A few weeks ago here at IAWL we commented on the rise of burlesque in our fair city. This new-again performance art comes with its own complications in a small city where most people know each other, and many of them work in public service.

So, in some of the offices around town, there are women who sit at their desks with a dancer’s tote bag ticking like a bomb beside them. They don’t expect to keep their sassy secret if they want to be the burlesque spectacle of their dreams. When it becomes a real issue – when a show date is set – they go have a talk with their manager or HR person. Will it be a problem if they are sending pasties and sequins flying in a club off of Cuba Street? Their courage is no surprise: if they weren’t brave, they wouldn’t take clothes off on stage. What is amazing is the response they get from these authorities.

After some suitably stuffy statement – “Your after-hours conduct is not a difficulty if it doesn’t impact your work,” “There’s not anything in the HR guidelines about this,” – the manager, magnanimously, unbends. This woman in power remembers what it was to be young, when she sewed costumes for her stripper friends in the early 80s – it was a little sideline – it’s all velcro now, but it used to be snaps back in the day. Good times. That manager recalls his Sydney years, doing his OE managing a drag pub. Filling in once or twice in the high heels and sequins. More good times.  By the time the conversations are done, it’s clear that this generation is only the latest take on Cuba Street’s naughtiness, and that 2011 has nothing on 1981.

Tags: Comments Off on Week of Legends 3: It Goes Both Ways

There aren’t a lot of rakes and flirts in Wellington. The few that we do have stand out and tend to be remembered. So it was with The Notorious C.E.O, the charismatic head of one of Wellington’s largest organizations.

The Notorious C.E.O. was married. But he didn’t let that stop him. Posterity does not record a specific incident that made his wife snap: only that she did. In a huff, she packed up all of his personal belongings and sent them to him at Large Organization. They arrived at 4 P.M. on a Friday, right after the movers and suchlike had gone home for the day.

What to do? One staffer went to find some keys to a storage room, thinking to tuck the impedimentia away out of sight. He returned to find everything gone. Where was it?

The C.E.O’s P.A. had been notified. The belongings had been shifted to the C.E.O’s office and locked in. All well and good. Except that the C.E.O., a proponent of transparency and availability, had his office in a glass-walled room on the most populous office floor. The boxes, suitcases, lamps, awards, and loose socks had been paraded through this floor. They were now locked in, yet efficiently on display for the bemused staff to contemplate. The staffer who had wanted to avoid this went and had a drink.

Notorius, returning from a business trip, took it in good stride, turned his charisma up to 11, and remained The Notorious C.E.O.

Tags: 1 Comment

It’s going to be a lazy, hazy summer week here in Wellington. We’re at the part of “the Christmas break” when we’re free from the chains of Crimbo, when the New Year’s hangovers have faded, when we can really relax. Even if you’re back at work on the 5th, heh, we all know what that means.

So this week on IAWL, The Lifer has rounded up some legends for you – some of the stories going around town that will turn into our own urban legends in a few  years.

Legend The First has to be the two best Wellington mates who went out  for a curry…in London.

Allow The Lifer to explain.

These two blokes – let’s call them Johnno and Ramsey – were classic Kiwi best mates. Bachelors, flatmates, partners in crime. They were also high-octane computer programmers at one of Wellington’s IT contracting powerhouses. A July or two ago, they were feeling stir-crazy – July in Wellington does that to folks. They wanted to escape to Europe and feel the summer sun. Being Kiwis, their internal compass was set towards the English rain, and they started researching tickets to London. They had scads of frequent flyer points, they’d be traveling in style.

The only problem was that…they had no time. Each of them was being crunched by a separate IT project, spawned by a separate Gorgon of a government department. So the standard two weeks to two months tooling around Europe, a short stay by Kiwi standards, was out of the question.

Posterity does not record which one of them it was that said, “Y’know, mate, we could just go for the weekend.” But, lo, it was said. And it resonated with rightness in their coding-addled brains.

Two round-trip first-class tickets to London were promptly booked, departing on a Friday, returning on a Sunday. Johnno and Ramsey showed up for their flight with carry-on luggage and big smiles. They said “yes” every time a steward offered to bring them something, and turned the two flights into an extended party. Arriving in the U.K. at Heathrow, they had nine hours to experience the grandeur of Brittania. They sloped off into London, looked around, and had a curry and a pint each. Back at the airport in time for their flight, they started their festivities anew on the plane.

And they returned as shattered as if they had, indeed, been partying in London for two months.

Tags: Comments Off on Week of Legends 1: You Know What Would Be Good Right Now? A Curry And A Pint