Posts by Christopher Dempsey
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Seriously though, working from home is not for everyone. It's scarily isolating at times. I wouldn't mind having an office with other human beings in it to go to sometimes. Then I could come home and get some work done after all the socializing and suit-wearing and commuting was done with.
There was a big explosion of interest out of the States a few years ago in shared offices where there are work stations with all the mod cons, and you booked them to use as necessary. This was conceived as a way to combat what you describe. I don't know where that interest went and I haven't heard of anything similar set up here.
I live about 10 mins walk to my office and it's at Uni near to alot of bus routes so I rarely use my car during the week, and only use it on weekends but then why would you - the traffic is CRAZY on weekends. So I walk or ride my bike on the weekends...
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Joyce has shown consistently that he won't pay to rehabilitate rail, preferring to diminish the size and utility of the network so that Quinn is forced to play with one hand tied behind his back as he tries to grow KR's income and share of the freight market.
Keep an eye on Quinn. If he does manage to grow KR with this constraint he'll be very valuable management material.
Incidentally, does anyone know the reason why port bound trucks, rather than using the expensive motorway built for them, tend to drive up symonds St.
Or up/down Parnell Rise as I saw the other day a fully laden truck trailer unit go up through Parnell.
I prefer the more romantic notion that the poor dears are lost, and are trying to find their way home.
Wearing my private citizen hat:
On the heavy truck / flimsy bridge problem, word is that Auckland City Council has been proactive and has strengthened bridges around the city - probably those in the Penrose area. One the one hand it's nice to be proactive but I pine for a bit of old fashioned 'we'll get around to it soon' timing; a heavy truck and a collapsed bridge sends a pretty clear message.And if it is true that Council has strengthened bridges, then darling ratepayers have forked out for Friedlander. Big time. Nice work if you can get it - but this line of work is restricted to straight white middle aged middle class men of a certain worldview.
There must be a fair percentage whack of workers in the CBD who don't actually need to all be sitting at their desks in the same rabbit hutch as their co-workers, arriving and leaving at the same time.
It's all about the coffee breaks. Life isn't much fun having coffee at home and gossiping to the walls about what happened on Nurse Jackie last night. That behaviour earns a trip to the reeducation farm.
There have been a number of studies which endorse your point of view. But I want to have coffee with my team and gossip - excuse me....
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What's more surprising is the fact that people actually read Roughan. The question is for what purpose?.
To be enlightened? One gets more from contemplation of a half eaten industrially manufactured burger so I don't think its for that.
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The other point is that NIWA are public servants. We pay for their work.
I don't understand your attitude here. The problem is what exactly?
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Next we'll see all that gravity nonsense in court. And not a day too soon!
made me think of something so very similar that happened not so long ago, relatively speaking -
I feel a Galileo defence (when tried for heresy) coming on...the Earth is warming but God made it so.
In the event Galileo was proved correct but sadly, the persecutors are still around, diddling with defenceless children and blaming teh gays.
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I certainly didn't care when Lhaws popped up on teh Innerwebb to tell us that he had been playing around and it was foolish... as if the whole world was interested in his, his, - it's not a saga, it's not an affair - his naive pathetic self. Oh grow up you professional fourth former.
@ Islander / Emma - thanks - it could have been the month long one my dear friend was talking about. At any rate it was interesting to observe as the words mounted up... a veritable mountain of them - to satisfy some word count requirements... I think he enjoyed the experience more than anything.
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That's why I didn't say great to get it done. I'm guessing there is lots of work between drafts.
But even so getting that first (nth?) set of words down even if few of them make it to the final ... that is a great feeling even for my much smaller manuscripts :).
A dear friend in Vancouver some years back told me of a contest where you had to write a novel in 48 hours, over a weekend. He did. Mind no sleep but that was part of the fun. Is there a similar contest here?
If I want to make any further advancement within the company I work for (into low, low lower middle management) I will need to trade in my wages for a salary once again. I will also need to take an income cut of around 20%.
I could never quite figure it out; why would you trade your relatively stress free although pecked on position for a intensely stressed position in return for a salary and a drop in hourly income? The number of people I see getting into management then complaining to me about the hours, the stress, the pressure, is something - and enough to make me NOT to want to seek out management positions.
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@ Jackie - SNAP. similar situations for me... and hopefully same outcome though one never knows.
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I'm not sure of my class these days - one-off oddball seems to fit - but I just dont have any empathy whatsoever with the sort of people who reguard themselves as being way superior to - and uncaring of- any worker.
Growing up in a very poor rural area certainly exposed one to a few home truths; poor Maori in dirt-poor ramshackle houses will give quite a bit of money (in relation to their income) when collecting for World Vision or some other worthy Christian charity. Rich people in the same neighbourhood gave well, little in comparison to their incomes.
And having been in some shit jobs myself I always emphasize with the cleaners, cooks, orderlies, bus drivers, waiters and other basic job sorts of the world. They are WAY more important than me so I always thank them when I get the chance. A clean toilet at work is important so always thank the cleaners. Likewise using the bus to get to work. It's amazing how many people forget this basic truism.
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I grew up in a upper-middle class household. My father came from a very working class background, studied hard and became a surgeon. He met my mother who grew up in very old rich money in Remuera. My father moved up to my mother's standards - he certainly didn't complain, and got on famously with his very monied in-laws.
Growing up I was very aware of class differences, and often voiced it - my parents, deep in the myth of a classless society, but completely aware of the knowledge that our family was richer than many others made noises that I shouldn't probably talk about it. At any rate, our lives were very comfortable middle class, but crucially without the need to "keep up with the Jones's" by going o'seas, having flash cars, the latest telly etc. My mother was from old money and old money doesn't flaunt but the fabrics on our sofas probably cost about several months wages for some middle class families.
I agree with Deborah when she says
I think we often forget about the "socio" bit of socio-economic / class. John Key may well have grown up in a state house, but he has never been anything other than middle class.
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I think class is a state of mind more than anything else, but that state has to be supported by money. Consequently I know plenty of rich people, but they are lower middle class - they simply never learnt skills associated with my class because they didn't grow up in my class - all they learnt was how to make money (something that I sadly never learnt).
I think we do need to be aware of class, if only for the political reason that the middle class is
...the easy class, where the work you do is usually something you're good at, and the people you deal with probably aren't just out to exploit you or suck up to you.
and have some time / money / energy to safeguard democratic values, and the intellectual values of the enlightenment (even though the rationalism bequeathed to us has really fcuked things up). To that end I'll support the middle class. National's attack on the middle class is as much about grabbing some money as making it harder for the middle class to safeguard democratic values - but I don't think they realize this - to everyone's disadvantage.