"dear sir, I cannot but will try..."

"dear sir, I cannot but will try..."

paraphrased from a daily paper, sorry...

I could have had a "free uni education" after high school. [true]

I could have got into a okay job with that degree. [also true]

I took time out of the Oil patch for a pretty good reason. [true]

I put up with jibes [or 'those' looks] of chickening out [maybe true].

I took time to raise kids without a partner at the tax payers expense [true] so that four future taxpayers would contribute to the nations' GDP after a good education. [hope it comes true]

Now these days to get a job, you need to be at least 15yrs old to leave home to get a job stacking shelves, or pouring someones else's coffee for a buck. This is all that's left these days! No real trade teaching until 17 or 18! If you can get it, or if you do, can hack it!

If you do stay on to finish high school, job opportunities are nearly the same as above. If an apprenticeship comes up, it may not "pay well enough" to keep the phablet generation going- the pub and friends are pretty insistent on company, and the job could be lost due to lack of interest or funds available to afford the newest phone, as there is still a government support scheme... Or was.

No manufacturing cars, socks, pants, shirts or even stainless steel plant jobs are around for the growing  population of phablet holders - X gen or Y gen or whatever comes next.  It is cheaper to move that stuff overseas according to the boardroom boys and girls and the ever venerated bottom line. Or until their own GDP rises and their kids are left to pour coffee...

Of course further education can be found, the cheap end for plumbers or high end for lawyers. [we always need those two people- true?]

Really?

But now because the tightass end of town, the [Wall St?] "failures" have to keep their Mcmansions of course, lowered government incomes [less of the population paying tax as unemployment goes up and pay rates down for the rest] that held the purses for the cheap further education has actually tightened up the disbursements to that end, so that the kiddies get put on "the drip" to pay any further education costs back, once the threshold income has been attained... Once it was practically free...

Which also that means the lower end of the pay-scale people cannot afford the low end education, or even the middle class education type - accountants, philosophers, nurses and other professionals are being imported- meaning there are brain drains around the world. To here...

The point being "dear sir, I cannot but will try..." letters are being posted. 

Lots apparently.

Yes. The pollies are sick and tired of paying out dole money, and sick and tired of bailing out car  and shirt makers, and wont pay a paramedic or train driver to stick around all day waiting for customers... 

Apparently "the people" are sick and tired of those things too. 

And some are tired of the tide of migrants coming in to take "our kids' job". 

Hmm. Never give a sucker a chance, mon.  Hope the whingers are not second or third or twentieth generation descendents of immigrants either...

Share the loot mon, c'mon!

Betchya heaps they are Not, especially if they have teen aged kids to support and educate.

The notion that there are heaps of jobs out there is flawed. These days.

The notion that education will get you a job is flawed too. These days.

Certain pollies thinks [PS- WILL BE MAKING] that 250,000 odd kids (15-24) SHOULD BE applying forty times a month for jobs [they probably cannot fit into] AND THAT IT cannot be too hard, AND I think it will be a fact soon. Read the paper. As this is only an opinion, and having been there and done that, there are probably a bit more than that out there that cannot afford a ticket to even get a forklift licence let alone afford a bar keepers ticket to serve beer. poor bastards

And some company owners and pollies [both types that that have been silver spoon fed and breast fed til they left uni, in my opinion] think there are heaps of jobs. In the desert. Along the roadside.  Down at the rubbish dump.

If you are keen and can go without the phablet and telly and don't want to buy a house with cash [not in five years now but ten instead, mind], because sacrificing time from family like they could a few years ago is what they will have to do. That is, if they can afford a partner!

Maybe that is where HR comes in. A conspiracy theory - sure. They get to read the lots and lots of job applications and sort out the cans and cannots and would nots from the cretins and "no way man!" types, and maintain a certain percentage of success in catching the right fish for the job. 

Until the computers with artificial intelligence replaces THEM. Soon I reckon. Who need people skills anymore? Really.

productivity

computers

robotics 

I think I dislike that first word. How  long does it take to make a spear or tyre or a list? 'Cos the second word joined with the third means that one person can do a lot of other peoples' jobs, meaning the unemployed pool tide rises and productivity by less involved goes up... Ah, maybe that's the secret?

Oh dear, ranting to the converted or the naive? Or the spell bound? My current job aint writing for a living- research means I would never get pen to paper! Then, my job is one of those that is like the naomi campbell fashion model type jobs, if it aint paying that much mate, then I am not getting out of bed that week. 

Which is a bit tough. or rough? I had to accept the rate, I need to put the gels into a better school before something happens at the government school... And the rate is soooo much better than the previous day job or even the last self employed but government subsidized jobby. 

