...where do they all...find the time to carry on so much?
But, really, it’s all relative, isn’t it?
I’ve just been in a conversation with some folk telling me how hard they work. Apart from that sort of garbage pissing me off in the first place (the irony of having time to congregate in little groups and whinge about how busy it is seems to escape most public servants), I find it hard to sympathise.
Many will argue that the sort of work that goes on in the public service is not the same as that which happens elsewhere – that it can be mentally challenging and leave you feeling drained at the end of the day. As buggered as you would be after a day digging holes in the sun, just in a different way.
While that may be true, I doubt you’d find many people that wouldn’t swap digging in the sun for an airconditioned office fairly smartly.
At the moment, my job is fairly crap. It’s as boring as batshit, and doesn’t really seem to be going anywhere. That’s not to say I’m stuck in it, but I will move on, probably in the next few months if I can swing it.
But I still like working here. All I have to do is imagine what life was like about two years ago and I feel pretty damn good about things. I content myself with simple equations.
2 years ago: 50-60 hours per week = 38.5 hours pay
Lunch: 45 minutes only when no one else was gone.
Now: 40-50 hours per week = 38.5 hours pay and the rest in flex.
Lunch: whenever.
Obviously people on contracts and that sort of thing still tend to get ripped off, but it will NEVER be as bad as the conditions in private enterprise.
The common thread that runs through the complaints about how much hard work public service is that the people making them have either never done anything else, or it has been a long time since they have.
Interestingly, the higher up the ladder you climb the less people tend to complain. I suspect this is because these are the people intelligent enough to realise how good they have it.
The other one that crops up is “but the stuff we do is sooooo important! It’s for the minister/ director general/ CEO/ insert grand poobah/ etc. We have deadlines/ meetings/ presentations to be ready for!”
Whoopdee fuckin’doo. Possibly, if things weren’t checked eight times and the meetings about having meetings about how good we all are were cut back there would be more time available. The term ‘sycophantic pedants’ comes to mind.
I watched the Four Corners show on torture last night. Finally, the reason that spending your whole working day with the eyes of a hundred people boring into your head, a hundred people that have been waiting in a queue for longer than they’d like, became clear. Finally it made sense why it made you stuffed at the end of the day.
But all I had to do was remember back to being a cook for a year.
$10 an hour, stinking hot kitchen, singed eyelashes and stupid hours.
But then, to brighten my day it was just a matter of remembering how my scumbag sister would bribe me into doing her chores (the going rate was a dollar per tree planted, that sort of thing) then not actually give me any money. My own stupid fault for not getting the money up front, really.
Stupid IR laws.
The upshot of it all is that my job is pretty good. I do my work, listen to my headphones, have my lunch, listen attentively to the complaining folk, and leave at four on Fridays for a beer.
Sometimes others even join me.
So if I sound like a cynic, sorry, I don’t mean to be.
Have a good one.
Salud.
Tuesday, 5 June 2007
Sunday, 3 June 2007
We only come out at night...
Yo!
How was your day?
Good?
Great...
I haven't put anything up for a while, so I thought I would just post some photos of a trip K and I took up to the Bunya Mountains, west of Brisbane.
These are clouds, over the cars at the camp site.
These are some more clouds.
And a couple more clouds.
Clouds, and a tree!!
Clouds, trees, power lines, even some cars. This is looking towards the start of the walk we took the next day. I've got some photos of that I'll put up tomorrow, or later.
It was a really nice trip. We sort of wanted to try out some of our cold weather clothes, and the Bunya Mountains didn't disappoint. It was pretty cool at night.
This time, in contrast to our last effort at camping, we took chairs and a mattress with us. It made for an infinitely more comfortable camping trip.
Had nabe for dinner - which turns out to be the best camping food ever. Just chop everything up before you go, whack your pot on the stove thing, and away you go.
We even had plenty for breakfast the next day. This turned out to be crap.
Tip: nabe reheated the next day is hopeless.
Good camp site, too, the only sour note the noisy Christians who had some weird kumbaya style sing along late into the night, long after the drunken teens closer to us had gone to bed.
Cheers
How was your day?
Good?
Great...
I haven't put anything up for a while, so I thought I would just post some photos of a trip K and I took up to the Bunya Mountains, west of Brisbane.
These are clouds, over the cars at the camp site.
These are some more clouds.
And a couple more clouds.
Clouds, and a tree!!
Clouds, trees, power lines, even some cars. This is looking towards the start of the walk we took the next day. I've got some photos of that I'll put up tomorrow, or later.
It was a really nice trip. We sort of wanted to try out some of our cold weather clothes, and the Bunya Mountains didn't disappoint. It was pretty cool at night.
