It’s important to mention that this is pure opinion. Despite my position as News Editor calling for something akin to “impartiality”, I flick that hat aside and invite you all to sit down by the fire whilst I tell you a tale.
This Wednesday, students will be offered a rare opportunity to gather at a bar—let me finish—and fire two members of their association’s exec. President Jasmine Freemantle and Education Officer (Welfare) Robert Latimer will stare down the gauntlet of their peers and face motions of no confidence in their performance.
Concerns have bubbled to the fore in recent times about the way the execeteers we’ve come to call Jazzy and Bobby have rolled and patrolled. Freemantle has suffered slings from (former) members of her own exec and arrows from the starched shirts of her old political sorority “Magna-cum-Workers Par-tay”, while Bobby has seemingly dicked around for the better part of the year, moseying around Mount Street’s drinklatory and mouthing nonsensical gibberish to exec, media, and anyone with a pair of ears.
I have had the pleasure—and I say this in all sincerity, my self-esteem has never been so high—of reporting on the ebbs and flows trickling out of VUWSA’s office throughout the Year of Our Lord 2009.
I have watched with keen interest the methodical and inscrutable way Freemantle has conducted business. She inherited an Association in dire need of saving: the tenets governing sound and simple business had been conveniently ignored over the years and the association suffered tremendously as a result.
She is an enigma; a non-nonsense authoriatron whose knowledge of VUWSA mechanics is staggeringly encyclopaedic on one hand, but sports a cheeky gigglitronic disposition on the other. She recites policy with the erudite tongue of someone who paid attention in Media Training 101, and says “What the fuck is that?” the same way people you know might say it.
To her credit, Jasmine has exercised all efforts to turn what was a floundering entity starved of direction, energy and insight into something that can at least, well, function.
Comedian Jon Stewart once explained that he never cared if former President George W. Bush was a “nice guy or not,” saying he would rather have an incompetent dick than a friendly buffoon. Behold, my feelings on President J. Freemantle unfurled. The excuses touted by the likes of Latimer, former exec members Marika Pratley and Kassie Hartendorp that her no-nonsense style has impinged so deftly upon their roles, they have no recourse but to quit, rings petty in the ears of anyone who’s worked with someone tough.
We’ve ALL worked alongside douchebags. Cast your mind back to primary school when you were put in reading groups with the kid who insisted upon making fart sounds every time a page was turned. Think about the times you were in a “technology challenge” group, and one kid took a roll of newspaper between their legs and said, “LOOK AT MAH HUGE DIK!” Think about the drooling goob who hit on you in your first post-high school job; consider the bitch who left half-empty coffee mugs in the kitchen sink while you were interning; take a stroll around the boss who wouldn’t let you go home until you’d finished writing that report. Shit, think of every time you’ve had to work with someone who didn’t jive the way you jived.
I’m not suggesting that El Presidente is a douchebag, nor am I saying she is easy to work with, for both claims I haven’t sufficient evidence hither or thither. What I will say is that if Freemantle is a tough cookie to work for, cavorting about the ‘Land of Quit’ is not going to do anyone any favours. Why, think of those half-filled CVs of those abandoned execateers. “Why did you leave your last job?” “Oh, Jasmine, AKA HITLER, said she didn’t like how I…” The crosses some people bear, am I right?
She has her faults, sure, but a cursory glance at her work reports would show that she’s at least doing an admirable impression of a real-life president.
In turn, I’ve watched Bobby Latimer churn out valueless verbosity masquerading as intelligent discourse in what I can only presume is an attempt to cover his hide from critique. He has made mistakes, the most notable being the lack of due care required when in charge of precious confidential information.
Regardless of whether his laptop was stolen or misplaced, Latimer took an unspoken oath of authority and pledged to ensure the information under his watch was his responsibility. The exec picked up the pieces, but instead of humbly thanking his colleagues for taking the bump on his behalf, he took umbrage for being referred to as “Latimer” throughout its written apology, and boo-booed all explanations in his own endearing fashion. A less scrupulous individual may have conveyed this through excessive urination on the floors of VUWSA’s office, but ours is not to piss, but to take the piss.
By-elections in this shape are expensive, gamey wastes of time. As Jackson will explain in his coming editorial, the democratic process is rarely enhanced by this hump in the middle of the road. There needs to be nominations, then electioneering, then voting, then training, then perhaps a couple of months of work before rinse and repeating the process again for 2010. Stop and think about this: five execateers have blown the whistle halfway through the game. Granted, two were legitimate resignations, but the others smack of “Fuck you, my ball and I are outta here.” Why? Because someone’s mean in the state of Denmark.
Consider this before you saddle up to the Mount Street speakeasy an hour after high noon on Wednesday: you will be asked whether a person—who for all intents and purposes has performed competently—should be turfed because she got the grumps once upon a time. You will be asked whether you consent to an interim President—a figurehead of policy, advocacy, and employment—phoning it in for the remainder of the year, leaving your association treading water until next year.
In Latimer, you will be asking yourself whether the guy who brings Food Bank bread to VUWSA’s office every Wednesday has earned his part-time cheque or not.
Following that kafuffle, I (and many others I presume, and hope) will be asking VUWSA for one favour: do some work, for the love of all god, do some fucking work. Finish this year the way you began: eager, enthused and excited. We’ll chuck $2m your way next year if you do. Smirk.
Now, excuse me while I sign this off by pissing all over the ground floor of the SUB. I’m nothing if not symbolic.