I know that in the superior world of Gen Y - people like me are irrelevant old coots.
Especially when I wander into *their* hospitality establishment during the day, plonk myself down, open up my laptop and start to do some work.
Now that is bad enough but when I also expect a little bit of service in said establishment and politely ask for their head banging music to be turned down a notch or two that really is beyond the pale.
Clearly these establishments exist only for the gratification of said Gen Y - any idea that they would deliver some actual service and/or offer up an experience that a customer would appreciate or want is just simply fanciful.
Now I only mention this because I am in an Australian city for a few days where the entire Gen Y population seem to be ensconced in hospitality. I was going to use the word *work* instead of *ensconced* but that is clearly not the case.
And the reason they are there is because there are few jobs for them in the real world. It's sad that there seems to be an entire generation of Australian's growing up who have little prospect of developing skills outside of the rarefied atmosphere of their family owned hospitality business.
Was it lucky for them that Dad bought a pub 20 years ago - or unlucky?
And please don't get me started on the joys of the $5 schnitzel.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Are They Mad? #auspol
Clearly the *bogan in chief* was not able to charm the nervous nellies in the ALP into supporting the deal that she made with Andrew Wilkie. I imagine the conversations went something like this.
NN: Prime Minister the pubs and clubs and their "License to Punt" campaign is killing me in my electorate.
PM: Sorry about that but we have a deal with Mr Wilkie and anyway around 70% of Australian's actually support his approach. And as you know the clubs campaign is dishonest and untruthful.
NN: I don't care about that - the clubs said they would target me and my electorate if I didn't get you to pull the deal. And I have become rather fond of the job and the salary and perks of a backbencher. So tell Wilkie to bugger off or start looking for another job.
PM: Oh - alright then.
And this mob think that we will respect them in the morning.
As one Twitterer said this afternoon - "Time to give Rod Cavalier, John Faulkner and L Tanner total despot power in the ALP. Take out the garbage and get that light burning again".
Because the place has become a friggin disgrace.
NN: Prime Minister the pubs and clubs and their "License to Punt" campaign is killing me in my electorate.
PM: Sorry about that but we have a deal with Mr Wilkie and anyway around 70% of Australian's actually support his approach. And as you know the clubs campaign is dishonest and untruthful.
NN: I don't care about that - the clubs said they would target me and my electorate if I didn't get you to pull the deal. And I have become rather fond of the job and the salary and perks of a backbencher. So tell Wilkie to bugger off or start looking for another job.
PM: Oh - alright then.
And this mob think that we will respect them in the morning.
As one Twitterer said this afternoon - "Time to give Rod Cavalier, John Faulkner and L Tanner total despot power in the ALP. Take out the garbage and get that light burning again".
Because the place has become a friggin disgrace.
Monday, January 16, 2012
Trouble in La La Land #auspol
If you check out the Essential Report that featured in Crikey today you will learn something interesting about Tony Abbott.
You may also learn some interesting things about Julia Gillard and how a sample of Australians say they will vote - but my purpose today is to comment on Mr Abbott.
Looking at his performance over the past two years - at least according to the people who responded to the Essential poll - you would be surprised that he is still in the job.
Because his approval levels are heading the wrong way. "In January 2010 37% approved of the job he was doing - in January 2012 it is 35%".
As are his disapproval levels. "In January 2010 37% disapproved of the job he was doing - in January 2012 it is 51%".
As Australian's have gotten to know him - it seems they like him less because his "Don't Know's have gone from 26% in January 2010 to 13% in January 2012".
If ever there was a clear indicator that he is doing something wrong - then this is it. The longer he keeps at it then the worse his numbers become.
He seems to be pretty unpopular for a populist politician.
Most of us seem to have worked him out - I just wonder when his colleagues will do the same?
You may also learn some interesting things about Julia Gillard and how a sample of Australians say they will vote - but my purpose today is to comment on Mr Abbott.
Looking at his performance over the past two years - at least according to the people who responded to the Essential poll - you would be surprised that he is still in the job.
Because his approval levels are heading the wrong way. "In January 2010 37% approved of the job he was doing - in January 2012 it is 35%".
As are his disapproval levels. "In January 2010 37% disapproved of the job he was doing - in January 2012 it is 51%".
As Australian's have gotten to know him - it seems they like him less because his "Don't Know's have gone from 26% in January 2010 to 13% in January 2012".
If ever there was a clear indicator that he is doing something wrong - then this is it. The longer he keeps at it then the worse his numbers become.
He seems to be pretty unpopular for a populist politician.
