Big Fat Zero

 It has started.

 I read a memo that circulated to Australian Government departments a week or so ago about freezing recruitment and not renewing contracts as Tony lunges towards his promised 12000 job cuts to Public Service.

I was bemused as they rolled out the old chestnut  rhetoric about “no cuts to services” as a result of the staffing reductions.

So, if that’s the case, why is it that a document I requested (and paid for already) which should have been delivered ‘within 30 days’ is now nearly 2 weeks overdue? And more to the pint, why is it that my email inquiry about where the job is up to has been answered with a computer generated message that gives me a number for the inquiry and says: ‘We aim to respond to inquiries within 30 days’.  

Now I have two numbers: the original order number and the inquiry number, but I still have no papers, no answers and no service. 

Mathematically you are on to a winner Tony.

Here’s my reasoning.

Let “No service in the first place” =0 

Let “No cuts to the original service” = 0

Therefore 0-0=0 = no reduction in services

Bingo!

Gotta love weasel words. 

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Art Work of the Week 

This week's work has not been realised - an indication of what could happen if Tony's policies applied in my world- no artist; no art!

Pick me, Pick me

I’ve been trying to avoid yet another post about the election. But it just won’t go away.

This week I’m over:

Paid parental leave

Nice idea, but apart from the equity argument, it risks setting up work environments that will actively discriminate against employing fertile young women. Why is nobody talking about this?  Is this political correctness gone awry, and yet another one of those large, four legged, leathery, grey objects we don’t mention?

The Daily Telegraph

But I’ve been over them for years so that’s nothing new. I don’t read it, I don’t buy it. I recognised in the early 80’s when they absolutely unfairly demonised Mount Druitt High School that it was and continues to be a suitable wrapper for food scraps and wet plant cuttings and that’s about it. I just can’t avoid it’s inanity being covered by the ABC and The Project.

Zed

I can’t believe he has his little garden staked signs peppering the Monaro Highway, Athlon Drive, the Parkway etc, when he went to the ACT election vowing and declaring he would work for  four years for the southern valley of Canberra and lasted for the blink of an eye before ripping the carpet from a long standing and respected senator, donning his fez and flying off for much greener pastures.  And if that’s not enough, the original signs which were formatted similarly to other candidates have popped up babies that simply say ZED. What more to say?

But at least we are getting some light moments:

I haven’t spotted, but I have had described, that beside the signs in Tuggeranong is: Vote1 (insert name of restaurant) with the slogan: Left wing, Right wing, chicken wing.  

And the youtube insights into the inner sanctum of Parliament house with its undie ironing, and  lasso twirling was a hoot. Go Bobbie and Robbie - or should that be Bobbie and Laurie- now I'm showing my age.

I do need to report that still, nobody has polled me. You would think that with all the polling that is being reported on a daily basis I should have fluked at least one call – even the random generator doesn’t value my opinion. However, if I believe my blog statistic counter on Google there are heaps of you in Russia and Latvia who do. Thanks.

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This week's Art Work

One for the Russians

Tea at St Basil's

Phatic noise

It is my habit to turn on the radio as soon as I rise in the mornings. When I was in full time work it was always local ABC – listening for anything that would divert our attentions from the defined day’s work.  In semi-retirement I switched to Radio National breathing a sign that I would no longer be bombarded with the minutiae of stories about un-mowed school ovals, closed gates, school students being refused service at the local shops, or yet another debate about dress code.

RN  gives me a good sweep of national and international events – but I am seriously considering cutting the broadcast for the next five weeks and simply reverting to reading the news on my phone, or hanging out in a cave somewhere that  has no electricity or internet service– at least there I can avoid the burgeoning diatribe that is shaping up as election campaigning.

All that shouting, pontificating, name calling, jingoistic, phatic noise that does nothing but obfuscate the landscape,  is just more than I can bear at 6:30 in the morning. Oh for the squawking birds that fly in and out of the neighbour’s gum tree making an unbelievable racket.

