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Recruitment & retention

Park keepers make a comeback

by Personnel Today 13 Feb 2007
by Personnel Today 13 Feb 2007

Guru’s recent call for lost jobs to highlight in his occasional David Attenborough-like forays into the ‘disappearing world of work’ has thrown a surprise lifeline to the careers of the disgraced Big Brother bullies.


For while chief bully Jade Goody and her two dumb chums may be finding it hard to find gainful employment since being rejected by ‘the nation’, Guru can reveal that legalised bullying is back. And what’s more, there’s a salary attached.


Disciple John has alerted Yours Truly to the sudden reappearance of ‘park bullies’ – sorry, ‘keepers’ – in the borough of Westminster. This is surely the ideal role for the nasty, sniping BBbitches.


Park keepers of the past seemed overly keen to play a crucial role in Guru’s upbringing. Without ‘parkies’, who would have clipped Guru around the ear for daring to walk on the grass? And who would have used a sharp pole to prod Guru out of the conker tree with potentially fatal consequences?


However, it seems today’s parkies have extended their list of banned activities to include the following:




  • No associating in big groups


  • No dropping litter


  • No fouling the pathway


  • No kicking leaves


  • No conker picking


  • No sitting on park benches


  • No entering out of hours


  • No picnics


  • No ball games


  • No dogs


  • No cats


  • No squirrels


  • No feeding the ducks


  • No rats, badgers, lions, tigers, elephants, etc.

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Modern parkies will presumably be issued with guns and tazers to deal with today’s mobile phone thieves and other miscreants.

Personnel Today

Personnel Today articles are written by an expert team of award-winning journalists who have been covering HR and L&D for many years. Some of our content is attributed to "Personnel Today" for a number of reasons, including: when numerous authors are associated with writing or editing a piece; or when the author is unknown (particularly for older articles).

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