This time, in contrast to our last effort at camping, we took chairs and a mattress with us. It made for an infinitely more comfortable camping trip.
Had nabe for dinner - which turns out to be the best camping food ever. Just chop everything up before you go, whack your pot on the stove thing, and away you go.
We even had plenty for breakfast the next day. This turned out to be crap.
Tip: nabe reheated the next day is hopeless.
Good camp site, too, the only sour note the noisy Christians who had some weird kumbaya style sing along late into the night, long after the drunken teens closer to us had gone to bed.
Cheers
Friday, 18 May 2007
It’s only funny until someone gets hurt…
…and then it’s just hilarious.
The Australian government descends further into farce. If this wasn’t for real it would be hilarious.
You have to check it out . It is the most ridiculous thing I’ve read in a fair while…and I read blogs!
But it makes me happy for another reason.
It reminds me that Howard pays far too much attention to redneck opinion gathered through Today Tonight, A Current Affair, talkback radio, etc. He, or his marketing guru, has decided that this sort of shit is representative of broad Australian opinion.
Maybe, to an extent, but in their carry on about so-called “Aussie Values” they forgot an important one – Australians don’t like to be told to suck eggs, and, unlike Americans, they don’t like to look like idiots.
And this test makes us look like idiots to the rest of the world. This is the sort of story that makes it to those weird and wonderful pages on the news sites, like the dog who can drive and the man who sues because he chopped his penis off with a chainsaw.
In particular question 15 pisses me off. Maybe it’s true, but it’s pretty backward looking, and it really is a trick question. Everyone I know answered “secularism” and the ones that got the right answer only did so because they realised the mindset behind the test.
I’m happy.
To the tune of the Everly Brother’s classic,
Bye Bye John
Bye bye viciousness
Hello hopefulness
Don’t fuck it up, Rudd, or I’ll cry-y
I want to see the back of that guy-y.
The Australian government descends further into farce. If this wasn’t for real it would be hilarious.
You have to check it out . It is the most ridiculous thing I’ve read in a fair while…and I read blogs!
But it makes me happy for another reason.
It reminds me that Howard pays far too much attention to redneck opinion gathered through Today Tonight, A Current Affair, talkback radio, etc. He, or his marketing guru, has decided that this sort of shit is representative of broad Australian opinion.
Maybe, to an extent, but in their carry on about so-called “Aussie Values” they forgot an important one – Australians don’t like to be told to suck eggs, and, unlike Americans, they don’t like to look like idiots.
And this test makes us look like idiots to the rest of the world. This is the sort of story that makes it to those weird and wonderful pages on the news sites, like the dog who can drive and the man who sues because he chopped his penis off with a chainsaw.
In particular question 15 pisses me off. Maybe it’s true, but it’s pretty backward looking, and it really is a trick question. Everyone I know answered “secularism” and the ones that got the right answer only did so because they realised the mindset behind the test.
I’m happy.
To the tune of the Everly Brother’s classic,
Bye Bye John
Bye bye viciousness
Hello hopefulness
Don’t fuck it up, Rudd, or I’ll cry-y
I want to see the back of that guy-y.
Thursday, 17 May 2007
Ba Baaaaaaaaa....
...this is the sound of Centrelink.
And I'm bored, so I've been surfing the news sites. Here's a couple I liked.
Indian Whisky – caught my eye, but it wasn’t what I thought. Turns out the “Indian Richard Branson” has just bought the company that makes, among many other things, Glayva liquer. Expect a rise in drunken telemarketers.
After hours chute for babies – A kid that was able to tell the nurses that his dad dropped him off was left in the after hours drop off chute at a Japanese hospital His dad will still get stung with the late fee as it was after 6.
Fully furnished – Someone buys a flat in Spain and finds a dead woman on the couch. Turns out the woman’s brother’s ex-girlfriend’s cousin’s friend had a one night stand with the wife of a guy whose brother once cleaned a toilet at an American naval base. NCIS has been called.
Why Europeans weren’t completely wiped out by the Black Death – turns out they all had herpes. Or something.
Seems it’s good for you. I still don’t want it.
That is all.
Chao.
And I'm bored, so I've been surfing the news sites. Here's a couple I liked.
Indian Whisky – caught my eye, but it wasn’t what I thought. Turns out the “Indian Richard Branson” has just bought the company that makes, among many other things, Glayva liquer. Expect a rise in drunken telemarketers.
After hours chute for babies – A kid that was able to tell the nurses that his dad dropped him off was left in the after hours drop off chute at a Japanese hospital His dad will still get stung with the late fee as it was after 6.
