Chapter 10: The Public Servant
At the end of 1987 Martin obtained a temporary job with what was then called the Department of Employment, Education and Training (DEET). It was only for a couple of months, but it was his first proper job and he remembers it with pleasure. For the first time, he enjoyed the camaraderie of a regular group of co-workers, and found he could become a bit of an office clown!
Computers were not all that common in the workplace at that time and most of the work was still done on paper. However, after he had been there for a little while, Martin was asked to do some work on a computer terminal, and he found he had to overcome a certain amount of fear since, after years of watching Star Trek and Doctor Who, he thought computers were always going mad and trying to conquer the world. My human is not at all ashamed of being a science fiction fan….
MARTIN: No, not at all.
FERDINAND: …but he admits that this was one time when it was not a good thing for him!
After that contract finished, he took another job with the Australian Defense Department. He worked in the Army Supply division, in an area where public servants and army personnel worked together; there was a Lieutenant Colonel in charge of the whole area. At this time Martin finally became an Australian citizen (in an extremely low-key ceremony in an office building in the Melbourne CBD). This was necessary for him to gain permanency in the Australian civil service.
Unfortunately, the Defense job did not work out well for my human. He was still having panic attacks on public transport, so that just getting to work became an ordeal. He also found the job itself stressful, and says that he had difficulty working with some of the Army personnel.
MARTIN: Yep. Well, there was only one Army person that I really had difficulty with; most of them were nice people. But I think was a problem with the military way of thinking. They would explain something to you once, and expect you to be able to do it immediately. I, unfortunately, am not like that. It usually takes me a while to learn a new job or a new skill. I’m a slow learner, unless it’s something I’m really interested in.
FERDINAND: Like what — the history of redheads?
MARTIN: I’m warning you!
FERDINAND: Sorry.
Martin lasted about four months in the Defense Department. Eventually he became so stressed that he simply resigned and walked out. This may, perhaps, have been a foolish or impetuous thing to do, but he did it, much to his parents’ horror. His Dad, in particular, was concerned for Martin to have a steady job even if he was thinking of writing or doing more study, or whatever.
The months after that were particularly bad for my human. At this time we were living in Camberwell and my humans were going to St Dominic’s church in East Camberwell, which, as I mentioned earlier, was run by the Dominican order.
Not long after Martin left the Defense Department so precipitately, one of his friends among the Dominican students, Colin (known in the order as Brother Colmcille) developed cancer. Despite his medical problems, he was ordained a priest, but only a month or so after ordination, he passed away. Martin attended the funeral, and saw Fr Colmcille being interred in the Dominicans’ plot at Box Hill Cemetery. He says that this was one of the first times he was confronted with the finality of death.
MARTIN: I remember watching Fr Colmcille’s coffin being lowered into the ground, and realizing that was it — realizing the finality of death. I would never see him again… not in this life, anyway.
FERDINAND: This reawakened Martin’s interest, which I have already mentioned, in the “problem of evil”. How, he wondered, could God allow a fellow who was about to become a priest (and a very good one, by all the indications) to die like that?
Coming on top of his own difficulties with finding and keeping a job, this plunged my human into a deep depression and his first bout of suicidal thoughts. He bought a packet of razor blades with the intention of cutting his wrists, but didn’t go through with it. This was, my human realized later, a real “rock bottom” experience for him. Fortunately, the depression started to lift after a while.
Now, while my human was struggling to start his career in the public service, he continued his studies at the Yarra Theological Union, finally completing the Bachelor of Theology degree in 1992. One of his YTU classmates in his last few years was another young Dominican named Anthony Fisher, who would later become Archbishop of Sydney.
In one of his later classes Martin took part in a debate on the subject, “Does God change?” Martin was part of the affirmative or “yes” side and was quite proud of his speech. However, the “no” side, led by Anthony Fisher, won decisively. My human has never forgiven Rev. Fisher for that! Still, I was proud of Martin for overcoming his fears and speaking in front of a large audience of students.
He also commenced a class with a Discalced Carmelite priest named Fr Ross Collings. For some reason – perhaps a timetable clash – he withdrew from the class but later went to see Fr Collings for some spiritual counseling. He was very impressed with this priest, who was a genuinely calming presence and struck Martin as one of the most genuinely spiritual – in the true sense of the word – people he has ever met. Sadly, Fr Collings and another Carmelite priest were killed in a car accident in June 1998.
MARTIN: Very sad. He was definitely one of the best priests I ever knew.
