Dear Bank you really

have no idea have you? 

This should be a simple transaction. Here is the bill. We wish to transfer the money I take out of this account to another account in order to pay the bill...and you cannot do it. You cannot do it because the account is with another bank.

This is what you tell me. Your bank is connected to the other bank via Osko but you cannot do it. I can pad over to the other side of the bank and they "might" do it - for a fee. Alternatively you can (please make sure you are sitting down) "write (me) a cheque" for a smaller fee. 

I opted for the cheque as there was no choice. Internet banking will not do this particular transaction so Middle Cat and I will have to wait.

And we wait, and we wait. We wait because the young man behind the counter is on his first day in the job. He has no idea what to do. He cannot even update the details I give him. He does not know how to feed material into the electronic reader. When he fails that test I tell him, "Think of the machine as a person. It reads that sheet in exactly the same way - from left to right and from top to bottom." He looks at me bemused. How do I know so much?"

"Turn the screen around so I can see it," I tell him. He looks fearfully around and the person next to him - dealing with another "complex" issue tells him, "Let her see it. She seems to know what she is doing."

I get him to a point where he can find the money which has been deposited on my card. It means we can make the actual payment. The "teller" next to him now comes to help...but insists on him doing it all himself. They both forget to ask for my "photo ID" and I pass it over telling them, "You need to write this in there or it will not go through."  Oh. The new boy painstakingly fills in the details.

By then I feel old enough to have forgotten the relevant PIN. Middle Cat heaves a sigh. I try to be nice to the new boy. Has he had any training at all? No. 

The cheque gets written. We head over to the other bank - outside the main shopping centre. Middle Cat takes the cheque in and deposits it. 

Back in the car she looks at me and says, "The nice woman in there wanted to know why the other lot had not used Osko."

We would like to know too!  

People need spaces to

pursue their interests. There are few people who would disagree with this but it has become even more obvious to me over the past few days.

The Senior Cat left a large shed full of machines and timber and the things that go with "making stuff from wood". My brother was bequeathed the machinery. He took what he could use and what timber he could use. A young nephew-by-marriage of Middle Cat took the other machinery and some more of the timber. The priest at the local church, encouraged by the Senior Cat, took up woodwork as a hobby and he took more timber. There were also screws and "biscuits" and glue, paint, tools and the like. Much of it has gone.

But there is still timber in the rafters and along the shelves at the side. It would make wonderful toys. The "Toymendous" group would like to have it. This group makes toys, lots of toys, for charity. They make very, very good toys and they always need timber. Middle Cat called them. They have nowhere to store the timber, indeed nowhere to go themselves. Their current location has to be vacated by October.

I have a valuable collection of craft books. I will not have room where I go and I offered them to a local group. I did not get a response to either email which was strange - and discourteous. It is a group I know well enough to know they could use the collection. Yesterday I phoned and was curtly informed they had discussed the matter and did not want the books. They have "no room" for them. I was not even thanked. Perhaps they were embarrassed at having to turn down something of value to their members?

Groups like this need spaces. They need room, permanent room. We spend millions of dollars each year on sporting facilities. Many of them have "club rooms" built with funding from government. Sport is considered to be a good thing, something that brings people together in an active and healthy way. Ask the government to support an equally important activity that brings people together, supports mental health, gets people out and involved and there is "no money". 

It is time to rethink our priorities when it comes to people. We need to stop assuming that everyone is interested in and capable of playing sport or that, at very least, they want to watch it. It is time to get people involved in other activities as well.  

It is more difficult to volunteer

now than it once was.

I was interested to read a front page story in this morning's paper about the concerns of our "Country Fire Service". The CFS is the organisation which is responsible for fire fighting in rural areas. They do an absolutely essential task and they do it almost entirely on the willingness and skills of volunteers. To be a CFS volunteer requires commitment and training. It is not one of those things you can simply "go out and do".

The CFS is, rightly, concerned about the increasing number of times they are also being called out to do things the police or ambulance services would once have done. "There's been an accident? Is it serious? Look we haven't anyone available right now but let's call the CFS and get them to send a vehicle out to check." Some poor individual on the volunteer roster then has to head out and check, make some decisions they are likely not qualified to make and then send in a report. 

It is not what they are there for. It is not what they are trained to do. It is not a responsibility they want or the police or the ambulance services want them to have. It is a manpower issue.  

The CFS is struggling to retain volunteers and get new recruits. This is hardly surprising.

I thought of all this because I volunteer in other places as best I can. Many years ago now I began as a volunteer at the state's annual show. This was something I never intended to do but it was one of those things which happened. I am not indispensable, far from it. Earlier this year, when asked to go again, I almost said no. The reason for that was the increasing requirements on volunteers. When I began I simply arrived and was told what to do and how to do it. It was the same for everyone. 

