Why I don’t blog anymore.

I used write stuff down all the time. At university I would carry around several 1B5 books, a few were for general study-related note taking , but one was reserved expressly for ideas. I somehow managed to write something down in that book every day; usually at least a page or two. Then all of a sudden I stopped. I stopped because I had started a blog called Compliance Fiction. It was initially assessed as part of a postgraduate paper on digital media, and I suspected it may be a good replacement for my ideas book. Years later, I’ve got a full-time job, not much of a blog, and no notebook. Instead, I have twitter which I seem to manage to keep fairly up to date. But I feel I have neglected the people who are strange enough to find the urge to read my blog. I’m not giving them content as much as I used to and I feel some sort of explanation is in order. So here is a list of reasons why I don’t write blogs anymore

1) My spare time is not spent in front of a computer. The biggest difference between scribbling in a notebook and publishing a blog entry is you need to have a computer to do the later. A notebook is very portable, and you don’t have to worry about people stealing it. It doesn’t need to load up, and it doesn’t matter if it gets wet. So you can use it more often. While you’re having your lunch or while you’re waiting to meet someone for example. It’s simply not practical to have a computer with you all the time. And the spare time you have to write down ideas is not usually when you have a PC at hand. I could theoretically make posts from my phone, but the keypad is so small and the damn thing keeps auto-correcting my words. This may cease to be a reason when I get an iPad. I’ll just have to see how much I end up carrying that around with me.

2) I have twitter. So often, the thoughts I get, have already been very thoughtfully and diligently articulated by someone else. It is so simple to link a tweet to someone else’s article and use the remaining 140 characters to give your opinion. I can tweet articles as quickly as I can read them so I’m able to pass on so much more via twitter than I could ever hope to on a blog. By the time it comes to writing the entry, the moment has passed and I am no longer interested.

3) No one reads it. And I can’t be bothered going out and seeking an audience. The things I have to say don’t really have that much depth or significance anyway. Hence the by-line.

4) If anyone did read it, I probably wouldn’t be able to administer replies properly. I’m not interested in starting a conversation or having a debate. All I’m interested in is a repository for thoughts and ideas. It’s really catharsis more than anything else.

5) I don’t want people to know what I think. I know a lot of people they cross the political spectrum they cross the religious spectrum and they cross the intellectual spectrum. A lot of my friends and acquaintances have quite firmly held beliefs about things I disagree with. I’m not interested in being confrontational, so I just sort of keep my ideas inside these days.

Not having some form of expression for ideas is potentially very dangerous. So I might start writing more when I buy an iPad, or failing that, I may just go about with a 0.50c notebook like I used to.

The Productivity Paradox

I have a friend who has just graduated from university and is looking for work. She’s adopted a take-what-you-can-get approach, and is now working on a short term contract for a government agency. It’s a rather menial administration role; borderline data entry. She basically takes information that officials have written on forms and enters them into a computer. The job is well beneath her intellectually, which has led her to make a rather curious discovery; a lot of the information given to her is wrong, or conflicts with other information she has inputted. What’s potentially more interesting though is that no one has any time to care about it. They want her to do the job that she’s employed to do, which is basically transcription. If her boss’s boss’s boss knew, they would undoubtedly want the problem solved.

Two things about this story really resonated with me:

1) Despite the fact that the some of the most intelligent minds in society are in positions of power, they can only make decisions that are as smart as the people who are working for them at the bottom of the food chain.

2) Too often, senior people have no idea what is going on down at the bottom.

In order to draw any sort of conclusions about how we as a society might go about fixing these problems, we need to first address what causes them.

Our eternal pursuit of profits has led to cost cutting, and human beings come at a high cost. Cheaper employees are less educated, but because they are paid less, they care about their work less. For them, the turn up, clock in and get paid at the end of the week. That is where the relationship with the workplace ends. They have little regard for the overall objectives of the company, because every time they ask for a pay rise, they are declined and all the while they see their managers in flash cars and fancy clothes.

And while low wages are one contributing factor, another is ignorance. Too many senior managers and executives have either forgotten what it’s like to be on the shop floor, or don’t spend nearly enough time down there getting their hands dirty. It’s simply not enough to get reports. You actually have to go into the bowels of an organisation to really understand what’s going on.