FERDINAND: Martin went through a stage when he was getting panic attacks again, during the train ride to Box Hill and even in classes, but fortunately, this passed away. He learned the hard way that the best way to deal with a panic attack is not to fight it but just to let it pass over you, as it were. He also found that sometimes it helped to visualize the panic as a bird flying around his head (like a magpie swooping him, as magpies sometimes do in Australia when they think a human is going to attack their nest). If he could do this for a while, eventually the “bird” would give up and go away. This problem was, however, a very severe problem while it lasted, and he did go through periods when just stepping outside the front door caused him anxiety.
MARTIN: Thank God the problem faded away with time. But it was really horrible for a while, and restricted what I could do. I strongly recommend the book Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway, which contains some great advice on how to overcome this type of fear{10}.
FERDINAND: My human also went through a period when his vocation to the priesthood seemed to be coming back, although he admits now that this might have been a sort of “rebound” from his heartache over Kristina! He spoke to the Dominicans at the East Camberwell church, and even spent a weekend at the Dominican priory with other fellows who were thinking of joining.
Martin himself points out that while this was happening he was still having doubts about some Catholic dogmas, and also still retained his healthy, if usually frustrated, interest in the opposite sex! Human beings are clearly contradictory creatures, and my owner really does seem to be a prime example of this.
MARTIN: Oh, I know!
FERDINAND: Finally another job appeared on the horizon. Martin’s Dad, who knew something of the mysterious ways of the public service, had managed to get him put back on the list of people looking for public service jobs, and in October of 1988, Martin started working for the Australian Taxation Office (ATO). As things turned out, he would stay with them for a long time.
MARTIN: Over twenty years, as things turned out. Not bad for someone who was never good at math! Oh, and by the way – having been a seminarian and then joining the Taxation Office, I used to joke that I had gone the opposite way to St Matthew in the Gospels: from a disciple to a tax collector!
FERDINAND. Hmm, yes… Very droll, I’m sure! My human joined the ATO when things were just starting to change under the leadership of Trevor Boucher, who was Commissioner of Taxation from 1984 to 1993. New technologies were being introduced and the organization was being shaken up after many years of doing things the same old way. In fact, Martin has said the ATO changed almost beyond recognition over the two decades he spent with them. When he started, computers were almost unknown, but by the time he left, everybody had a terminal on his or her desk.
He started work in what was then called the Victoria North Office, which handled the taxation affairs of most of Victoria’s regional areas, including Ballarat and Bendigo. The office was physically located on King Street in Melbourne’s CBD.
Initially he was placed in an area called File Control, which was responsible for obtaining tax returns and other documents needed by other sections of the office. The work was simple, and often rather boring. Still, my human appreciated having a regular job and being paid for it!
The old public service mentality, in which tea breaks and “flex time” were sacrosanct, still prevailed in those days. When he started working there, the staff had time cards with which they clocked on, a machine would stamp the time at which they arrived and left. Later these were replaced by flex sheets which they kept by hand, and later, still, of course, by flex sheets on the computer.
He soon found that even handling tax returns could have its lighter moments. One of the regular questions on the individual tax return forms is, “Is this likely to be your last tax return?” Martin noticed that a lot of older people would answer this with “Hopefully not!” And one poor fellow who gave his postal address as “HM Prison, Bendigo,” answered with, “Last one for seven years.”
After a while my human moved to a separate building on the corner of Collins Street that housed the audit section. He was located next to the Business Audit area and had to provide them with the files they requested. Most of the people in that area were very high ranking, well above Martin in the hierarchy. He noticed that some of them did seem to think they were above the lowly clerk getting their files for them, whereas others went out of their way to be friendly to him. But that, as Martin says, is probably just human nature.
There were also occasional expeditions to the huge file storage area located in Maribyrnong. This was where, supposedly, “old tax returns went to die”, along with various other types of government paperwork. It was an enormous place, that always reminded Martin of the warehouse where they hide the Ark of the Covenant at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. If nothing else, going there was a break from routine.
It definitely seemed to me that Martin –although he often complained about the boring work – changed for the better once he joined the ATO. Working a regular job and having to socialize with others was very good for him. He learnt a bit more self-discipline. And at long last he started to come out of his shell; he became more willing to go out on the weekends and not stay at home and read all day, which he was quite happy to do as a teenager.
MARTIN: True. Much to my own surprise, I began to find I actually liked the human race!
FERDINAND: In fact, during these early days in the ATO, Martin met two girls who he became very close to, although neither of them was ever his “official” girlfriend. One was Janine, a very nice girl who was a Baptist. My human did go out with her a couple of times on a friendly basis, including going to her church with her. However, nothing really developed; after his heartache at Swinburne, I feel my human was starting to show signs of “commitment phobia”!
Eventually, Janine moved to another part of the Tax Office. Later, Martin heard that she had developed medical problems of some type and died in hospital.
