #126
"Marryatt has a huge job and is working under continual unrelenting scrutiny."
We all have continual scrutiny in our jobs. They're generally called bosses. And we don't need or get extortionate amounts of money to make us feel better about that.
"local government is much more complex because of the political aspects and the challenge of meeting diverse and often unclear goals."
The last job I was in had a very vague business plan, my goals were unclear and I had to develop the role as I went along. Still waiting for my 14% payrise though.
"When is a so called journalist made publicly accountable?"
Accountable for what? Having an opinion? Cause I'm pretty sure all allowed to have that.