Fully furnished – Someone buys a flat in Spain and finds a dead woman on the couch. Turns out the woman’s brother’s ex-girlfriend’s cousin’s friend had a one night stand with the wife of a guy whose brother once cleaned a toilet at an American naval base. NCIS has been called.
Why Europeans weren’t completely wiped out by the Black Death – turns out they all had herpes. Or something.
Seems it’s good for you. I still don’t want it.
That is all.
Chao.
Wednesday, 16 May 2007
If this isn’t making sense…
…it doesn’t make it lies.
For years I have just accepted the general Western line that the Dalai Lama and Tibet were pretty hard done by. To be honest, I had never given it much thought.
Recently, though, I read an article about the improvements in Tibetan health and socio-economic status since Chinese rule. Although it read as propaganda it got me thinking…but only a bit.
My first thought when I read the ‘Rudd snubs Dalai Lama’ headline this morning, was “that was a mistake”. After all, the DL is above reproach. Interest piqued, I had to look up Wiki, upon which I found ….criticism of the DL.
I may have been asleep, but this was all new to me.
The criticism wasn’t very detailed, so away I went with a small grain of salt…only to go to Blogocracy and discover a similar discussion.
A few googles later and I’ve discovered it’s not as rosy as I thought.
I’ve never actually thought Buddhism was all that, anyway, given my natural opposition to organised religion. As a kid, I remember reading about Oda Nobunaga’s massacre of the Buddhist monks on Mount Hiei in Japan after they did some uncool things – I figured it couldn’t be all made up.
Anyway, I’m not going to go into too much detail – go here and here for the opposing viewpoints.
I personally don’t have the information to know what is the truth, but I guess it lies somewhere in the middle.
I think that the Chinese have probably done some pretty nasty things during their time there, and perhaps continue to do so. Their record on human rights generally doesn’t exactly instil confidence.
However, the picture of Old Tibet as a less than idyllic country with a great deal of social and economic inequality certainly has the ring of truth about it.
Neither side is correct, I’ll warrant. The Russians may not have had that great a time under communism, and the current picture isn’t great either, but you can just bet they don’t want to go back to the oppressive aristocratic regime of the czars.
It all just reinforces the fact that everything needs to be questioned, even if it seems right.
For years I have just accepted the general Western line that the Dalai Lama and Tibet were pretty hard done by. To be honest, I had never given it much thought.
Recently, though, I read an article about the improvements in Tibetan health and socio-economic status since Chinese rule. Although it read as propaganda it got me thinking…but only a bit.
My first thought when I read the ‘Rudd snubs Dalai Lama’ headline this morning, was “that was a mistake”. After all, the DL is above reproach. Interest piqued, I had to look up Wiki, upon which I found ….criticism of the DL.
I may have been asleep, but this was all new to me.
The criticism wasn’t very detailed, so away I went with a small grain of salt…only to go to Blogocracy and discover a similar discussion.
A few googles later and I’ve discovered it’s not as rosy as I thought.
I’ve never actually thought Buddhism was all that, anyway, given my natural opposition to organised religion. As a kid, I remember reading about Oda Nobunaga’s massacre of the Buddhist monks on Mount Hiei in Japan after they did some uncool things – I figured it couldn’t be all made up.
Anyway, I’m not going to go into too much detail – go here and here for the opposing viewpoints.
I personally don’t have the information to know what is the truth, but I guess it lies somewhere in the middle.
I think that the Chinese have probably done some pretty nasty things during their time there, and perhaps continue to do so. Their record on human rights generally doesn’t exactly instil confidence.
However, the picture of Old Tibet as a less than idyllic country with a great deal of social and economic inequality certainly has the ring of truth about it.
Neither side is correct, I’ll warrant. The Russians may not have had that great a time under communism, and the current picture isn’t great either, but you can just bet they don’t want to go back to the oppressive aristocratic regime of the czars.
It all just reinforces the fact that everything needs to be questioned, even if it seems right.
Tuesday, 15 May 2007
It'll soon shake your windows....
...and rattle your walls.
You know the rest.
And they are.
I'm just now watching Little Johnny get roasted by Kerry The Man...again.
He's running scared and I am going to make a bold prediction.
I hope I'm not wrong...but, fuck it.
In five years time everyone will look back on the Howard years and wonder where it all went wrong. Why did they lose the October 2007 election when the economy was going so well? Why weren't people scared anymore?
The generally accepted answer will be Workchoices.
The Libs let finally let their masters and servants ideology overtake their common sense. they were so determined to break the unions they lost sight of the main point - Unions are made up of workers, and workers vote.
All the rest was window dressing. It was not quite the socialist awakening of 2007, but it got the bastards out.
That's my call.
You know the rest.
And they are.
I'm just now watching Little Johnny get roasted by Kerry The Man...again.
