June 2001 Volume 82 Number 6 "serving the protectors"
by Trevor Haskell PASA Vice President

Being blue

On holiday interstate recently, I was drifting through a shopping plaza having a browse. In a bookshop was a display that included one small book with a blue frog on its cover. With no time limits, the family went into the store and got into some serious browsing. I started reading the funny tales of dogs and had a few free laughs.

But I kept being eyed by this blue frog, so I picked it up and for 10 minutes flicked through its pages, inwardly chortling to myself. I decided to buy it. As I went to the counter, my teenage daughter was grinning as she approached with a book she wanted to buy. I suggested that we needed only one blue frog book in a house and, being the skilled negotiator I am, supported her purchase of the book.

The book has bobbed up in conversations with friends and colleagues, and all agree that it is just worth a read. At Welfare, we are thinking of putting the bite on some charitable organization to fund us in buying a box of the books to give away. We would defer counselling until the book has been read! It might join the book Being Happy that I regularly prescribe as homework for clients. I might get PASA secretary, Andy Dunn, to include it with the association's waiting area literature.

The book - by Bradley Trevor Greive - is The Blue Day Book - A Lesson in Cheering Yourself Up. It is in most bookshops for around $15 and takes about five minutes for busy types to read and 10 minutes for more laid-back types.

The book started me thinking about blue. What a paradox the little word is. We all know that when we are down we are blue. We have the blues. But what of blue skies? Dear old Willie Nelson knows that blue skies smile at him. We associate blue skies and blue seas with happiness and good sailing. The song world is full of happy blue-sky songs and sad blues songs. It is even worse for me because I barrack for Carlton, the old navy blues, and I have to admit they bring me happiness and angst.

What then of the women and men in blue?

The job brings the great joys of challenge and achievement, service to others and personal rewards. The same job creates challenging trauma, pain to the soul, and frustration with systems - even despair at parts of the human existence.

I look back and think of my time on the road as happy times. When we rabbit on about the past, it is often the funny anecdotes that flow: the characters we meet on the road and the ones we meet in the office. They may frustrate, but also amuse.

I often laugh about how I was nearly thrown out of STAR Force for laughing in the middle of a terrorist exercise when there were lots of bigwigs about. Everyone else thought the incident was funny, but I laughed the loudest, so my illustrious starry career almost ended that night.

Demands of time on and off duty take their toll. The focus on tasks by managers (at home or work) can kill the enjoyment. We need not only to be proficient in our tasks but also have time for some humour as well. Managers could do well to explore the promotion of humour in the workplace.

I think the requirement for good humour could be included in the Code of Conduct in a number of areas. For example:

- In order to maintain organizational efficiency members of SAPOL must laugh aloud once per shift, twice for shifts of more than 8.5 hours.

- In fulfilling their obligations to SAPOL and the community, all members of SAPOL must be good-humoured in the manner with which they perform their duties.

- A conflict of interest may arise out of circumstances where humour-focused members meet humourless clients or associates. These matters must be reported immediately.

- All members of SAPOL must be truthful, humourful and open, acting at all times with honesty, integrity and good humour.

On second thought, perhaps not.

The EB - now that has some scope to get some humour into the system. I reckon Peter Alexander and Mark Carroll would come at it - not to mention John Dicker from the other side. Designated humour breaks could be a real winner. Forget the pay rise - let's go for the laughs, smiles and happy workplaces.

Just joking about forgetting the pay rise.

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