BELGRADE: SHITY OF THE FUTURE | B92 Blog

Re: Great text!

Rasina — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 01:07:22 GMT

"BG... the ugliest and most depressing capital city I know ..." ..."our shity" !?

!?

Well, you should move then. I think that's the best thing you can do. Any chance of that in the near future?

Excellent

deadbeat — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 11:21:10 GMT

Although our shity and countery provide a lot of material to effortlessly construct this kind of tragically funny projections, this one is still great.

I think

bindu — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 01:06:15 GMT

this belong here

Jaap ....Jaap

Deoizmašine — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 22:07:45 GMT

Jaap, Jaap ...what to say about your writigs .... something Mozart said about Salieri's music (in the movie :))... simply ...its Jaap!!!

...

jinks — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 13:39:09 GMT

In Trg Republika, a 25 meter high live-feed hologram of the bathroom of the Big Brother House so children can watch the contestants. Approximately every hour it blanks out, and a man in leather gloves gets out and adjusts the antenna installed on top of the nearby hostel. Then it works again, for about an hour.

Re: Great text!

networker — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 10:41:34 GMT

Milan M. Ćirković
Customer service in BG!?

... was not science fiction in the time of my ancestors, who owned huge stores in the old Belgrade, capital of the Kingdom of Serbia. For merchants and artisans of that time the customer was a king, just like in the Netherlands these days.

When the communists came into power in 1945, they started to ruin the values of the old society, making a new world of their own. They confiscated other people's property, arrested and sometimes even killed a lot of distinguished industrials, real-estate owners, bankers ... and introduced a system with no private property, with factories, stores and shops beign claimed as "public goods" - property belonging to the people on paper, but in practice belonging to everyone and noone. Their unique concept of "self management" - a ship with no captain - created a spoiled brat called the "workers' class" - workers being overprotected by the law, where firing and laying off was very difficult, if not completely impossible. To fire a worker the manager needed to go through a maze of approvals and board decisions, where other workers had their vote too. Enjoying their legal (over)protection, workers haven't ever had to produce any meaningful results at their work. Aside of that, the ridiculous system created a lot of unuseful working places and even less useful management positions, being filled by totally incompetent people, mostly due to their political profile and their family relationships with politicians and top managers. Nepotism was a normal phenomenon in that society. Responsibility and tasks were strange words in that society.

Now, do the math: lack of responsibility at work, absence of any quality control, neglection of result achievement, product management being biased only by political decisions, management being centralized at the state level and - last but not the least - the market, import and export being strictly centrally controlled, motivation to do something creative being supressed to zero ... how could one ever create something called customer service and customer relations in such an environment?

Those times are luckily over, I agree. But it takes probably the next 50 years to heal the wounds, restore the old traditional values and acquire the principles of the modern trade. Yes, it will hurt. Yes, hundreds of thousands of people MUST be laid off, they MUST be kicked out to the street, they must be brought to ground zero in order start doing something on their own and to stop waiting their managers, directors, politicians, government officials and the state to do something for them. They must act, they must learn to earn from their work. Once they become motivated to get a customer on board, they will learn what customer service means. But as long as they are still waiting in the line in front of the government buildings in Belgrade for their state-funded misery-salaries, like those pathetic creatures producing Yugo cars, and as long as the state pays them for doing nothing - there will be no progress.

Re: Hmmm...

Mir — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 09:23:14 GMT

I agree, I've removed it. I've left the bit about the film industry as that's a comment about that business rather than anything else.

Re: Moj odgovor / my answer / mijn antwoor

dragan7557 — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 03:08:06 GMT

Vrsno i preporuka. Valjda neko u Den Traag pročita i razmisli o veseloj korporativnoj budućnosti.

Now in English, so everyone can understand it.

Not everyone does understand English.
Bei uns in Deutschland mus man sich immer mit HOCH Deutsch verstentlich machen um nicht mit ein ausländer
verwekselt zu werden.
Groetjes !!

Great text!

Milan M. Ćirković — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 01:01:35 GMT

Mir, my congratulations (and recommendation)! Quite apropriate for BG, the ugliest and most depressing capital city I know (including the present-day/recent Sofia) - which was also bluntly stated by Le Corbusier decades ago, during his only visit to our shity. However, I only realized that this text is fiction when it came to "introducing the concept of customer service", since it's so silly and ludicrous that even most wild-eyed visionary could not envisage it seriously! Customer service in BG!? notwithstanding the fact that such an outrageous assertion seems contrary to the laws of nature, more specifically the hyper-duper SU(12) unified theory of quantum gravity (to be developed by 2016, trust me!).

It is also the most expensive city in the world, a title it gained as early as 2012 and has held onto ever since. However, it has become popular with visitors since it is the last place in the entire world to allow smoking.

I'd change the last words into "encourage smoking, especially among schoolchildren".

It has to be removed after one contestant murders another, Psycho-style, with an enormous knife.

Sorry, but this prognostication is rubbish. It should be stated "it achieved the climax of popularity and won its producers countless awards after one contestant murders another, Psycho-style, with an enormous knife."

It involves launching an unmanned robotic ship in the shape of a pair of huge leather gloves that will hover around the space station and move some wires about, after which it should work again.

Should be amended with "for a day or so. Enough for the minister-for-life-of-infrastructure to boast of another incredible success of our local brains, hands and tentacles."

Re: Hmmm...

Milan M. Ćirković — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 00:43:57 GMT

Domazet
and the population is now entirely gypsy. The
film industry flourishes, and 87% of the population is employed going
through hover bins recycling cyberplastics.
...vrlo fasisticki. Ili mozda to sto je tekst pisan na engleskom pelcuje autora od rasnih klisea? Sad kad ti dodje lundorcic...

