Mail delivery?

The mail finally arrived after 4pm yesterday. This is the one delivery in a day every second day. 

We do not get as much mail as we once did.  It is impossible to get some things in the post now. If you want to keep a paper record then you need to print the bill, the receipt, the notification, the information off for yourself. Examination results day was a nightmare (or should that be daymare?) of waiting to hear the "postie's whistle". On a birthday there would be an eager rush to the letter box "just in case" someone had sent a birthday card.

Yesterday's mail, so late in the day, was late in another way as well. It contained some papers I had been asked to look at. There they were in a large bright yellow envelope. There was my name in very clear, thick black print. The address was correct. The post code was correct. The amount of postage was correct. 

Why then has it taken the Downunder postal service seventeen days to deliver it from an address that is just 11.2km away? It would have been faster for the sender to walk over here. Had either of us had a car it would have been faster to deliver it by hand. (The sender is in his late eighties and no longer drives.)

I phoned him to let him know it had finally arrived and that I would deal with it immediately. He sighed. "Thanks Cat. I'll get my son-in-law to pick it up from you.When would be convenient?" 

We arranged a time for later last night. I went ahead and did the necessary work for him. I wrote the letter he will need with it. When his son-in-law arrived full of apologies for all the "fuss and bother" I told him it would not have been a fuss and bother at all if the postal service was working as it should work. I told him I had written a letter as well and suggested, as he knows all about the problem, he read it through. We could change it on the spot if necessary. He read it through quickly and shook his head, "That's fine. If P.... doesn't like it for some reason can I email you? I'll run anything else by you as well. I should have scanned the damn stuff in and sent it to you that way."

We looked at each other and then he said, "And, guess what?" 

"You will be delivering those papers by hand," I told him. 

So much for the postal service. Is it any wonder they made a $200m loss last year? 

Ah those statistics

are at it again! Really, they should be rounded up!

The "gender pay gap" issue was in the news last night and in the paper this morning. And yes, I believe equal work should result in equal pay. The Senior Cat also believed this. He was one of those who fought for female teachers to be paid at the same rate as male teachers. He also fought for their right to "continuous" service when they married - instead of the absolutely ridiculous requirement that they "resign" and then be "re-employed" - losing all their sick leave and long service leave in the process.  Yes, those things made a difference to their pay packets as well.

But the report seems to have been about something different. It took "averages" here, there and everywhere. It did not look closely at the differing types of work done. There was no real consideration given to the fact that women tend to work in areas where everyone is paid less. It may not be right but it is what happens.

I wonder how accurate the report really is. Yes, there will be differences but do all women really earn less for paid employment in positions of equal responsibility when you take all the other factors into account? There is a comment by someone that female airline pilots get the same rate of pay. I know bus and train drivers do too. Supermarket employees vary but that has more to do with length of service and responsibilities. There is a female surgeon I know who earns more than many of her male counterparts in the same field.

The neighbour who works for the tax office complained that he was not earning as much as several of his female colleagues but he works from home. The last time he went into the office was in November. He doesn't need to travel to and from his workplace. He takes his two children to and from school. He is doing what many women have done for years...and gets a little less because he is actually doing a little less which is directly involved with his work.

Perhaps we need to look at these things and then adjust the statistics and work on the pay gap from there. I think the pay gap exists and it needs to be rectified but it might be that there are other things we need to take into account.

Still, it won't do any harm to round up those statistics and put them in their rightful place.  

"Unemployed" or something else?

I have been going through someone else's "work" history and it makes interesting but very depressing reading.

This person did not finish school, did not finish the secretarial course they went to do instead and lasted just eleven weeks in the first position they were lucky enough to get. This was as a very junior office person and apparently it was "boring" and "I don't want to be stuck in an office all day". 

All right, find something else to do. They flitted from one thing to the next, a few weeks here, several months there. "No, I don't know what I want to do." 

There was marriage but the need to work to pay for the new house. That did not work either. There were still multiple jobs that were "boring". The marriage was dissolved. There was travel overseas on the money from the settlement although there were debts owing. 

Back here there were more low level jobs that never lasted. It was always someone else's fault when told employment would be terminated. The jobs were still "boring" and "nobody gives me anything interesting to do" and.... well, a litany of excuses. There was one course after another at TAFE but these were never quite finished. After all, finish the course and you might be qualified for something.

This person now "qualifies" for the age pension...and has done nothing of value in their life. I know of other people who are the same.

