A Tale of Sim

Ottawa's bureaucracy was not amused last week when a 15-year-old schoolboy satirized Canada's red-taped National Selective Service (the Dominion's version of the War Manpower Commission). Donald Sim, son of a Government official, wrote that he visited Selective Service headquarters in Ottawa and told a functionary :

"I've found a job for the summer and I'd like the necessary permits to take it."

The rest of the interview, as recorded by Donald for his high-school annual:

"For answer the man pulled out a pad of very official forms . . . [and] stiffly replied: 'You mean you want a permit to look for a job.'

" 'No, I don't. I've already found the job.'

" 'According to the laws of Canada,' he warned, 'you haven't yet. But by following His Majesty's orders you will be permitted to look for one. Sign here!'

" 'Well, now that you are permitted to look for it, I'll give you a permit to accept it,' the man said. 'After a week, when you have your job, come back.'

" 'But I've got the job now.'

" 'Now, take it easy, son. This is the Government. You don't understand it and I don't understand it. The only difference between you and me is that you're trying to understand it and I'm not. I've given up'!

"So I left Selective Service. For the next week I did nothing. A week later I... found another boy ... had got my job."

When Ottawa newspapers seized on Satirist Sim's story, Selective Service officials complained to his teachers. Donald Sim had to appear before the assembled student body, read a prepared retraction. The students who heard him preferred to believe his first story. When he mentioned Selective Service, they burst out laughing.

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