Just Do It

In a bluey mauve mood today apparently.  Just go with it; I always do. 

I don't know about you kids, but I have had a  comprehensively exhaustive week.  I'm well aware that those two adjectives mean the same thing.  Geez, which part of comprehensively exhaustive week do you people not understand? *don't know how to insert winky smiley face on Blogger so this will do*

My 9-to-5 has fatigued the hell out of me this week through its sheer bloody-minded uninterestingness.  I'm just so gosh darn it bored with it all.  But there are more than likely changes in the wind, so I think I'll jump aboard the opportunity train while there are still positions available that don't involve cleaning the toilets.  Or jumping off moving trains. 

The Defence Department has been calling my name for years, so maybe I'll jump off the train onto a tank.  Just like Jack Bauer.  I would do it exactly like Jack Bauer.  And Defence have a real-life helicopter in their lobby, so there's that.

The only area of my current department that attracts my attention is mental health, but I'm not sure I want to work there.  Maybe a change of departments will be as good as a Hawaiian holiday with an ocean view with breakfast thrown in and a stones throw from a Starbucks. Although, with that attitude, I suspect I may need to lower my expectations somewhat.

Like most of us, my goal in life is to do something I really want to do in order to pay the bills.  It's a simple little friggin' goal, but it's pretty hard to achieve.  I don't know about you, but I'm not even in the same ballpark in terms of doing something-I-want-to-do-with-my-life.  In reality, I am in another ballpark playing a sport I don't really like.  Like croquet.  I hate croquet.  It's stupid.

I spend my days hitting wooden balls with a mallet through little arches until my eyes explode through their sockets.  And then I go back the next day, when all I really want to do is play archery.  Or something.  I very much doubt the public sector is my answer to the age old 'dream job' predicament, but I will persist until my dream job sweeps me off my feet.

What's that you say?  I have to go find my dream job?  Surely that's just your crazy talking!?  I'm sure a travel writing gig that involves endless loops around the sun-drenched Greek islands, bikinis and ouzo will fall into my lap. 

I imagine my new fave saying, 'Just Do It', is apt in this situation.  It's also Nike's primary motto.  Who knew?  But there are always disclaimers that come into play with Just Doing It, like fear of failure, anxiety, mortgage and bills, and that cosy, warm security blanket of a public sector position.

I am, however, Just Doing It in the fitness arena of my life.  I have been to the gym five consecutive days this week.  Weights, cardio, weights, cardio; it went a bit like that.  I am a feeling a little comprehensively exhausted (maybe Nike will like this slogan too, seeing as they stole my first one*).

I am usually very much in favour of al fresco cardio training.  The air is clear and cleansing, there are less people and there's more space to do your thing, but training at the gym ain't so bad; it's just something I have to get used to for the next five months, as Canberra sinks into its Antarctic winter.

* Just kidding, Nike. I wear a grey, purple and blue pair of your trainers. I heart them.  But they are falling apart. Maybe you need to hire better machinists? You know what they say - Just Do It.

Occupy A Desk Job

It all ended quite badly, yet fairly predictably, for the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement in Zucotti Park in Manhattan, New York City this week.  Since September this year, the site has been the sordid base camp for the movement, who used it as a staging ground for never-ending whingy, whiney riots through Wall Street in the Manhattan financial district.

The owners of the park were powerless to prevent the repugnant lack of sanitation that occurs when thousands of people set up camp and refuse to shower for weeks. Although, after constant pleas by the park owners, the itinerants thoughtfully asked each other to stop devastating the flower beds.

This camp was all very interesting, given they were all about horizontalism, which apparently means no organised hierarchy (so get your mind out of the gutter).  And eveyone was supposed to work together in a harmonious fashion and self-organise and self-regulate et cetera.  Yet, given that they relieved themselves in the flower beds, I thought it would have been a no brianer to nominate someone to fetch the toilet paper.

After many botched attempts to move the diehards, the NYPD were finally given their balls back by city officials, and proceeded to eject the lot of them out of the vicinity. Nice one, Mayor Bloomberg.