Most of us seem to have worked him out - I just wonder when his colleagues will do the same?
Sunday, January 8, 2012
State of Inertia
I am on my usual pilgrimage back to South Australia - to catch up with family and to do some boat building during the holidays. My trimaran is progressing well and I am hoping to get it in the water later this year. Don't you just love the smell of epoxy and sawdust in the mornings ;-)
I wish I could be as enthusiastic about my home state. Each visit here reinforces for me the slow and relentless decline of the place. But many locals don't seem to notice - I suppose it is the "Frog and boiling water" analogy. The export performance of the place is in serious decline while manufacturing continues its slow melt. As usual the farmers and small business are whingeing and the population is declining as job seekers move interstate. Those who are locked in with local assets or family just commute across a border or two. And the state government chases revenue everywhere.
But not to worry because *mining* will save the state - or at least that is what the local politicians tell us. But then they have been telling us that for well over a decade. They have clearly run out of ideas because now all they talk about is how Olympic Dam will save the state and bring riches for all. As if.
There are clearly huge structural barriers to growth and progress in the state - but that is not helped by B Grade politicians who often talk crap. And a mediocre media that makes stuff up as it attempts to stay relevant.
Take the Leader of the Opposition - Isobel Redmond. She was doing much better when she had a small target strategy and was nearly invisible. Recently she said that when the Liberals win the next election that they will *sack* a bunch of public servants. Brilliant idea Isobel - your strategy of appealing to all those small minded business people with "job envy" will win you lots of kudos.
Doesn't that just demonstrate the calibre of SA business people and their political representatives? "You want to sack lots of public servants because they have job security and tenure and you don't".
Never mind that these public servants spend their meagre earnings in the state - usually buying stuff from small businesses. Hell no we'll just sack a bunch of them and that will make us feel much better. It's called "cutting off your nose to spite your face" and it's dim-witted.
One big reason why the place is in decline is because of this sort of thinking. But I have given up worrying about it - these days I just get a good laugh out of it.
I wish I could be as enthusiastic about my home state. Each visit here reinforces for me the slow and relentless decline of the place. But many locals don't seem to notice - I suppose it is the "Frog and boiling water" analogy. The export performance of the place is in serious decline while manufacturing continues its slow melt. As usual the farmers and small business are whingeing and the population is declining as job seekers move interstate. Those who are locked in with local assets or family just commute across a border or two. And the state government chases revenue everywhere.
But not to worry because *mining* will save the state - or at least that is what the local politicians tell us. But then they have been telling us that for well over a decade. They have clearly run out of ideas because now all they talk about is how Olympic Dam will save the state and bring riches for all. As if.
There are clearly huge structural barriers to growth and progress in the state - but that is not helped by B Grade politicians who often talk crap. And a mediocre media that makes stuff up as it attempts to stay relevant.
Take the Leader of the Opposition - Isobel Redmond. She was doing much better when she had a small target strategy and was nearly invisible. Recently she said that when the Liberals win the next election that they will *sack* a bunch of public servants. Brilliant idea Isobel - your strategy of appealing to all those small minded business people with "job envy" will win you lots of kudos.
Doesn't that just demonstrate the calibre of SA business people and their political representatives? "You want to sack lots of public servants because they have job security and tenure and you don't".
Never mind that these public servants spend their meagre earnings in the state - usually buying stuff from small businesses. Hell no we'll just sack a bunch of them and that will make us feel much better. It's called "cutting off your nose to spite your face" and it's dim-witted.
One big reason why the place is in decline is because of this sort of thinking. But I have given up worrying about it - these days I just get a good laugh out of it.
Monday, December 19, 2011
Drongos in charge #auspol
A decade ago one of our likely lads was caught up in the "War on Error" as junior Bush invaded Afghanistan and then Iraq - exporting freedom packaged up and delivered the American way.
It took almost ten years for David Hicks to get back to the relative calm of his homeland and family after the Liberal/National Government abandoned him to Guantanamo Bay - all to please the neocon's in Washington and to enhance little Johnnies' election prospects at home.
Fast forward another decade and Julian Assange awaits a similar fate after using "actual evidence" to expose the skulduggery that is US foreign policy. And another Australian Government has abandoned him to the wolves and charlatans in the US administration. But this time it won't enhance the election prospects of our Prime Minister - quite the reverse.
WTF is going on with our Governments?
Back when David Hicks was incarcerated, The US was an out of control warmonger and our Liberal/National government was obscene with its encouragement. Little Johnny thought of himself as regional deputy to Bush’s global sheriff. As if.
