reading

The book Freedom of Johnathan Franzen got my attention because I saw an interview with the writer on Dutch  television. So last week I bought it. Maybe I learn some more things about the philosophy of life.

Some weeks ago I was at a party of someone who I gave Savater's In praise of profanity
Bruna.nl describes this book on it's site:
"In a playful but insistent way Savater in this book provides an anatomy of religion as a delusion: it is the fear of death that man makes one yearn for eternal life. Doubt God means recognizing that our existence is finite. Savater Thus, the key questions of human existence: what is truth and what are we afraid of? Why is a good life on earth preferable to an infinite afterlife? In his reflections about this Savater used as inspiration the work of great thinkers on the relationship between man and God, as Spinoza, Hegel, Bertrand Russell and Hannah Arendt, but just as easily Mark Twain and Richard Feynman. Savater also sheds light on the role of religion in today's world of postmodern 'something-ism' to political Islam and Christianity to neo-conservative fundamentalist credulity.

The conclusion is clear: what man needs is not faith in God but believe in the ever perfect, rarely heavenly, but always infinite possibilities of man himself."


The bold text refers to the famous Dutch writer Harry Mulisch who once said that though everybody will die, it's not 100 % certain he will die. So that moment, Mulisch said, he is immortal because it isn't certain he will die too. Mulisch died last week on October 30 2010. He wasn't immortal.
I saw the emotional farewell ceremony on live television and it was like a Shakespeare play.

This weekend I have much to do.
It's work related; Works council.

I have some critics about the Management on every level.
I spoke E. about her work and she told me a sad story how her work as a ******* has been used. Openness is a great thing to pursue. More communication should make people happier. Now they have the feeling to be excluded. I don't know what the usual practice is, but shouldn't external ****** with ****** parties be the exclusive work for the *******?

E. also told that incentives are blocked by different levels of management. She doesn't feel comfortable to work for the municipality. Everybody works for his own benefit and keeps information for himself. This makes the organisation vulnerable.

Another interesting thing is the reorganisation of the department and the Service as a whole.
The department I talk about has 3 quality-workers who criticise the work of counselors, while another department which doesn't work efficient and effective makes a reorganisation necessary.
It is a political decision to have the reorganisation. I ask myself if the public servants have nothing to say on how it will be done. Probably an expensive consultation office will judge the progress and adjust when it's necessary.
Of course I know that the first report triggered the reform but after that a political decision was made to change the organisation to a front and back-office organisation.
E's department has it already and it works (with a lot of changes for all the people). Integration with other departments makes it hard again for many people. (Some almost had a breakdown because of the previous change.)

In a last month's meeting with the director I brought the communication up for discussion. I only said that there is no openness in the organisation. I immediately felt that red alert from star-trek "shields up." The face of the director came in the defense mode.

I can understand in some way her reaction because the director tries to be open, but it's not her it's the organisation as a whole. The way we work, it's a kind of hierarchic.
I talked about it with another colleague and he argued that the government needs more hierarchy than businesses because it's the public cause with public money. That's true but the civil service has to have more
entrepreneurship. This the secretary of the former Major said to some people in a discussion I attended.

At least we should take that concept into consideration.
It means more responsibility with the employees. Therefore the educational level of the employees should be increased. I told about it before.
In fact the educational level increased in the last 5 years. Problem is that the responibility in the jobs doesn't. So people get annoyed and stressed.