Hidden Meanings

In his swan song address to some 500 social workers at the annual Social Workers’ Day Symposium convened at the fancy Concorde Hotel, Social and Family Development Minister Chan Chun Sing didn't exactly check off his solid accomplishments after 4 years at the helm.

Instead, he threw up some nebulous recommendations like "piloting 'self-organising' models that are somewhere in between relying on domestic helpers and on institutionalised homes". Even Daiso has better suggestions when it comes to DIY solutions, most of which are priced at $2. This million dollar minister had nothing, zilch, nada, no concrete plan to offer.

Chan also said the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) has tried to “bootstrap” standards and protocols so that people beyond the sector will listen to the views of social workers. Suffice it to say, those standards and protocols must be written in Greek, since none of us, MSF members included, can possibly decipher his highfalutin terminology. For all we know, distributing flyers surreptitiously in the middle of the night is included in the methodologies.

SR Nathan has this story to tell about Goh Keng Swee being upset by jargon - accountancy jargon, engineering jargon, whatever. Goh had instructed him to call a chap up: "Look, tell the bloody fool to write so that another fool will understand him." Knowing that Goh wanted very simple language, Nathan tried to express same to said officer, and was rebutted with: "Oh, I've got a PhD." As Nathan tells it, Goh called the officer direct and gave him a shelling he probably never forgot all his life. ("SR Nathan in Conversation", Timothy Auger, page 116). Too bad Goh is no longer around to effect any shellacking.