I also know of a man with Down Syndrome who has been in open employment all his working life. He retired at the end of last year. He needs a bit of help with his finances but he has his own unit and a regular income. When he retired, knowing he would need to feel useful, someone found him a role in a large charity facility. He was delighted to be "going to work again". I saw him yesterday and he gave me a cheerful wave as he was carting out rubbish. "Getting a bit dirty," he told me.

I pedalled on thinking to myself, "No, you aren't getting dirty. You have never been dirty. You are clean. It is the first person who has done no real work in their life who is dirty."

I am alarmed at how easy it is for someone who doesn't want to work to avoid the responsibility of doing just that. They are taking up places at TAFE that could be used by people who really do want to do the courses but are pushed to one side because these people have priority. The money being wasted on these policies is ridiculous. The "mutual obligation" requirement and the demand that applications be made is not working. 

If someone with Down Syndrome who can barely read and write can hold down a job for more than forty years then so can many others. Perhaps we need to change the way those avoiding work are being "paid"?

Clementine Ford has no place

at Writers' Week. That someone who is openly helped to out a private group of Jewish artists, writers and other creative people and published details about them simply to stir up trouble is  totally and utterly unacceptable. 

No doubt I will be heavily criticised for saying that. I will be told that this is about "freedom of speech" and that Ford has "every right to express her opinion".  If you do say that then you will be wrong. This was not about any form of freedom of speech. There was no need to do what was done. It was not done to try and prevent harm. It was not done for the purpose of informing people. It was not done for debate. It was done for hate.

We do have a right to express opinion in this country. I am doing it right now. That right comes with responsibilities. One of those responsibilities is not to cause harm to others. Ford knew full well that publishing that list was going to cause harm. She intended it to cause harm. She has made no secret of the fact that she is anti-Israel and pro-Palestine. She also uses her position to make sure others know what she believes...and encourage them to believe the same.

Writers' Week, as I first knew it, was a wonderful event. It was there for writers as much as it was there for readers. I am fortunate in having met many amazing writers. They did not always agree with one another. There could be some clashes at times but, with one or two exceptions, they would shake hands or clap each other on the shoulder or hug at the end of a session. They would introduce me to their friends and their not-so-friends. Their politics varied as widely as their writing styles. They went out into schools to talk about writing, not politics or issues. The events for the general public were also about writing too. It is what people wanted to know about. How do you write? Where do your ideas come from? How do you plot? What is structure? How do you build a character?

It seems that has gone now. The week now seems to be largely about people like Ford and politicians, past and present, who are there with a "message". It might stir people up - but are they reading? I suspect most of them will go to the library for the latest well written crime or romance instead.  Perhaps they will be better off for it as well.

How to dress for the part

you are playing is back in the spotlight. One of the big supermarket chains has apparently told its workers they may not wear "stickers" relating to indigenous or sexual preference issues. Outrageous!

Or is it? The supermarket I normally shop in has a dress code. The staff wear black or black skirt/trousers and white tops. There is a "tie". This means the staff are recognisable even if the younger members of staff sometimes managed to do a bit of "styling" to their clothes. They have name tags - given names only. 

I would do away with the tie but I see nothing wrong with requiring them to wear black or black and white and the name tag. They are after all at work. I don't believe they should be able to add contentious statements to their clothes. In that supermarket they don't. I assume it is company policy. 

In the other supermarket in the same shopping centre the clothing requirements are different. It is there that apparently some staff are demanding that their "right" to wear contentious "stickers" is "respected". They have a "right"?

School uniforms are still worn by the vast majority of children in this country. It is something which causes comment from some overseas visitors from time to time but it is generally accepted as a good thing here. There are no arguments about what to wear to school. There is much less competition around clothing.

We see uniforms in other places as well - the police, the ambulance service, firefighters, the armed services and in companies providing all sorts of services to the public. The are the robes worn in court and in church.  On the rare occasions on which I have gone into court I know I am expected to dress to a certain standard - preferably darker, plainer clothing. It is because I am there to be a support for someone else. I am not there for myself.  It is not about "look at me". I would not be doing my job if I went in wearing "look at me" clothing.

And surely the same thing applies to anyone in a role which involves serving others in any capacity? Unless your role directly relates to the issue in question shouldn't you leave your stickers, badges, t-shirts etc at home waiting for your time away from work? I don't want to be served in a supermarket by people who blatantly display a preference for any one thing over another. 

The idea that there is some sort of "right" to do this, along with all the other "rights" some now demand leaves me wondering what is going on? Have they forgotten they are there to do a job - and that someone else is paying them?