Three years ago they introduced a requirement that everyone did an "occupational health and safety" certificate. It is a very basic thing but (1) it takes time and (2) it is almost entirely irrelevant to the area in which I work. There are other questions they could ask which would be far more relevant. None of us are driving a fork lift or operating electrical equipment or using liquids. Nevertheless we all had to be able to show we had done the certificate and we have to carry it with us.

This year we were told that not only was that necessary but we all had to have a valid "working with children" certificate. As volunteers we do not have to pay for these but again they require time to fill out the form and follow it up if the police do not get back within a certain time.  I have mixed feelings about these certificates. They do not prevent the wrong people from working with children. It simply means that those with ill intent have not yet been caught or convicted of any offence. Still, I put in the paper work. I have my certificate. The really strange thing however is this, in the area in which I work children are not allowed. They are only allowed in an adjacent area if they are under the care of a "responsible" adult - a parent or guardian. 

There are "training days" run by at least three organisations of my acquaintance. I recently refused to do something for them because I would have been required to do a training day in order to go and help people who have "left their glasses at home" fill out a form... something I have been doing for years. The person in charge understood but the "training" is completely irrelevant to anything I would ever do there - or even could do there.

I was speaking to someone on Tuesday about this. Like me she has volunteered for a long time and said, "I have never even spoken to a child there." The certificate is just an added burden for her. It may even be that some people will simply cease volunteering. This will not be because they have done anything wrong and cannot get the certificate. It will be because it is "just another thing which makes it difficult".

Now I just wonder what one of those many committees charged with such things will think up next. It might be better if they volunteered instead. 

 

Do we really need the Olympics?

Anyone who knows me also knows I am no sports fan. The closest I come to being interested is a faint (almost invisible) interest in cricket. Cricket interests me more because of the psychology involved than the game itself. I do not know anything about the finer points of the game. Yes, I have achieved one thing in the field of sport which would leave many cricketers envious and disbelieving. I assure you however that it was not intended. It was a fluke, a lucky accident. (Nevertheless I have dined at High Table at an ancient university on the strength of that incident.)

But sport apart from that does not interest me. I could not care less how fast, how high, how long or how anything someone can perform on the field or in the pool or on the water. If people are foolish enough to spend years of their lives training for such events then it is up to them but do not expect me to admire them for it. I would prefer they dug gardens and walked dogs and created more permanent things, beautiful and useful things. 

Sport is expensive. It is very likely that some of our "best athletes" will never see the Olympics, never compete in them. They are hidden away there in the background. They run and jump and swim for the fun of it. That's fine with me. It may well be that they are actually much happier than those on whom there is an enormous pressure to succeed. We apparently have a fourteen year old competing in "skateboarding" of all things. To me that is simply wrong. She should be in school and skateboarding should be something which is simply "fun". 

I see sport as a form of war. The pressure to "win" is too high. It is why drugs are used and why people go to great lengths to try and hide this. Like it or not there is a limit to the breaking of records. Without the assistance of drugs we would have ceased to break records long ago.

So news media please don't fling the "how marvellous all this is" in my face. It is not in the least bit wonderful. I have better things to do with my time than watch people "perform". There are books to be read. I am going to escape! 

An 8am knock on the door

was not likely to be good news or it would be somebody needing something. It was not good news and somebody did need something. 

Another of the dog walkers was standing there. He had one of those small "dolly-trolleys" used to cart boxes and the like around. On it were several large boxes. 

We looked at one another and I could see he was very, very distressed. I was about to ask if he needed some help when he burst into tears. 

As I had absolutely no idea what the problem and I did not even know his name the idea of giving him a comforting hug did not seem right. I just put a cautious paw on his arm and waited. He did not seem to object to that.

After a moment he pulled out a handkerchief, blew his nose and said, "Sorry. It's still too much."

I waited. Asking any question seemed the wrong thing to do right them.

"It's our grandson. He... "

"Come in. If you want to tell me I'll listen. I'll put the kettle on."

"Tea please."

And so he sat there at the kitchen table. I made tea and I listened to an appalling story of a shy, sensitive teenage boy who had admitted he was gay. His father, this man's own son, had converted to a very strict religious sect some years ago. It was the cause of much tension in the family. I already knew that. Now it seems that, unlike the grandfather, the father was not willing to accept he had a son whose sexual orientation was not "normal". 

"I know you don't feel that way...that's why I'm asking. I've seen you laughing with R... and G... and  you talk about your cousin and his partner. I just wish D..."