So what changes can we implement at a nation-wide level to encourage productivity and to make sure people actually give a damn?

If low wages appear to breed resentment, would paying these people more actually make a difference? No. All you’d get would be wage inflation. All of a sudden managers would want more and executives would want more as well. And offering more money wouldn’t necessarily attract candidates with a higher education as people with degrees often turn down work that isn’t mentally stimulating enough.

If we made it compulsory that every employee in an organisation be a shareholder in that company, then we could potentially see some quite remarkable outcomes. All of a sudden people would find themselves incentivised to work towards the good of the company, not simply to the good of their managers. People would self-police their colleagues knowing that shortcutting and poor performance would dent the overall performance of the company and have an impact on the value of their shareholding. All of a sudden, people would be incentivised to care and would be bolder in putting forward recommendations that would lead to real change.

Secondly, there’s a show on TV called Undercover Boss. The premise of this show is that a CEO goes and works for a few days among the ordinary workers in their company. The show often ends in tears as the boss realises that the staff really do work hard, and that they are good people. This sort of thing is simply not done enough in modern organisations and should be encouraged.

These are just a couple of examples I’m sure there are a lot more. But nothing will happen unless people speak up and actively approach their employers. The employers have a responsibility to listen to their staff too. And the more stories I hear from friends working in low-level jobs, the less hopeful I become about real changes being made.

What has happened to all the nice people?

The Metro magazine brought out its annual Best Restaurant edition this month, and the editorial raised a concern that I’ve been harbouring for some time.

Too often, judging these awards, we encountered sloppy service in places that should no better… Why aren’t they trying to get you back?

I’m rapidly running out of local places to get breakfast on the weekend. It’s not because places are closing down, and it’s not because I like to eat at a different restaurant every week; it’s because I’m one of these people who will stop frequenting a business if their service is poor.

It’s becoming increasingly apparent that Auckland has a seriously systemic problem with profitable mediocrity. What really pushed me over the line was this morning’s episode with a pushy woman who thought she could cut in front of a queue because she was only paying for something small and she had already made her mind up. That the staff allowed this was absolutely unacceptable. It’s not just eateries either. The lack of service extends into retail, trade services, and yes, even advertising.

The problem as I see it, is that people are seeing their jobs as a means to an end. They don’t enjoy it; clocking on and off so they can bank their pay check and get home to do whatever it is they think is more important.

At the end of the day, it comes down to management. I can say this, because there are businesses out there that are doing things properly. They’re giving their staff the appropriate training and responsibility so that employees feel empowered and can enjoy their job.

People ask me why I always visit the same restaurants over and over again. It’s because I like to reward good service. It’s such an easy thing to get right.

A bit of music.

Adult versions of Disney Characters

Cree Indian Proverb

Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money.

Kate and Wills.

I like them both. Sue me.

Pink has a Greatest Hits out.

If that’s not a reason to post some pictures I don’t know what is.

Skins- Season 1

Watched the first two episodes last night, getting pretty addicted.

Sex and the Shitty.

Disclaimer: The below represents my own thoughts. It is not my intention to direct this post at any person or group of people. If you can present an argument to challenge me, I will take the time to absorb it and reflect upon it. My main aim is to use objective criticism to draw attention to what others may have missed. The feature film Sex and the City 2 was my first exposure to the franchise.

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I watched Sex and the City 2 last night. It’s a film which presents itself as a statement. Unfortunately, that statement is, quite frankly, offensive. It encapsulates everything I believe to be wrong with the way human society has developed. To praise this film would, in my view be akin to supporting some of the greatest atrocities in recent history. The representation of Islam, and of capitalism are the two points to which I take the most offence. But there are other minority groups who’s plight is pierced by the stiletto heel of the film makers’ agenda setting propaganda machine.

At the outset of the film, we are lulled into a belief that it might be driven by a somewhat progressive ideology. We’re at a gay wedding. Yet it feels like pure tokenism as stereotype after stereotype rolls out. As the film makers have obviously come to the conclusion that all gay men are promiscuous, one of the grooms is allowed to cheat on his husband. As they’ve also drawn the conclusion that all gay men are flamboyant and extravagant the wedding ceremony comprises a chorus of male singers belting out show tunes beneath sequined top hats. Oh, and did I mention the ceremony was presided over by Liza Minnelli?