And if I cut off the radio, I am certain I still won’t be polled. The tally this end is that my teenage granddaughter has been polled twice in the last few weeks – even though she is ineligible to vote, and my friend has clocked up two opportunities to have her say.  Ok: the ABC did invite me to contribute to their online poll Vote Compass, but that hardly counts as it was a request to the whole nation- or anyone who was watching the telly at the time!

So what I’d like is to see policy: in black and white, that I can print out and read and that doesn’t come with continual dissection, commentary, and opinion pieces that assume I am too thick to make up my own mind. And I want a quiet peaceful place in which to read it; and a cohort of informed friends who are prepared to discuss what we think of it all, and which, if any, benefits the future of our country rather than the future of a political party.

I’ve been doing some polling of my own  lately, talking to amazing young people about how they contribute to their communities and what they get from the experience. The honesty of their conversation, the delight they display about doing something for others, the intelligence and reflection in their responses, their capacity to cogently articulate their views and commitments,  and their integrity, are mind blowing.  

I remember why I loved being a teacher.

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Art Work of the Week 

One of those squawking birds

Kioloa Tweet. Acrylic on canvas

A bad smell

I’ve been listening this morning to Radio National Talk-back regarding taboos in the workplace.

 

I was particularly taken by a comment by someone describing what I believe they thought was the perfect work lunch – everyone with their alarms set to signal the end of the scheduled one hour, no alcohol consumption, only mineral water, no risque, racist, sexist,  ageist, leftist, rightist, religious or political conversation. I thought to myself: If I was at that table I would be poking out my eyes with the dining fork.

So, the discussions led to two taboo types:

• One the things you cannot do in the workplace; and two

• The things you cannot talk about.

 I expected the former to focus on acts of intimacy enjoyed between two people in the privacy of their own non-work environment, but no, the conversation was about  aromatic foods and swearing. 

I know what a salmon can opened in the air does – it wafts into every crevice of the universe and lingers until it has sucked all the air into itself and exploded into a million pieces, reminding one for weeks that it had a brief, but mind (or nostril) numbing existence. The same could be said of egg sandwiches and some curries.  

No-one mentioned the crunch of celery sticks or the persistent whistler, but they did bemoan the demise of the sick room – a bex and a good lie down for half an hour used to do it.

We covered off perfumes and how a good cuppa with the team first thing in the morning will get your worries off you chest and you can tell the non-soap user that they really do stink and then go blithely about your work for the day content in the fact that you have it off your chest. 

Do I want to work there? 

I think not!

 It appears that one cannot talk about ‘flexibility’ for workers. It’s a taboo. I was alarmed to hear the academic positing about this that flexible workplaces are not productive because flexibility for some means impost on others. Now, I say, show me the evidence of the former, and show me the actions management has taken to mitigate the latter. My experience is when you give people flexibility and some control over their work arrangements, you end up with more bang for your buck, so to speak.

I was pleased to hear someone say that we have moved to trying to regulate good manners.

As for swearing, I think it’s about context. I recall being in my private office once letting off steam  about a particularly difficult client who was outside hyperventilating into a paper bag having behaved like a mad person and burst in demanding the universe and my first born. A colleague came in, overheard my rant to myself and chastised me about my language being offensive to her. 

My advice: Don’t come in to my office unannounced!

You see, I think there are a range of tabbos that are much more significant than any of the things I heard cited this morning. 

My list includes:

• Red tape and process for the sake of it
•  A culture that values presence rather than outcome
• Workplaces that promote inept good talkers into people management roles and who then destroy everyone within their arm span
• Managers who can’t find anything valuable in what existed before them

I’m reminded that women were once a workplace taboo

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Art Work of the Week.

I think some of my tea cosies might be taboo in the office- a bit phallic me thinks

Rocket Man

Look at Moi

Yesterday I was listening to a program on  Radio National about selfies – those pictures you take of yourself and put up on Facebook. The discussion centred on whether it is OK to post images of oneself as one would like to be seen and whether attractive girls should be self-consciously aware that they are being looked at.

