Depending on your perspective, this week’s jobs and skills summit will either be a collegiate gathering of key players to build a heuristic, user-based roadmap for a brighter economic future, or a tedious, backslapping talkfest for rent-seeking hacks and covetous wannabes.
As a veteran of many such conferences, Crikey satirist Tom Red has prepared a field guide to help the uninitiated separate the movers from the shakers.
Wide-eyed newbie
Traits: Genuinely awed. Copious note-taking. Serially punctual. Happy to sit right up front or squat in the aisle. Embarrassed about taking so many selfies, but not embarrassed enough to stop.
Catchphrase: “I was standing right next to Katy Gallagher at the coffee cart. Had to pinch myself.”
Wizened cynic
Traits: Been there, seen that, read the book and bought the T-shirt. Surreptitiously plays Sudoku on a battered iPad. Will work in references to Peter Reith, Patrick Corrigan and the Accord, irrespective of the topic being discussed.
Catchphrase: “It’s only a rort if you get caught, mate.”
Hardline hero
Traits: Has worked, briefly, for every single employer organisation. Uses “woke” as a pejorative and as a verb. Wants business taxes flattened — to zero. Overly fond of military and sporting analogies. Was bullied mercilessly at school, something that informs their approach to industrial relations.
Catchphrase: “At the last brain-storming session, they said there are ‘no wrong answers’, yet as soon as I said ‘slavery’, everyone lost their shit.”
Single issue space-cadet
Traits: Always the first hand up when questions are taken. Lives for plenary sessions. Struggles with the difference between asking a question and making a 15-minute, spittle-flecked rant about the government’s abject failure to grasp the awesome power of micro-dosing psychedelics.
Catchphrase: “Jim Chalmers talked about productivity for an hour but didn’t mention LSD once. Coincidence? I don’t think so.”
Networking ninja
Traits: Remembers everyone’s name. Everyone. Firm handshake and sharp elbows. Obsessed by seating arrangements. Maintains direct eye contact while scanning the room for more important people. Knows where all the late-night kick-ons are happening. Updates LinkedIn several times a day. Pretends to be on the phone but is actually just waiting for a group of A-listers to inveigle.
Catchphrase: “We simply must catch up, once all the cray-cray is over.”
Captain of industry
Traits: Expensive watch, nice pen. Can talk union, but not league. A bit awkward around people who didn’t go to a sandstone university. Tiny lapel pin for an obscure but altruistic association.
Catchphrase: “Leveraging the synergy of the upside growth matrix.”
Super-stressed staffer
Traits: A deer in the headlights. Their boss sees the event as a chance to show the world exactly who they are, which is tricky because their boss is a shifty, dim-witted narcissist.
Catchphrase: “Can’t win. Don’t try.”
Put-upon tech-support dude
Traits: Talks to panicked presenters like a kindergarten teacher talks to a child. PowerPoint whisperer. Barely contained rage at last-minute program changes.
Catchphrase: “Yes, I have tried turning it off and turning it back on again. And no, I don’t find that comment funny.”
Very funny and spot on, Tom
No union character? Come on.
Lets go to the Bar and if anything important turns up somebody will come and get us.
thought the same thing
Not keen on describing the diverse species “union character” but the catch cry should be “What’s in it for the Workers?” – pity that’s from a by-gone era, pre-Accord.
Yeah. Pre-Accord!!. Rot in Hell RJLH.
He’s keeping a really uncomfortable & painful place ready for PJK.
The Union character is there: [I believe it is based on the author. 😉 ]
Wizened cynicTraits: Been there, seen that, read the book and bought the T-shirt. Surreptitiously plays Sudoku on a battered iPad. Will work in references to Peter Reith, Patrick Corrigan and the Accord, irrespective of the topic being discussed.
Catchphrase: “It’s only a rort if you get caught, mate.”
Come one, come all?
Besides they are too busy rearranging the deck chairs. Is it the MWU or the MEWU or the MESFAIWU. I can’t keep up.
No one from the employment agency industry either. the ultimate rent-seekers.
Most entertaining. Especially the captain of industry.
Beautiful, Tom. And so cathartic re these types.
Then there are the women who address their team, saying, “Hi, Lovely.”
And those people who reach out, open up, and lean in. Fakes one and all.
Or the women who refer to others of the distaff persuasion as ‘you guys…’.
So funny I wept.
I know that space cadet personally.
There’s one on every junket.