So back to the "dear sir, I cannot but will try..." and the forty job letters and associated CVs PER MONTH that the poor bastards have to do now just to get some government handout in this employment environment where there really is bugger all jobs... there are local government landscaping jobs. Even road improvements. But no manufacturing- for example, public transport, most vehicles will be imported, the rails imported, the software is imported... 

maybe it is a postal conspiracy, "dear sir, I cannot but will try..."
BTW- I saw a dpco on Gre Vidal th eother night- boy, is he into conspiracy theories!!

Not last Post

Not last Post

Thanks for the interest.

Added the rest of the blogs consolidating MS, winemaking, geology advert, and hobbies and weirdness.
all the things posted elswhere apart from wordpress blog- thinking on that, no last post  there yet- but should I put Everything on one site. I know links go to the old sites, so that just confuses people. leaving them on the net. I imagine so anyway.

The way I write is not scoring hugely I note with dissapointment- maybe I cannot write whre people are just wringing their hands and grinding teth- "Just where/when is the next one Tony?

too quick

Paid that day 
Bill for gasman

When I got the bill for the last tradey to do a job for me, I thought he would appreciate a quick payment.

The snail mail bill arrived a few days after the job was done (done in less than one hour remember!) gave me another seven days to pay it.

"Sticker shock" shocked me as well. Bugger! For that little job?

Nah, whatever, I thought I would do the right thing and go into hock on the check account for him vis the 'net, and sent off a appreciative thank you email too as well.

Nada back.

Hate that.

By the way.

You saw what they (tradey with a helper) did, with a ten to fifteen minute "consult" over old instant gas water heater: everything was working so just replace cover with a shoppè made one (in less than 20 minutes), and while they were there replace a stove top, also way less than 20 minutes. The stove top had been waiting for nearly 15 months. The last quote to install was excessive, but then...



The hourly rate for this huge job was:


 150 buckaroonies....

rrggghhhgg

Notta so good

Successes, Failings and successes this week

In black and white: the kids, the cats, the cars and me.

Celebrated Tarn's fifty-first birthday quietly this week with the three cheeky little monkeys. May have a pizza with her dad Friday. Mine soon enough.
[new addition- at bottom 22-5-12]

Family Car

Finally found the problem with the windscreen wipers not wanting to work on the family vehicle. Or, there was a short in the tailgate wiring. The wiring loom passes through lots of holes in the car body, and the auto-electrician I had to see in the end, spotted some bare wiring, on the loom from the car side of the tailgate, not exactly where it passed through to a protective tube, but further inside by a few cm/inches.

Ah backhgh, That Was All!

Mark the car sparky just wrapped some tape around it and we put it back together. Thirty three buckaroonies though, and a 40 km drive. Self findable?

Patience and money, patience OR money?

The Van

Then. THEN... Well, Back then... Last week actually, the van really started to play up.

The battery would not turn the engine over after a cold night. A few times the last month. New one purchased. STICKER SHOCK!
THEN...
There was definitely a wobble from the front tyres, booked in for new tyres. Went along to the wrong tyre garage. The guy at the right one said he had just sent some-one to where I had just been. That was funny. Until the STICKER SHOCK hit me again. There was bare metal showing on the old tyres...

The kids

Gel#1b managed to drop my old fluorescent  desk lamp and broke the tube. New one. And a ballast. And a bit of maintenance.

Gel#1a needed new globe in her bedside lamp. A few nights later spilt red coloured drink all over the old flowery carpet. At bedtime. Her sister's bottle of course. Another late night.

Son#2 was picked up on his job so he could Drive rather than pedal, and as I put the bmx in the back of the wagon, the front wheel dropped off...........!!!
Another front tooth nearly lost? The first one he lost is going to cost an arm and a leg and more to replace. I may have to mortgage his phone and bike...


And the beer, a wheat milk stout, I started to brew last week, does not want to ferment at all. I wonder why- fed it some DAP...

Then...

The white cat left us a smelly reminder this week. We could not track where he had left it. Was it the junk room, cos he fled from there today? No. It was left on some power cords right next to the fermenting beer vat in the laundry...

Me

Trying to buck myself up and it looks like I am losing out more. My credit card is starting to cost me too much ie I am living it up tooo much (?), and employment advertisments are depressing around here- like they know the person they want EXACTLY, like my skill sets are not upgradeable to even an assistant librarian?

I want to vacuum up information, but that is not cost effective either. Who else around here likes to know about and share shit about archaeology, geomorphology, astronomy, geology, oilfield news... No-one.


A fail for my 50th birthday present though- last year my family [sibs n folks] gave me a voucher for a Ballon Flight over The Big Smoke to be taken by May this year, so I was reminded by my eldest son to get a move on and book it. And guess what? I tried to early this week and was told "The company went belly up before xmas, and no-one was told"- so much for the customer is always right?



Cathartic? I have to tell myself that I do like myself, to smile and to vent and rant more.... Make more friends?

Books

I am really enjoying 'guns, germs and steel' by Jared Diamond 1997.

A new Plonking Addition
For my 50th a matching barrel for the 40th, to put the Garage Grape Sherry into!