OTTAWA – All federal departments and Crown Corporations will now have an added job requirement: feeling completely empty, hopeless and void of human emotion.
Treasury Board President Tony Clement made the announcement in a recruitment ad flanked by stone-faced and colourless bureaucrats who appeared to blend into the background.
“Do you feel like you can make a difference in the lives of Canadians?” asked Clement rhetorically. “Then the public service is clearly not for you. We’re looking for completely apathetic, soul-crushed candidates to fill the nearly 300,000 jobs for the Government of Canada.”
Clement explained that public servants who hate everything – especially themselves – are more likely to stay at the same job for years, endure endless layers of approval and don’t mind being a political scapegoat for when things go wrong.
“Do you have what it takes to not care about how your hard work is going to waste? Are you willing to wait for a long time for anything to get done while counting down the days until retirement? Have you been completely drained of love and passion for your work? Then you’re a born natural for bureaucracy.”
The new requirements will take into account a government worker’s existing cynical worldview, years of education that are not being applied and his or her thousand yard stare.
“If you’ve already ‘checked-out’ on life and know you’re completely powerless, you’ll be instantly promoted to an Assistant Deputy Minister position in the Department of your choice” added Clement.
Feeling dead on the inside will be added into the the standard public servant tests, reflected in questions like: ‘On a scale of 1-5, one being the least and five being the greatest, how worthless do you feel?’ and ‘how frequently do wish you had another career?’
According to sources, Clement decreed that all public servants must now wear ball gags 24 hours a day to prevent any information leaks or expressions of creativity.
