Hand of God keeps clergy claims at bay
Once again, Guru has been left wondering who is really in charge after the Government came second best to the Church of England and other vested interests.
The clergy and church workers’ branch of the Amicus unions were apparently outraged when the Government bowed to pressure and said it would not extend emp-loyment law rights to the clergy.
Under an agreement with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), faith groups will voluntarily set minimum conditions for their staff. The DTI will review how things are going in the summer.
Traditionally, the clergy has been exempt from employment rights because members are deemed to be office holders, not employees, and as such are working for God rather than an earthly organisation.
The obvious problem with this is that individuals will have to take any grievances to the Employment Tribunal in the Sky, which means they would have to make the ultimate sacrifice to claim. Bit of a Catch 22, really. They say ‘you can’t take it with you’, but can you take it back?
If anyone gives it a shot and it all works out, please drop a Guru line via his handy desktop Ouija board.
Scrooges provoke ‘phantom’ menace
While we’re on the subject of divine dealings, let us turn to ghostly goings-on in Italy, where a woman has been jailed for running around in an old castle at night pretending to be a ghost.
The owners complained to the police of squeaking floorboards, slamming doors and footsteps. And the strange noises had been scaring customers away.
Cops came to investigate the spectral antics, only to discover that the ghoul was the wife of a castle employee who was miffed at the way the owners were treating her husband. They must have been acting like real Scrooges to push her to these measures.
Police caught her after their ‘high-tech’ equipment recorded her running up and down the corridors making an unholy racket. With this evidence, the 42-year-old Polish woman didn’t stand a ghost of a chance, and received a four-month sentence for harassment.
Guru reckons this test case could be big help for HR. How many of your staff do you see wandering listlessly around the corridors making odd moaning noises? Send out an internal e-mail explaining that they could well fall within the bounds of this haunting precedent, and it’ll be jail for them if they don’t lift their spirits.
Roaming Romanian back from the dead
At the risk of sounding a tad morbid this week, here’s a third story about death. The moral of this tale is don’t go looking for work without telling anyone. Or, on the flip side, before you employ anyone, make sure they have a strong enough pulse to merit the position.
A 22-year-old Romanian went off to see a friend in a distant vill-age, where she found work and decided to stay on. Almost two years later, she decided to head home to her family. A poll to change part of the country’s constitution was being taken there, and she wanted to vote.
Her family were rather surprised at her return, since they had buried her, presuming she was dead. After she left, a police investigation had uncovered a dead body very similar to hers near their house, and a full funeral had been held.
Not only did this leave the lass with angry siblings, but she was also ineligible to vote, as she was officially dead. Quite where this leaves her in terms of employment is unclear.
Just to lighten the tone before we finish, a man in India hasn’t slept for more than 20 years. He works in insurance as a broker – surely that’s enough to send even the casual observer off to dreamland.
Guru hopes Mr Fyodor Nesterchuk from the town of Kamen-Kashirsky is taking full advantage of his affliction and getting in plenty of well-paid overtime.
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