D... had been shunned at home, made to eat alone and not spoken to at all. At school he had been bullied without mercy. It was all too much. 

In the boxes there were jigsaw puzzles. Seven of them are something apparently called "the rainbow project". Each of them are a thousand pieces. They do not look easy to do.

We talked about them, about how this man had planned he and D... should do them together. "I wanted him to know we accepted him, all of him."

Eventually we divided the jigsaws into two. The rainbow series are going to a local church which has a music and activities program for very young children. They will be used as a fund raiser for that program as it supports young parents as well. The others will go to the local library as it always has a jigsaw puzzle out for people to put together. Middle Cat will take them to both places today.

I watched this man wheel his empty dolly-trolley off across the street and wondered if there was any chance of him mending the relationship with his own son. Is it too late? 

 

So "Biden has quit" ?

 It would be a little more polite to say "President Biden has withdrawn from the race" or something similar. He is after all still the President of the United States of America.

His withdrawal was inevitable perhaps and I am relieved he has had the good sense to realise that. The question now will be whether it is too late. 

"They won't be ready," Mr Dog Walker told me this morning. (I was contemplating whether it was possible to add anything to the bins.)

I disagree. I am quite sure that, behind the scenes, people have been working towards this. It would be ridiculous to suggest otherwise. Anywhere and everywhere in the world there are presidents, prime ministers, dictators and more there are contingency plans. Who takes over if the top man (or woman) dies?

Sometimes that must appear obvious, the way it does for the monarchy in the UK or some other European countries. It is not quite as obvious as that here. The assumption is that the Deputy Prime Minister would take over - as they do when the Prime Minister is out of the country. In reality there would need to be an endorsement of the Deputy by the governing party. Would that always happen? 

Prime Ministers Lyons and Curtin died in office and Prime Minister Holt is presumed to have died in office. (He disappeared while swimming in the ocean and his body was never recovered.) There were "caretaker" Prime Ministers (Page for Lyons and Forde for Curtin) but they were never actual Prime Ministers. When Holt disappeared John McEwen was caretaker Prime Minister for just twenty-two days.  I have some memories of that but Lyons and Curtin were well before my time. It is more a matter of why McEwen took over than how that remains in my mind. The country went to an election soon after Holt's disappearance and things went on much as before.

Politics in Downunder has been reasonably stable I suppose. There was some jiggling around in the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years and the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison years but the government did not collapse. We went to elections which have always been fairly peaceful even if they are not quite as free from fraud and nastiness as people would like to believe.

I therefore look at America and I am grateful I do not live there. I am grateful we do not need to vote for a Prime Minister in the way they vote for a President.

So there is a "right to disconnect"?

Apparently there is a "right to disconnect", a right not to work outside your designated hours. It was brought in by the Greens and it went through parliament in a day. Workers now have the right not to work outside their designated hours except when it is "unreasonable".  It is also one of the many things which is making it unreasonable for small business to go on employing so many people. 

As small businesses are vital in keeping the economy running I wonder about this. I wonder about the work ethic of some people. It reminded me of an experience Brother Cat had one summer. He was working in a tyre factory in order to get enough to buy his books for university that year (in the days before computers) and the factory buzzer went for morning break. The men around him dropped tools and left a half-finished tyre in a mould. It would be wasted that way and Brother Cat, not understanding union ethics or the way things worked, was shocked to discover this was common. You stopped work as soon as the buzzer went. It did not matter what you were doing. It did not matter if something went to waste. The incident put him off-side with the men working there. To him it just did not seem the right attitude towards work.  

Brother Cat mentioned this recently and also mentioned he would not have reached where he did if, as a teacher, he had worked only when the students were there. It was the same for me and for Middle Cat. We had the example of our parents who worked long hours outside the school day. We saw that you went on working until what needed to be done was done. It is just one of those things about a job like teaching or nursing or many other "professions". 

The "right to disconnect" is of course about more than that. It is about being able to leave the work phone behind when you go on annual leave. Any good employer will make sure you can do that but is it really unreasonable to call an employee who has gone home for the night and say, "A water main has broken across the street and we need to get some things out. Can you come in?"  Surely things like that should be part of employment because it means the employee will still have a job in the morning. A good boss will make sure the employee is thanked too. 

Not so long ago Nephew Cat was given a "warning" because he failed to attend a hastily convened meeting. He happened to be flying back from Singapore at the time - on a work trip. It was impossible for him to be there and the "warning" was completely unwarranted.  It was the final thing that made him look for another position in another place.

The "right to disconnect" is something that might prevent an unreasonable employer from making even more unreasonable demands but they will be out of business before long.