So what are these passionate-about-anything-but-working-for-a-living people grumbling about anyway? Well the messages they are trying to articulate are so muddled that they could be protesting about the high fat content in their granola for all I know.  

When you don't have a clear, concise message you tend to come off looking like you are a shallow twenty-something whose father has just cut off your pocket money because you are too lazy to get a real job like the rest of us.  A real job being something you don't really want to do but, hey, it pays the bills.  And buys entire seasons of television programs in boxed sets.

The problem with these protesting leftists is that they think we have to get rid of extremes of wealth, power and status, or people will become morally bankrupt wankers with no social responsibility, and then there will be so much resentment and conflict that the economy will simply collapse. In fact the opposite is true; the economy thrives when people don’t interfere with it. 

They just want to overthrow the status quo for something far worse; like socialism, where we'll all be poor and miserable together and they'll be no more kiddies lemonade stands (because they are EVIL capitalist breeding grounds) or anything else that involves making dirty, sexy money.  And that's pretty much everything.

But being a leftist means never having to explain yourself, which is fortunate for the young American occupier who quit his teaching job because it wasn't fulfilling enough for him and went to 'study' puppetry - his passion - for three years at university. If you are stupid enough to think that the puppetry industry will sustain you and make you as wealthy as a hedge fund manager then…

There are important messages they could be progressing, but they are being lost in the nonsensical blithering of pretentious teenagers who want a free ride in life. I could understand if they were quibbling about the shortage of jobs in America, but the majority are preaching about their individual gripes with the world or just about their hatred of capitalism.

Of course, the beauty of capitalism is that it is a open system, and if you are prepared to work hard you can achieve anything you want. Thus, I can’t understand why anyone would disregard it; it's a ticket to ride! Not a free ride, but it can get you to where you want to be or out of where you are now, if that is your wish.

As far as these protesters are concerned, capitalism only favours the wealthy; thus, their target is those who have found extreme financial success through the system. Of course some entrepreneurs are going to make an extraordinary amount of money through business enterprises, but you have to be prepared to get involved, work hard, and be prepared to fail. 

The trouble with these protesting douche bags is they don't want to get a job which invloves working for the man, or the Government, but they want the bank balance of stock traders and hedge fund managers, while being their own boss in their highly lucrative, self-sustaining puppetry ventures.

Despite my protestations, I do actually have something in common with all these artists, students, leftist academics (are there any other type) occupiers.

I too have a desk job that I would prefer not to have to do. It's not rewarding, it's not meaningful, it's  bureaucratic, it's mediocre, I have very senior people above me who are unqualified morons who were hired by other unqualified morons, and I would rather stick a hot poker in my eye that turn up every day for the next twenty years. But being an adult (also known as kill-me-now syndrome) means having to do things you don’t want to do to pay the bills.

I too would like to engage in my own puppetry passion - which is writing, in my case - on a fulltime basis rather than working in a job that I don’t like, doesn’t inspire me, oozes mediocrity, and is trying really hard to grind my dreams into the dirt. But I think it’s best to find your feet and make your hobby financially sustainable before you quit the only thing keeping you from a life in the gutter.

Who the hell quits their job to study puppetry?  The unemployment rate in NYC is 9%, so I'm guessing the old puppetry positions aren't that easy to come by.  I studied at uni for seven years but I did not quit my job, BECAUSE THAT WOULD BE FUCKING* STUPID.

I've always thought that protesting a cause is how stupid people make themselves heard. The only way to elicit change is through policy, and the only way to do that is by direct action, and the best way to do that is to run for your local council as the local member of Parliament.

* Swear jar. Why did I self-impose no swearing on my blog? That was a stupid fucking idea.

Qantas, Kardashians and Occupiers

Qantas’ union smackdown. Kardashians. Occupy Protesters. The Australian public, via the mainstream media, have been salivating all over their egg and bacon rolls this week over these three narratives which revolved around rich people who the public think should be as wretched and destitute as the rest of us.