MARTIN: She was a beautiful person, and I was really saddened by her death.
FERDINAND: Another example of the “problem of evil”?
MARTIN: Definitely.
FERDINAND: Martin’s other main female friend from this time was Amanda (not her real name), a very different personality to Janine. She had little interest in religion and was much more plainly spoken; indeed, she could use some rather unladylike language when she was annoyed. Martin, however, really liked her down to earth personality. She had recently broken up with another guy in the King Street office and my human was quite happy to console her.
Martin came home from the office one day with a rather red face, and told me he had made an embarrassing Freudian slip while talking to Amanda. They were discussing shyness, and he meant to say, “Sometimes I have trouble asserting myself.” Instead, he was horrified to hear himself saying, “Sometimes I have trouble inserting myself”!
My human apologized profusely, but Amanda just laughed and said she always knew he had a dirty mind.
MARTIN: If anyone has ever made a more embarrassing slip of the tongue, I would like to hear about it!
FERDINAND: Martin and Amanda remained friends, even after she left the tax office a few years later. Martin would often see her taking her much-loved dog for a walk around Moonee Ponds.
One of my human’s other co-workers, a beautiful (married) Greek lady named Irene, took pity on him and arranged a sort of “blind date” for Martin with her cousin. Accompanied by Irene and several of her other relations, Martin and the cousin went to have lunch in Melbourne’s Flagstaff Gardens. Sadly, it was a non-event. Irene’s cousin was extremely shy and Martin could hardly get a word out of her. There were no “follow-up” meetings.
So, all in all, you certainly say that my human’s love life at this time was fairly disastrous.
MARTIN: Oh, I think you could even say catastrophic!
FERDINAND: Around this time, we (my human and his parents and I) moved from the house in Camberwell to a smaller townhouse in Richmond. It was right on a main street and a bit noisy, but it was in a convenient location. We all just got used to the noise.
Meanwhile, Martin was still getting severe attacks of nerves on public transport at this time, and he even found the short train trip from Richmond to Moonee Ponds difficult. He has told me he particularly hated it when the train went through the Melbourne City Loop, which is mostly underground, as he found that very dark and claustrophobic and he was afraid the train might get stuck down there somehow. Luckily this never happened to him.
In late 1991, when my human had been with the ATO for about three years, the “Vic North” Office moved from the King Street building to a brand new, and much more attractive, building in Moonee Ponds. And now Martin has to make one his more embarrassing, not to say sordid, confessions.
Although my human was (unsuccessfully) seeking romance he was also, like many young and not-so-young humans, interested in outright sex (something which, as we have already mentioned, doesn’t interest teddy bears at all!). Melbourne has always had its dens of iniquity, and Martin went to a few strip clubs with his male co-workers.
He says he says he remembers talking to a girl who worked in one of these places and finding that she was a big fan of Douglas Adams — so he had the interesting experience of discussing the merits of The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy with a half-naked lady.
Looking, however, was not enough. About the time the Moonee Ponds tax building opened, Martin, concerned that he was still a virgin in his late twenties, decided that he was going to do something about that. And so…
MARTIN: I told my parents I had gone to a party to celebrate the opening of the Moonee Ponds office. I went to a bank and got out a fair wad of cash, and booked myself into a hotel in the centre of the city, and hired a call girl.
FERDINAND: Oh, dear.
MARTIN: Yes, very bad for a Catholic! And by the way, the bellboy who took me up to my room seemed to know what I was there for, as I had only a briefcase for “luggage”. I remember him sniggering as he wished me a “good night”, which was rather embarrassing.
Anyway … after a while, the girl arrived. She was quite a nice and friendly girl and very patient with me in view of my lack of experience. But it was a disaster in terms of, err, doing what I really wanted to do. Probably because of nerves, I had trouble rising to the occasion, ha-ha. And, well, after an hour was over, the girl had to leave.
But then, something amazing happened, as far as I was concerned, after she left.
Some time later, as I was lying in bed reading a book I had brought with me (I am one of those readers who always takes a book with them, just in case!) I remembered that I was supposed to be a Christian and I started to feel guilty. So I got out of bed, knelt down by the side of the bed and started praying. And something incredible happened.
I had a sudden experience of God’s overwhelming love and compassion and felt the certainty that he would always take me back no matter what I did – that his love was greater than my sin, greater than any sin I could possibly commit. I felt his infinite compassion and forgiveness. And this was utterly unexpected, at a moment when I was feeling quite ashamed of myself!