To me this is simply reinforcing a dangerously parochial view of homosexuality. It’s a common recurrence in media representations of gays that they can only be accepted (read tolerated) if they can be the spectacle. If they can be the entertainment. The butt of jokes. The sideshow of a some sort of widescreen, self-obsessed carnival.

But the film makers aren’t satisfied with shoe-boxing only one minority. They have a responsibility to satisfy America’s xenophobic fear of the other. What better place to do that than the Middle East. Of the four women who travel to the UAE bankrolled by a wealthy sheikh, only one makes an attempt to learn some token Arabic phrases and familiarise herself with local customs. In many places, she is ridiculed for doing so, often in a self-deprecating way which makes the whole thing so painful as there is actually sub-plot in which the same character attempts to gain equality at her Manhattan law firm. She’s willing to put so much effort into getting her employers to take her seriously, yet she lets her closest friends insult her.

The adage “when in Rome, do as the Romans” has led me through many successful sojourns through foreign countries. Needless to say, this is far from the philosophy adopted by the travelling New Yorkers. Samantha, the character responsible for securing the trip in the first place, and who stands the most to benefit by the business meeting with the hotel owner to discuss publicity in the West, seems to be the one who takes the most advantage and causes the most offence. This culminates in a scene where she screams “fuck you”, “bite me” and pulls fingers at a crowd of Muslims on their way to prayer. This, I might add, happens after she’s been arrested for fornicating in a public place. The threat of imprisonment obviously not strong enough to deter her manic diatribes of hate and intolerance.

Samantha is the epitome of the “American” as viewed from an Eastern perspective. It is no wonder why there is such contempt for the West in this part of the world. That anyone could either identify with, or admire Samantha’s poisonous worldview is quite simply beyond me. I thought we had grown through this as a society. Anyone familiar with Martin Luther, or John Locke?

Another thing that bugs me about Samantha is her futile obsession with youthfulness. I’m not quite sure when or how it happened, but sometime in recent history, it was collectively decided that young, skinny white people were the ideal of beauty. Women now grow up believing that expensive pharmaceuticals and supplements are necessary ingredients in the cocktail of social acceptance. Insecure women are preyed on by massive, faceless corporations with atrocious histories of pollution, corruption and the suppression of critical medical research and development into meaningful fields of science. Western society revolves around the market. A market which means we have a cure for wrinkles because shallow, insecure women can afford to pay for it. Those suffering illness in third world counties cannot afford basic medicines; so in most cases these are denied of them.

Discussion of the market brings me to what I believe to be the biggest failure of the film. I was quite simply disgusted to find that after the biggest financial crisis in their generation. The protagonists of this film had yet to realise that the materialistic society they live for is crippling the planet: economically, socially, and environmentally. This film suggests that happiness comes hand in hand with material possessions. They extravagant gifts bought, the astonishment at the fact that footwear can be bought for $20, the awe at the decadence of 7 star accommodation all encourages hungry consumption. Worst of all though, it promotes it to an audience who can not hope to attain it, yet who are encouraged to recreate it. This is the audience of expectation. The expectation that they can have what they want, when they want, and more over, feel entitled to it. They fund it through credit that will haunt them for the rest of their lives. And very few voices are telling them it’s unsustainable. The overwhelming media voice is one of encouragement.

Then the film makers have the audacity to rub “Mr Big” in our faces. A big-shot Wall Street type with a corner office and rather remarkably, heaps of cash. Weren’t people like him the greedy, neo-liberal middle men responsible for the downfall of some of the world’s biggest economies. The sort of people who wiped billions off the value of investments held by the sorts of people turning up to watch the film. The man even keeps two apartments with the logic being that “you’d be mad to put a place on the market in the last two years” – This message broadcast to literally millions who have been forced to refinance mortgages or worse, sell their properties at negative equity. The tenacity of it all is really quite breathtaking.

I don’t think there is a single redeeming quality in Sex and the City 2. It’s pure commercialism, covered in sequins. It’s a monument to greed, to obnoxiousness and to xenophobia. But it will gross millions. Because this is what we have collectively decided to do to our only world.