Back then, Mark Latham our Labor Leader of the Opposition called junior Bush the "the most incompetent and dangerous president in living memory". Not very far from the truth as it turns out.
And two Labor Prime Minister's later we have young Ms. Gillard refusing to support Julian Assange because her friend Obama is now US President and he wants our help to wage war across our region. The last thing he wants is anyone exposing US belligerence and skulduggery via Wikileaks so he wants Assange locked up - preferably in Guantanamo Bay.
Question:
"Does it seem to you that we actually have a sovereign government that is looking out for the interests of Australian's - or have we somehow become the 51st US state"?
It took almost ten years for David Hicks to get back to the relative calm of his homeland and family after the Liberal/National Government abandoned him to Guantanamo Bay - all to please the neocon's in Washington and to enhance little Johnnies' election prospects at home.
Fast forward another decade and Julian Assange awaits a similar fate after using "actual evidence" to expose the skulduggery that is US foreign policy. And another Australian Government has abandoned him to the wolves and charlatans in the US administration. But this time it won't enhance the election prospects of our Prime Minister - quite the reverse.
WTF is going on with our Governments?
Back when David Hicks was incarcerated, The US was an out of control warmonger and our Liberal/National government was obscene with its encouragement. Little Johnny thought of himself as regional deputy to Bush’s global sheriff. As if.
Back then, Mark Latham our Labor Leader of the Opposition called junior Bush the "the most incompetent and dangerous president in living memory". Not very far from the truth as it turns out.
And two Labor Prime Minister's later we have young Ms. Gillard refusing to support Julian Assange because her friend Obama is now US President and he wants our help to wage war across our region. The last thing he wants is anyone exposing US belligerence and skulduggery via Wikileaks so he wants Assange locked up - preferably in Guantanamo Bay.
Question:
"Does it seem to you that we actually have a sovereign government that is looking out for the interests of Australian's - or have we somehow become the 51st US state"?
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Evidence and Policy #auspol
I am not normally a big fan of this place - but their paper "Price Drivers: Five Case Studies in How Government is Making Australia Unaffordable" tells the unfortunate story about how Australian's have been ripped off by successive governments. Here is what they propose.
* Bananas - Dismantle the ban on importing fresh hard green bananas from the Philippines into the non-banana growing states of Tasmania, Victoria, ACT and South Australia, if not all
states and territories.
* Books - Repeal the "30 day rule" in the Copyright Act 1968. Allow a three-year adjustment period for the industry before the changes come into effect. Review the changes five years after the repeal.
* Cars - Abolish the remaining import duties to allow commercial importation of new vehicles. Abolish the Luxury Car Tax. Allow the private importation of used vehicles into Australia that are – not older than 10 years and have not been driven more than 120,000 kms – only from the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, Japan and New Zealand, and – fit to obtain a "pink slip" on arrival.
* Housing - Increase supply by encouraging councils to take on more residents through local government finance reforms that reward councils for accepting more residents. Policy recommendations are available in the CIS report Australia’s Angry Mayors. Abolish both negative gearing and first home buyers grants. Abolish or at least reduce stamp duty on property transactions. Cap infrastructure levies or replace them with funding streams based on income tax. Alternatively, give councils access to a share of the locally generated GST revenue.
* Retail - Support the Productivity Commission’s recommendation to relax planning and zoning regulations to – increase land supply for retail, and prevent these regulations from being used by established retail-space owners as anticompetitive tools. Abolish commercial viability testing for new shopping areas.
All of these things make perfect sense. The only thing that amazes me is how long it has taken for the expose to become public. Everyone of us ought be asking our MP's to demonstrate what action they are personally taking to put pressure on their leaders to fix these things.
And the fulltime focus of our Prime Minister and her Cabinet should be to deal with them. I do accept that they didn't create the problems but they could win lots of kudos by fixing them. It's not exactly rocket science - all you have to do is look to New Zealand to see how the car proposal has worked out.
Perhaps this is how Julia can re-connect with the people? We can only live in hope.
* Bananas - Dismantle the ban on importing fresh hard green bananas from the Philippines into the non-banana growing states of Tasmania, Victoria, ACT and South Australia, if not all
states and territories.
* Books - Repeal the "30 day rule" in the Copyright Act 1968. Allow a three-year adjustment period for the industry before the changes come into effect. Review the changes five years after the repeal.
* Cars - Abolish the remaining import duties to allow commercial importation of new vehicles. Abolish the Luxury Car Tax. Allow the private importation of used vehicles into Australia that are – not older than 10 years and have not been driven more than 120,000 kms – only from the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, Japan and New Zealand, and – fit to obtain a "pink slip" on arrival.