 

Keeping financial records

is something we are required to do - for seven years. Anything prior to that is not usually something we need to look at. Bills are usually paid by then. Tax is sorted out. Gifts given have long been put into use or used. 

There are people who keep "everything" and they may keep it forever. Most of us don't do that. 

Right now it is making my life, and that of two of my siblings, very difficult. I have no idea how it will go. I thought however of some things I have had to deal with over the years. 

At one time we lived next door to two elderly spinster sisters. They were interesting people. Both of them had travelled widely, indeed done so much that travel companies called on them to lead tour groups when they retired from their other employment. 

When one of them died the other called on me and the neighbour on the other side to clear out her sister's belongings. 

"There is rather a lot. I just can't do it. I can't face it, " she told us. We thought there could not be that much...and we were wrong. K... had kept everything, or so it seemed. There were boxes and boxes and boxes. She had kept receipt after receipt after receipt. One ancient receipt recorded the first hat she had bought from her first pay. The envelope in which she had received her first pay was there too...cash in those days.  

Over the years she had kept all her cheque butts, all her bank books and bank statements. All these things were neatly bundled together in disintegrating rubber bands. She had almost certainly never looked at them once she bundled them together like that. Her wardrobe contained shoes she had not worn for years. She had been careful with those and her clothes. All of them showed signs of being mended when necessary. The shoes were stuffed with old fashioned "keepers" and winter garments were covered in cloth bags. 

The Senior Cat came in and took away boxes and boxes of theatre tickets, bus tickets, rail tickets, airline tickets, theatre programs, art exhibition catalogues. All of them were incinerated in the incinerator we were legally allowed to have then. We packed her outer clothes into bags. We put the shoes in boxes. Along with seven umbrellas and eleven walking sticks we took it all to the charity shop. 

We were left with her books, mostly travel related. The Senior Cat called someone he knew to come and see if there was anything of any value. I remember him saying, "I don't think so...unless someone is interested in travel memorabilia." There was one entire bookshelf filled with photograph albums. The albums were full of photographs she had taken and postcards she had bought. There must have been many thousands there. Her sister just shrugged and those were thrown out too. 

I wish now we had kept those albums and some of the other things, kept them long enough to write a biography. It might have made an interesting exhibition too. There was a whole life in a detail that most of us could never hope for. It might have taught us a lot about life as it was from when she was born in the reign of Queen Victoria and into an era when she could fly to all of Europe but also to all of Africa, South America, China, Japan, Mongolia. She trekked into Tibet, climbed Mt Kilimanjaro...and always regretted not going to the Antarctic as well as the Arctic.  There is nothing left. I hope nobody wants proof she bought that first hat with money from her first pay packet.  

"What exactly is your "fair share"

of what someone else has worked for?" I wish I had been the person who had thought of saying that in that way.  It comes from the American economist Thomas Sowell.

S..., who mows the lawn, was here on Wednesday. It was a very hot day and I insisted on him stopping for a cold drink as well as taking a bottle of water with him. This is an arrangement I have with his wife. (It has been in place since he had a kidney stone some years ago - something which happened because he was not drinking enough. I may be only one stop in every two weeks but it is, as A... put it, "One more reminder to drink enough.")

He was talking about trying to get his very active MIL a place to rent at the age of 91. Her lease is up and cannot be renewed because the property is being acquired by the government. It means she will be homeless unless something can be found. In this case the government should perhaps be doing more than it is to help but the conversation moved on to people who own more than one property. S.... is of the view "If you have worked to buy it then good luck to you." He went on to say that he thought people who had worked for the things they had should, reasonable taxes for essential services aside, be able to keep those things for which they have worked. 

It was obvious S... has spent a lot of time thinking about these things. He sees work as something which should produce a reward. I will therefore try and save the article from this morning's paper in which Thomas Sowell is quoted. S... doesn't get a paper but he will be interested in the article. It says much the same as he was saying. It also queries the increasing amount of legislation which is being brought in by the present federal and state governments. It all seems to be concerned with "workers' rights". The Greens actually managed to sneak in a clause which would see employers in prison for contacting workers after hours. I asked a Green the other day whether that should apply to an employer calling an employee to say the factory was on fire and "get down here to save your job". I was stunned when their response was "Yes. That's the job of the fire brigade." 

I would want my boss to call me. I would want to go and help. I would want to do it because in order to get my "fair share" I would expect to work for it. Am I wrong?