Joke of the day

I heard this one on the Continuous Call Team yesterday and thought it was quite funny (slightly paraphrased).

A man is in a car accident with a car driven by a dwarf. As the dwarf gets out of his car, he yells at the man, “Listen you idiot! I’m not happy!!”

The man replies “Well which one are you then?”

Do I want Kevin Rudd to slow down?

Agriculture Minister Tony Burke claims that the voters of Australia do not want Kevin Rudd to relax his workaholic ways, in that he believes in burning the midnight oil and urges his ministers and staff to do the same. Such an attitude has resulted in unnamed ministers coming forward to the media and expressing their concerns. Read about it here, courtesy of News Limited.

I, as an Australian voter, am happy to say that Tony Burke’s not speaking my point of view. I know that the demands of governing the country cannot by any means be shoehorned into a regular 40 hour week, but there’s no way that the job can be done to its greatest effect without adequate time for rest, rejuvenation and time spent with the family. It doesn’t matter if the Rudd government is an energetic one at the moment – if they overwork themselves, they’ll lose that energy and perhaps with it the resolve and focus on proper governance.

Too many people place an undue priority on their work lives, and hence run the risk of health issues, family straining and quite possibly killing themselves. One of my close mates has shared at Bible study how long hours in a new job role put some strain on his health and led to a greater longing to spend as much time as possible with his young family. Fortunately, now that his work situation has settled and he’s put measures into place to lessen his workload, he can look forward to some holidays in a few weeks.

If there’s a great deal of work on one’s plate, I can’t see why the best solution would be to tackle it on one’s own instead of sharing that load. I’d go so far as to argue that being a workaholic can have the same negative effects and is as dangerous as being an alcoholic in the medium to long term.

I’ve created a simple poll with a link on the right hand side column (can’t figure out how to embed it and have the poll show instead of just a link). Feel free to let me know what you think about Kevin Rudd and his workaholism.