The public detest anyone who has cash up their wazoo, primarily because they don't have any money themselves and think it is unfair and discriminatory and, well, they are just plain resentful really. Thus, the poor people want the rich people to give them their money. Unless I'm reading it all wrong, that is all the information necessary to explain why these stories resonate all over the country.

Let's start with Qantas. It all started last week when Qantas CEO, Alan Joyce, gave Australia's loutish bully-boy trade unions a big, hard smack in the mouth. I apologise for my rejoicing if you missed your flight last Saturday, but I couldn't stop smiling for hours after Joyce announced he was grounding the entire airline until the union bullies stopped behaving like Angry Birds and started behaving like sane, professional people. 

The unapprised among us who were flabbergasted when Qantas pulled the socket on the flying kangaroo need to examine a union handbook or two on industrial action, because Qantas had been on the receiving end of a bizarre amount of textbook thuggery for months now. And I'm not sure which part of the union statement to the public the other week - "do NOT fly Qantas until Christmas because we'll ruin your holiday by striking" - did you people not appreciate?

Yep, total inconvenience for months and months, so a bunch of baggage handlers can bully their way into a pay rise.  Although I do acknowledge the role baggage handlers play in national hygiene. Day in and day out, they haphazardly throw suitcases onto a conveyor belt, thereby ensuring the travelling public's undies get to their destination in a timely fashion. But this should be a minimum wage job at best.

And don't get me started on flight attendants. Greet people - close overhead compartments - serve tea - prepare for landing - weekend in Paris.  With the way they carry on, you'd think that the only thing preventing us from plummeting to our deaths was the fact that our tray tables were in the upright and locked position.

Of course the Australian public don't care if the Qantas baggage handlers get paid at all, which makes sense, given that the baggage handlers are paid not to care if they break our stuff.  The public are just outraged that another company CEO is taking another million dollar bonus, while they get nothing.

When I heard that Joyce had given himself a $1.7 bonus this year I thought he was having a laugh.  Richard Branson would never give himself such a paltry sum, and the head of Emirates would pay more than that for a bathmat. What sort of airline CEO only takes $1.7m? If Joyce's pay troubles you so much may I suggest you heed this advice - get a better job.

What happened to the good old days, when Qantas’ worst skeleton was news of a randy British actor on a long haul flight who decided to take first class hospitality quite literally? I'm sure Qantas are desperate for controversy that doesn't involve in-flight engine failure, parts falling off their planes or anything to do with unions.  Where’s Ralph Fiennes when you need him.

The media and the public have also been going quite spare over the arrival of two of the Kardashians sisters to Australia this week; girls who are famous (and exceedingly rich) for being on a reality show, being friends with someone who is also famous for being famous, and for being the offspring of a lawyer who defended a celebrity murderer. Gotta love America.

One of the incoming K sisters had just divorced her new husband which was newsworthy etc etc. The public's indignation has developed because these girls are essentially rich and famous for doing nothing in particular. Well, geez, give them some credit then! I don't see many people getting rich and famous by doing diddlysquat. Credit where credit’s due, people.

And then there's the Occupy demonstrators, who are so dreadful at getting their message across that they could be protesting about goats for all I know. These capitalist dislikers have been squatting illegally in cities all over the world for a few months now, showing indifference and contempt for the fact that they too could have dirty, sexy money if only they got a job. Ah, but that would mean they would have to engage in labour, rather than sit around with their "reimagined money" which I believe is a form of currency like macrame or healing crystals or some such.

If billionaire entrepreneur Dick Smith had breezed down into Sydney's squalid little Occupy protest the other week in his helicopter and offered the nearest bludger $1 million, no questions asked, do you think the protester would carve up his ch-ching with the other 99% of us? Or do you think he would do what the other 99% of the human race would actually do and pocket the money for his own use? I think we all know the answer.  Capitalism isn't evil; it's just a system.  A system where you can get a lot of the things you want if you are prepared to do something about it.  Like get a job, for starters.