iPod etiquette
I don’t know if there’s such a thing as a code of conduct for iPod users, but there ought to be. One of my staff has taken to getting around much of the day with an iPod glued to his ear.
You can make a perfectly audible comment across the office and he just doesn’t hear. To get his attention you have to draw his eye.
He’s not in a job where he has to answer the phone much, or get involved with discussions, but occasionally he is required to engage in dialogue.
Sometimes I see him swaying about the office, and if he wasn’t a non-drinker I’d have every reason to suspect he was intoxicated.
He’s good at his work, and apart from sometimes talking to myself while talking to him, I have no reason for complaint. I’m sure chronic text messagers waste more time than he does.
Is this is a common issue in the workplace? How should I deal with it?
Pay an Outback bonus
The Prime Minister John Howard came and went last week. I was honoured to briefly meet him, but felt somewhat deflated by the whole experience.
Howard neither said nor did anything interesting. I didn’t expect him to triple somersault off a trampoline, but I did think he would make a significant announcement. That was not to be.
Howard and Alan Carpenter should both take a lesson from outgoing Victorian Premier Steve Bracks when it comes to publicity.
Bracks never visited a country town without making a major announcement or handing over money for a local project.
My tip was that Howard would announce solar city funding for Kalgoorlie-Boulder. Along with Alice Springs, we are the most logical place in Australia to run this program. So far we have been overlooked. There are not enough votes here, is my guess, and we are a safe seat. Read more
Nothing wrong with defence ads
In another example of crazy political correctness, the Defence Department has been forced to scrap a clever recruitment campaign because of some feminist complaints.
The cartoon-style ads feature a buxom “Diggeress” in various occupational poses including a Dental Corps nurse fairly bursting out of her medical uniform.
In other ads, our heroine is cooking, sitting behind a desk, climbing a tree and looking seductive in tight-fitting khaki. There’s even a wench with a wrench.
Apparently trade applicant enquiries went up from 35 to 450 in the first week of the campaign.
So what’s the problem? The defence forces need to appeal to a wider range of people than just unemployed young males who like guns and sex sells.
However: Defence spokesman Brigadier Andrew Nikolic said the military received complaints about the cartoons and recognised that “sections of the community found some of the material inappropriate”. Humbug.
God bless Gerry Kane
My cousin Gerry Kane died of cancer today. He was a year younger than me. Because he lived in Western Australia while I was in the eastern states, we only met a few times.
He was a lot of fun to be around and I remember those times with great pleasure, especially my sister’s wedding and my first visit to Perth.
When I moved to Western Australia Gerry was living in Singapore.
Gerry was the General Manager - South East Asia for Don Russell Homes. He also served when he was younger in the Royal Australian Air Force.
He was a top bloke with a terrific sense of humor: a great loss
Sadly, my last contact with him was nearly a year ago, when he wrote:
Bloody hell mate, time flies!!! Didn’t realize your kids are already at that age. I will be here in Perth probably until late September /early October, all going well. Hope to be back in Singapore by October for a golf event in Chiang Mai, Thailand at the end of the month. So, depending when in September you are planning to come down, I may be able to catch up………………sure would be good to catch up.
God bless you Gerry.
Home owners again
We have exchanged contracts to buy a house at Moonta Bay in South Australia (pictured). It’s one year old, in a quiet area about 15 minutes walk from the beach.
Moonta Bay is less than two hours drive from Adelaide on the Yorke Peninsula. We came to know and like that area when we lived at Port Pirie.
We’ll rent the house out, but hopefully in 20 years it will still be in good enough nick to be our retirement home.
I sold my managed funds this week to pay the deposit, which was good timing given the fall in world share markets over the past few days. We timed it perfectly in fact and hung onto probably $2000 which would otherwise have been lost.
Interest rates look like going up, but we’ll be able to absorb a few rises without too much trouble.
Meeting the Prime Minister
Prime Minister John Howard visited Kalgoorlie-Boulder yesterday and I had the opportunity to meet him. It’s the first time I have met a Prime Minister.
I was in a function room with Bob Hawke once, but wasn’t introduced.
The proceedings yesterday at the Australian Prospectors and Miners Hall of Fame were fairly informal. Security was present, but unobtrusive. Read more
Random things about me
I had a go at one of these blog chain mail things called memes a while back. I won’t do it again, tagging other people, but the topics can be good inspiration for interesting writing. If anyone likes this one they can link back to me with their own effort.
I got the idea for it here.
1) I can wiggle my nose. Not side to side like Samantha in Bewitched, but sort of nostril twitching.
2) I have only ever broken one bone in my body. That was the pinky toe on my left foot when I was 15 years old, playing football in the hallway with a sock.
3) After watching Dead Poet’s Society in 1989 my girlfriend at the time and I drove an hour from the cinema in Morwell to the nearest snow-covered mountain (Saint Gwinear). It was rather romantic until a caretaker mistook us for some lost skiers and came looking for us with a torch.
4) I am allergic to cattle and horses, especially ungroomed animals in saleyards or at the racetrack. This was career threatening when I was a reporter for “Stock and Land”.
5) I think ASIO might have checked me out when I made a small donation once to the Sinn Fein weekly An Phoblacht. I applied for a housing loan shortly afterwards and the bank manager was surprised that someone had just done a credit check on me.
6) I play cards left handed and eat with a spoon left handed. I can bowl in cricket left arm and right arm, but use my right hand for almost everything else.
7) I was detained in a Malawi police station for several hours after accidentally driving up to the gates of President Banda’s palace in Blantyre.
I have never smoked marijuana or taken any illegal drug.
If I ruled a country …
This is one of those five-question blog prompts. I first saw it on Synaptoman. The starting assumption is that you are the absolute ruler of a prosperous, stable country without any immediate threats, no poverty or unemployment.
That means I can answer this question safe in the knowledge I don’t need to interfere with the economy or the social structure. They must be working already.
1) I’d appoint an advisory council made up of community and industry leaders. I wouldn’t have to accept their advice, but I could not govern effectively without it.
2) I would guarantee the independence of the judiciary, appoint a powerful ombudsman and ensure the police force was properly organised and well paid.
3) The only taxes would be a value-added tax and a bank debits tax.
4) I would ensure free quality education to university level.
5) I would build an excellent public transport system and ban cars from city precincts.
Media management: be open
I have been working in the media industry for 20 years. I had 13 years as a reporter, editor and manager, then a five-year interlude in public relations before returning to newspapers early last year as editor of the Kalgoorlie Miner.
We all learn through living and working. There is no substitute for life experience. I found the five years in PR gave me a special insight into how people “on the other side of the fence” view the media.
PR consultants represent people who want publicity and those who don’t want publicity. It’s a case of trying to get the best value out of a good situation and the lowest level of exposure for a bad one.
Since returning to the press I’ve taken an interest in how organisations handle particular circumstances.
Football clubs never cease to amaze me with how badly they manage negative events. Collingwood’s handling of the Alan Didak saga was a case in point. Read more
Great win over the Blues
What a great win by the Lions today over Carlton: 25.13.163 to 6.10.46. Carlton has really not made much ground this season, despite preferential draft picks. The Lions are again shaping as a force.
Jonathan Brown (pictured) booted 10 goals in a powerful display. The fact Brown is a Fitzroy man helps me to celebrate this result.
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