He's running scared and I am going to make a bold prediction.
I hope I'm not wrong...but, fuck it.
In five years time everyone will look back on the Howard years and wonder where it all went wrong. Why did they lose the October 2007 election when the economy was going so well? Why weren't people scared anymore?
The generally accepted answer will be Workchoices.
The Libs let finally let their masters and servants ideology overtake their common sense. they were so determined to break the unions they lost sight of the main point - Unions are made up of workers, and workers vote.
All the rest was window dressing. It was not quite the socialist awakening of 2007, but it got the bastards out.
That's my call.
With four hundred children...
...and a crop in the fields.
At least, that's what I always thought it said.
Anyway, I've been a bit busy lately with an assignment on Aboriginal Economic Development, in particular the new land tenure arrangements. So if you want to know about it... go ask mangoman, coz I made most of it up.
And by busy, well, you know. It's not so much that I was actually engaged in the process, more that I couldn't justify writing something which wasn't uni related.
Mostly, I wrote nothing at all, but at least it wasn't off the track.
I have noticed that I have not yet posted a things that shit me list, and in the blog world, that seems to be a prerequisite. I believe that’s because negative people have more time to write and broadcast it to the world.
There are a few things that pop into my head instantly, but on further consideration just make me look like a wanker.
Like old people walking slow used to get to me, but I realise now that that’s my problem.
So I’ll just quickly list a couple of things about blogs that shit me.
Top of the list is people that remove the next blog button from their template. If I was a hacker, I’d paste nude photos of Bush and Thatcher on their page it annoys me so much.
People that get precious and wank on in their posts shit me. Now, I know that's what blogging is about, and I am guilty myself - and that's why I just stop reading them.
People that post lists of things merely because they’ve not blogged for a while and need to post something and can’t think of anything shit me too.
And that's about it. Can't think of anything else, really.
Most of what shits me about blogs is merely a result of my thinking the topics are stupid, or boring, and that again is likely my problem.
Politics wise, it's been a good week.
The budget came out, some people thought it would give the Libs a boost in the polls, I was only a little worried.
And, as it turns out in the latest Newspoll, it hasn't. Not in the slightest. (Incidentally, for a poll carried out by the Australian, it lasted about 10 seconds on their website - The Oz, biased? Noooo...)
But it's okay, say the Libs, wait until the actual Budget bribes hit the punters' bank accounts.
Which should be about the same time the record credit card bills and mortgage payments come out again.
I try not to get too hopeful, but it is hard not to.
On another note, I sometimes think Mother's Day is an exercise in commercialisation, but isn't this going a bit far? I think the kid read Musashi one too many times.
Salud!
At least, that's what I always thought it said.
Anyway, I've been a bit busy lately with an assignment on Aboriginal Economic Development, in particular the new land tenure arrangements. So if you want to know about it... go ask mangoman, coz I made most of it up.
And by busy, well, you know. It's not so much that I was actually engaged in the process, more that I couldn't justify writing something which wasn't uni related.
Mostly, I wrote nothing at all, but at least it wasn't off the track.
I have noticed that I have not yet posted a things that shit me list, and in the blog world, that seems to be a prerequisite. I believe that’s because negative people have more time to write and broadcast it to the world.
There are a few things that pop into my head instantly, but on further consideration just make me look like a wanker.
Like old people walking slow used to get to me, but I realise now that that’s my problem.
So I’ll just quickly list a couple of things about blogs that shit me.
Top of the list is people that remove the next blog button from their template. If I was a hacker, I’d paste nude photos of Bush and Thatcher on their page it annoys me so much.
People that get precious and wank on in their posts shit me. Now, I know that's what blogging is about, and I am guilty myself - and that's why I just stop reading them.
People that post lists of things merely because they’ve not blogged for a while and need to post something and can’t think of anything shit me too.
And that's about it. Can't think of anything else, really.
Most of what shits me about blogs is merely a result of my thinking the topics are stupid, or boring, and that again is likely my problem.
Politics wise, it's been a good week.
The budget came out, some people thought it would give the Libs a boost in the polls, I was only a little worried.
And, as it turns out in the latest Newspoll, it hasn't. Not in the slightest. (Incidentally, for a poll carried out by the Australian, it lasted about 10 seconds on their website - The Oz, biased? Noooo...)
But it's okay, say the Libs, wait until the actual Budget bribes hit the punters' bank accounts.
Which should be about the same time the record credit card bills and mortgage payments come out again.
I try not to get too hopeful, but it is hard not to.
On another note, I sometimes think Mother's Day is an exercise in commercialisation, but isn't this going a bit far? I think the kid read Musashi one too many times.
Salud!
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