Sto bi neko rek'o - Bog nas sacuvao od hohstaplera koje u svakoj sitnici nalaze fashizam izmedju ostalih i zbog nesposobnosti da nametnu svoje vrednosti vecini (= napisu konstruktivniji komentar)

Moj odgovor / my answer / mijn antwoord

networker — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 19:55:16 GMT

ERG GRAPPIG, JAAP ...

Now in English, so everyone can understand it.

THE NEVER-LANDS IN THE YEAR OF 2042

1. Thanks to the lesbo-gay revolution of 1970-something, combined with aging, emigration of Dutchers and immigration of the foreigners, the Dutch population counts now just enough people to fit the Isle of Terschelling. The rest of the couuntry is now entirely inhabited by Marrocan and Turkish people. Of course, the Hague doesn't count in that picture, now being the sole island of the Dutch minority, being inhabitted by the always-growing state administration.

2. Schoolchildren in The Hague are in strike again, objecting against the newest decision of the Ministry of Education to increase their number of lessons from 5 to 6 in total per year. Children are now requesting not to go to school at all, claiming they can learn everything they need in their life via their mobile phones, downloading content from Google, Wikipedia and - of course - MTV / TMF anyway. In the rhythm of giga-tera-hiphop a youngster is singing: "Who needs schools - only Maroccans and Turks - Russians and Serbs - and other f***ing nerds".

3. Thanks to the latest and greatest victory of the PNVD on the parliament elections, the legal age for having sex is now set to 7 years old, compared to the last milestone of 2020 when it was was set to 12. At the same time incest is legalized too.

4. After a major success with soft drugs and euthanasia, the government now legalizes hard drugs and suicides. However, due to the huge waiting lists, it's impossible to get an appointment with a suicide advisor before September 2055 and, according to the law, a suicide or euthanasia can't be performed without presence of an authorized advisor.

5. The high-speed ferry between Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam and Utrecht is finally operational. It will replace the current ancient slow-motion passenger boats, introduced in 2020 when water overflooded the country and made trains and cars unuseful. The place where the center of Amsterdam used to be is converted to an under-the-sea sightseeing facility for scuba divers.

6. After three decenia of unuseful bla-bla, the government finally agrees to meet the requirements of Maroccan and Turkish MAJORITY to make Thursday and Friday non-working days, just like it is done in Saudi Arabia. A transition period of 10 years is needed to adjust the habbits of the citizens to the new rota. Until then, aside of Thursday and Friday, Saturday and Sunday will also be non-working days, leaving only 3 working days per week. The always "eager-to-work" Dutch minority is more than happy about that! J.P. Balkenende is happy too, since that assures him to celebrate 50 years in the prime minister chair within the next few years!

7. The last protestant church in the country has been converted to a mosque this week. The sole unhappy person about this seemd to be a grey-haired and bearded man protesting in front of the church alone with a barely readable transparent. Some older inhabitants recognized him as Gert Wilders, the Dutch ultra-nationalist of the early years of the 21 century.

8. Smoking tobacco is now prohibited anywhere. Cameras installed in the houses control the citizens and raise a fire alarm when someone is noticed to be smoking in the toilet of his house. This may lead to a fine of 30000 EUR per person. Smoking marijuana or any other drug is permitted and encouraged.

9. Despite of the water everywhere around, house prices reached the ultimate record of 20,000,000 EUR per square meter last month. Noone is buying those anyway, still the price is rising, breaking the law of supply and demand in any way. A mystery to everyone.

DOEI!

Re: dat meen je niet

dragan7557 — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 18:48:43 GMT

Beste Jaap,

bij mijn beste weten is Universiteit van Groningen ad 2042 overgenomen door de Belgauni uit Antwerpen en is bij decreet van paus Wilders onderworpen aan dogma van Heilige See uit Rome waarmee ook Vlaamse Taal tot amts
schprache verplicht gesteld is.
Provincie Drente is opgeheven en is tot volledige privat eigendom van Gas Unie verklaart.Alle burgers zijn inmiddels
naar het buitenland geëmigreerd naar een nieuwe bestemming in Servië die tot negende provincie van Vlaams Unie is geaccepteerd.

Klachten inzake boven gestelde dienen aan klachten bureau van de VLAAMS Unie en zijn ontvankelijk mits gesteld in
ABV.

Hmmm...

Domazet — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 17:52:32 GMT

and the population is now entirely gypsy. The film industry flourishes, and 87% of the population is employed going through hover bins recycling cyberplastics.

...vrlo fasisticki. Ili mozda to sto je tekst pisan na engleskom pelcuje autora od rasnih klisea? Sad kad ti dodje lundorcic...

Re: EXTRA!

neverlander — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 16:32:23 GMT

angie,
gde ga iskopa?

odlican tekst, al' se bojim da se neki stvari ne obistine.

EXTRA!

angie — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 15:56:50 GMT

Re: BRILLIANT! :)))

bindu — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 15:47:45 GMT

hehehe
dadada
this one for you fixere(jedan tao hiljadu zlatnika)

al ovaj ne sme da se preskoci;

ziveo troll

BRILLIANT! :)))

KafaJeGotova — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 15:16:51 GMT

the Office of President Keba

:))))))

any chance that this post is fiction?!

Evo i ja jednom da probam prvi

MightyNora — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 12:40:23 GMT

Za ideju 10 + preporuka. Volim ovakve tekstove, samo mi se cini da ce pola toga i stvarno da se ostvari. Npr... ukidanje trola :)

Pozz