* Housing - Increase supply by encouraging councils to take on more residents through local government finance reforms that reward councils for accepting more residents. Policy recommendations are available in the CIS report Australia’s Angry Mayors. Abolish both negative gearing and first home buyers grants. Abolish or at least reduce stamp duty on property transactions. Cap infrastructure levies or replace them with funding streams based on income tax. Alternatively, give councils access to a share of the locally generated GST revenue.
* Retail - Support the Productivity Commission’s recommendation to relax planning and zoning regulations to – increase land supply for retail, and prevent these regulations from being used by established retail-space owners as anticompetitive tools. Abolish commercial viability testing for new shopping areas.
All of these things make perfect sense. The only thing that amazes me is how long it has taken for the expose to become public. Everyone of us ought be asking our MP's to demonstrate what action they are personally taking to put pressure on their leaders to fix these things.
And the fulltime focus of our Prime Minister and her Cabinet should be to deal with them. I do accept that they didn't create the problems but they could win lots of kudos by fixing them. It's not exactly rocket science - all you have to do is look to New Zealand to see how the car proposal has worked out.
Perhaps this is how Julia can re-connect with the people? We can only live in hope.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
How to Fix Broken Stuff
This post by Dave Winer got me thinking.
Not so much about Android and the tech industry - I already use Android and have been in the tech industry for nearly 40 years. And by the way I agree with what Dave says.
But more about how our various Governments seem incapable of getting things to work properly. Particularly those things that they have responsibility for. Like Health.
If you have been following the schemozzle that is QLD Health you will know what I mean.
Disaster follows disaster. If it isn't bogus medico's performing unnecessary surgery and maiming patients then it is bogus finance staff who are embezzling millions. What about the things that haven't yet made it into the media? The place is a circus.
It does remind me of similar stuff up's in another state health system where some of their staff were being paid twice - and a few were being paid three times. And apparently that had been going on for years. Bet you didn't hear about that?
And the various QLD Managers and Ministers and their Premier seem completely lost. Yesterday the Premier announced the dismantling of the Health Department - to be replaced by what? Disneyland probably.
Why is it so hard for seemingly smart people to build an organisation and management capability that actually works? That is the $64k question.
And the answer has two main components;
* The nature of state politics means that they are only ever thinking short term - which is between now and 5 minutes after the next election. An average of 2 years.
* And inertia conspires to keep things just as they are. Change involves pain and it doesn't really matter how broken the system is - trying to fix it will make a lot of comfortable people feel very uncomfortable.
I wouldn't even attempt to fix it - it's far too broken for that. What I would do is build a new system from scratch and transfer any good bits across from the old one. Mind you it will take some smart people to design that new system so it doesn't end up like the one they already have. So I probably wouldn't use the same folks who built the current one - Virginia ;-)
And when it was up and running then I would switch the old one off. A bit like what Qantas is doing with Jetstar.
Not so much about Android and the tech industry - I already use Android and have been in the tech industry for nearly 40 years. And by the way I agree with what Dave says.
But more about how our various Governments seem incapable of getting things to work properly. Particularly those things that they have responsibility for. Like Health.
If you have been following the schemozzle that is QLD Health you will know what I mean.
Disaster follows disaster. If it isn't bogus medico's performing unnecessary surgery and maiming patients then it is bogus finance staff who are embezzling millions. What about the things that haven't yet made it into the media? The place is a circus.
It does remind me of similar stuff up's in another state health system where some of their staff were being paid twice - and a few were being paid three times. And apparently that had been going on for years. Bet you didn't hear about that?
And the various QLD Managers and Ministers and their Premier seem completely lost. Yesterday the Premier announced the dismantling of the Health Department - to be replaced by what? Disneyland probably.
Why is it so hard for seemingly smart people to build an organisation and management capability that actually works? That is the $64k question.
And the answer has two main components;
* The nature of state politics means that they are only ever thinking short term - which is between now and 5 minutes after the next election. An average of 2 years.
* And inertia conspires to keep things just as they are. Change involves pain and it doesn't really matter how broken the system is - trying to fix it will make a lot of comfortable people feel very uncomfortable.
I wouldn't even attempt to fix it - it's far too broken for that. What I would do is build a new system from scratch and transfer any good bits across from the old one. Mind you it will take some smart people to design that new system so it doesn't end up like the one they already have. So I probably wouldn't use the same folks who built the current one - Virginia ;-)
And when it was up and running then I would switch the old one off. A bit like what Qantas is doing with Jetstar.
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