Friday, December 7, 2007

The crazy calendar caper

For those of you who don’t know, I live in a housing co-op. It’s a little different than living in a “normal” apartment building, because you get to know a lot more of your neighbours through members meetings, social functions, etc. I’ve been living in here for the past fourteen years.

This year, the Board of Directors hired a consultant to review the operations of the co-op. His regular fee was $125.00 an hour, but the co-op got him for the bargain basement price of $75.00 an hour. People really should be more careful when buying discounted goods and/or services.

Now, this particular consultant had a thing about something called “risk management”. I know a little about risk management from my years with Goodyear Canada. Yes, there was a time in my life when I was gainfully employed. Risk management, in very simple terms, is assessing the risk associated with the actions you take or decisions you make.

For example, when you come to an icy patch on the sidewalk, you walk around it or run the risk of falling on your ass. Likewise, you don’t punch your neighbour in the nose because his dog dirtied your lawn or you run the risk of being dragged off to the lock-up by the local constabulary.

Our cleaner had a couple of calendars hanging in the garbage room which housed the garbage compactor. For several years, our coordinator (manager), a woman of roughly my age of sixty-something, had give the cleaner a calendar around Christmas. These were not nudies, but calendars similar to the ones illustrated at the top of this post. They were no more revealing than the photos of Sunshine Girls published regularly in the Toronto Sun.

But, the Board of Directors and their $75.00 an hour consultant deemed them a “risk” to the co-op and demanded that they be removed as part of their new “risk management” strategy. I’m not entirely sure of the nature of the risk: it might have been any of several bonafide risks to the assets of the co-op.

For instance, some old guy like myself might have wandered into the garbage room, spotted the pictures of scantily-clad young women and died on the spot from the excitement. Or, some kid could have wandered into the garbage room and tripped over a calendar while he was walking across the wall.

At the time the Board of Directors issued their “Cease and Desist” ultimatum, the members simply chuckled.

But, a few days ago, the cleaner received an early Christmas gift from a member with a sense of humour. He gave the cleaner a Sunshine Girl calendar, leaving the cleaner in a quandary. He can’t hang the calendar in the garbage room because the Board will simply demand that he remove it or, maybe fire him. He’s afraid to hang it in his garage lest his wife cut him . . er . . . cease to perform her wifely duties.

The Board and their overpaid consultant have got him so nervous he’s even afraid his own daughter, a law student, might sue him for sexism if he hangs it in his workshop.

The Board might have a suggestion as to what he could do with it, but I’m sure there’s a law against inserting a calendar in any body cavity under any circumstances. The cleaner has some ideas of his own as to what he might do with the calendar. But, as I’ve already noted, it’s probably against the law, even if the chosen cavity belongs to someone on the Board of Directors.

And, for this exercise in risk management, they paid the charlatan consultant $75.00 an hour.
Go figure!

1 comment:

charlieangel said...

What an absolute riot!!! LOL :-)
What's next??!!??