 It got me thinking: this has been a week of self-consciously aware phenomena.

It started with the new Pope. I really wasn’t that interested until I awoke early, turned on my radio, and heard the news that white smoke was billowing – and there was a seagull on the roof of the Vatican, obviously the commentators were getting restless. The buzz was still about who the new pontiff was and eventually when the announcement came it claimed victory for an Italian Cardinal. I read now that the Italian clergy were so dead sure of themselves that they had drafted and early press release and sent it out. 

When the hubbub settled and the TV cameras had panned over the boxes of waiting red shoes, lush red velvet capes and bejeweled vestments,  and  talk about the ceremony and the ritual had flagged, there he emerged in basic white, a wooden cross around his neck, and a greeting of simple good evening. 

Mmmm…what image of self being delivered here? 

Much has been written and talked about in the days following and we are yet to see whether the image of a simple Pope with a focus on social justice gets made over into the pompous head of the Catholic Church. And whether he will deal with the real issues that exist within a celibate, patriarchal,  clergy.  

I visited the Vatican some twenty years ago and the thing that  stunned me most was the Vatican Museums with  huge hand drawn and coloured maps of the new world, and  rooms of ceremonial garments designed and donated by the likes of Henri Matisse. So much wealth in such a confined space. As a child I had sacrificed pennies into cardboard mission boxes to help the starving in Africa. Couldn’t the Vatican have sold one single art work and relieved the suffering of all those unfortunate African babies I had been schooled to condescend to?

I’m house hunting. If there was ever a place where the manipulation of the image comes to the fore this is it. I have decided that the pictures and images that Real Estate Agents put up to sell houses are another version of selfies.  

Pictures are taken and posted at contortionist angles - there is no way I get the same view when I enter the so called elegant sitting room for real; peeling paint is non-evident as the pictures are taken too far away for detail to be seen; there are pictures of one or two enticing aspects of the property – flowers in bloom, a corner of a room with a nice window, and when you get there the rest of the place is a tip.  

Don’t get me started on the weasel words of agent speak like:

·         Cute- so tiny you cannot bring any of your current furniture and should start shopping for your new fit out in dolls house shops

·         Prepared for sale– we’ve only  just sprayed for fleas, so take this mask and hop about a little as you inspect the property

·         close to transport – the railway line runs by the back door and is the main route between the coal mines and the port

·         honest – has never been touched since it was built in 1940 – truly – you can see where the porch used to be.

·         spacious – room enough for two of you to be in the same room at the same time

·         renovator’s dream – don’t even consider it. Full of asbestos, needs rewiring, roof leaking, dry rot evident.

·         Can I help you?– How can I take the maximum amount of your money for the minimum amount of exertion and effort?

Most frustrating of all is the Open House phenomena and the arrival to find that either:

·         The  property has been sold in the 6 hours you have been driving in order to arrive on time for the inspection; or

·         The  property is listed at one price, but the owner wants $25 000 more than is recorded on the agents internet site.

So, I’m being careful of selfie images that are poked and prodded into a version of the object that I am meant to think is true.

I’ll stick with the artist and will rely on the upcoming selfies in the Archibald Prize exhibition where I know that what I am looking at is a manipulation – a likeness.  The artists make it clear that I am being deliberately led to see something other than the photographic surface of the image. And, as Pablo Picasso said when someone commented that his portrait of Gertrude Stein did not look like her:

  

In 50 years that’s how everyone will think she looked. 

 Now there's the self-conscious awareness I admire. 

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Art Work of the Week

Reinterpreting the visual and the literary landscape : The Devils's Marbels and Murray Bail's Eucalyptus.
Larger image can be viewed at thickerthanwater.com.au

Eucalyptus 3 Acrylic, wire, fishing flies on paper 320x280 mm