So, although I didn’t really want to talk about this incident, I felt I had to because it was a pivotal moment, as far as I am concerned, in my relationship with God. My idea of him really began to change; I stopped seeing him as a demanding boss or dictator (as so many Christians and Catholics do, whether or not they are aware of it) and began to see him primarily as love. Ironically, I think I only became a true Christian that night!
I hasten to add that later I went to confession and confessed this incident. The priest (who looked rather bored – I’m sure he’d heard it all before) gave me what I thought was an absurdly light penance – something like four Hail Mary’s!
FERDINAND: Like I said – these humans and their obsession with sex!
Anyway, a little while after the move to the Moonee Ponds building, Martin was able to leave the File Control section of the ATO and move to what was then called Defaults. This area dealt with people who had not lodged their annual taxation returns on time. Various methods were used, ranging from phone calls and gentle reminder letters, right through to prosecution in front of a magistrate for people who remained stubborn.
Only about one year later, the ATO opened a new office at Box Hill on the other side of town, and Martin, for some reason – he can’t really remember himself – offered to go there. So he moved to Defaults in the Box Hill office in 1992. Before doing that, however, he went on another overseas trip by himself.
This time he went to Ireland, his ancestral home. Unfortunately, I believe the flight was very difficult for him. Firstly it was almost 24 hours from Melbourne to London (Heathrow), although it was only a short flight to Dublin after that. Secondly, he had some attacks of nerves on the flight and still gets nervous on planes to this day, though this problem has improved over time.
Anyway, in Ireland, he attended a summer school on the works of James Joyce, held at Trinity College, Dublin.
While there, Martin stayed with a family on the Southern Ring Road. The lady worked in the film industry, while the man of the house was away working on an oilrig most of the time. I had reluctantly stayed at home again (ahem!).
MARTIN: Sorry…By the way, it was fantastic going to Trinity College itself. It was used as a location in the film Educating Rita so I got to walk under the entrance arch that Michael Caine and Julie Walters walked under at the start of that movie.
FERDINAND: As part of the Trinity College course, Martin and his fellow students went on a couple of trips outside of Dublin, including a visit to Newgrange, the amazing Neolithic burial mound about which the band Clannad wrote a song.
Martin told me that one day, sitting in the courtyard of Trinity College while waiting for a class, he had a tremendous sense of peacefulness and of coming home. He cannot know for certain, but he suspects that his biological parents were from an Irish background; in Dublin, he was even told by a few people that he looked Irish! He feels that when he went to Ireland something in his spirit knew that it had come home.
MARTIN: Yes, indeed. I remember the words “Only connect” – from E. M. Forster’s Howard’s End, which we had studied at Swinburne – echoed in my mind. I felt I was connecting with the land, the Irish people, et cetera. So, this was a sort of mystical experience, but more a sense of oneness with things – different from the experience in Paris, which felt like an encounter with a person or persons.
FERDINAND: There was another interesting experience when Martin went out for a walk one day. He got a bit lost in the streets of Dublin and then it started raining. But he says that as he stood under a shop awning as it rained, he felt wonderful! His thoughts were, “I’m lost in Ireland and it’s raining and it’s fantastic!” He didn’t really know at the time what caused that feeling.
However, a long time afterwards (while we were working on this book, in fact) Martin came across a book by Sarah Wilson called First, We Make the Beast Beautiful. In it, she discusses the way having too many choices can cause us anxiety, and how sometimes having restricted choice or even no choice can be a source of relief and liberation: “In fact, to be rendered choiceless is the ultimate freedom.”{11}
Martin now believes that, on that rainy day in Dublin, he experienced a moment when there was no point in worry or anxiety. He could only accept what was happening to him, and he found it incredibly exhilarating and liberating.
After his visit to Ireland, my human went to London, where he stayed for about a week, doing the usual tourist type things. While he was there, I understand that his libido played up again in London and he visited a “massage parlor” of the type where you can get a lot more than a massage, for the right price.
MARTIN: But I must say I found the whole situation very unromantic and off-putting. And the girl who was, err, assigned to me was so rough that I thought she was going to break a certain part of me off completely!
FERDINAND: Too much information.
MARTIN: Anyway, I got out of the place as soon as I could.
FERDINAND: After London, my human went over to Italy and stayed for a week at the headquarters of the Focolare Movement, who we mentioned earlier. This was an interesting trip: by train from London to Dover, ferry across the English Channel, then another long train ride all the way to Florence (Firenze). The Focolare have a large community called Loppiano in the hills outside Florence. He had to work a bit there as a way of paying for his board and lodging — nothing too strenuous, just some work in the gardens. After that, he returned to Australia via Rome’s Fiumicino Airport.
MARTIN: I like the way you pronounced that.
FERDINAND: Grazie!