This was taken at Bronte Beach last weekend.
It almost looks like snow engulfing everything.
I’m assuming it looks that way due to the sun being in the right place at the right time.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy.
At the office I work in there is a very stupid, inept manager whom I imagine I would have to deal with more often were it not for the cubicle wall between us.
He is usually either clearly audible or annoyingly loud.
I must apologise. He is usually annoyingly loud and seldom at other levels of volume.
Hi usual approach is to yell at people in a semi-panicked tone regardless of what he is talking about, even when the person he is speaking to is next to him.
Unfortunately this is not an exaggeration.
Another thing he likes to do is make disparaging comments about his team members; usually to another member of his team. Whilst not yelling, he still make the comments audibly enough to be heard easily.
On Tuesday last week the manager was talking to one of his team members about how another team member was sick.
He voiced his thought that the team member probably only called in sick and was doing something for his wife instead and then said “I think (name) is a bit shifty”. To describe the person in question as shifty is a misnomer.
The manager continued on for a bit, eventually saying “Some immigrants tend to lie when they come here”.
Now I don’t take any personal offense to the statement. However, considering it was in relation to the team member they were discussing (as he is an immigrant) and his tone (accusatory), I found the statement to be offensive.
I stood up and said “As the son of an immigrant (my mother is an Italian immigrant), I find that offensive”.
The manager then told me he was an immigrant to and that it wasn’t offensive as some immigrants do come here and they lie because that’s what they know. I told him I still found it to be offensive. He then told me I shouldn’t be listening into his conversation (which is difficult when he was discussing it so loudly it could be heard clearly by people farther away from me; something I confirmed) eventually mentioning how he has worked in many offices with a lot of immigrants and has come across it many times. I told him I’ve worked with a lot and not come across the issue that much. He then continued before I could keep speaking and said “I only said some immigrants are liars but a lot of them lie. You can make a complaint if you want. Everyone does”. I replied by saying “I’m not going to make a complaint. I was just letting you know”.
A couple of minutes later and the manager was typing angrily. Shortly after that, my manager came over and asked about a problem the manager was dealing with. The manager said it was already sorted. Then my manager looked at me and walked away.
About fifteen to twenty minutes later (and after a brief meeting the manager was involved with) my manager came back to the manager’s desk and asked if he wanted to discuss an issue they had been in communication about downstairs whilst having a smoke. The manager said he did and hurried off.
I had a feeling it was about me. Neither the manager I am referring to nor my manager could be considered discreet.
I waited about ten minutes after they came back before I approached my manager and asked if he wanted to talk to me about something. He asked why and I told him about how he looked at me before as it is his tell (which it seems to be). He told me that at the time there wasn’t, although he had received some feedback afterwards. He proceeded to tell me that apparently I had a go at the manager. I told him I didn’t and I had told the manager that I found something he said to be offensive. My manager said that because it is easier to lose a job in some places overseas, when some immigrants come here they lie to keep a job as that is what they’re used to doing and the manager was stating this and it doesn’t mean he is racist. I advised my manager that I never called the manager racist and repeated that I found what he said to be offensive and nothing else.
I asked if there was going to be further actions. My manager told me that there wouldn’t if it wasn’t pursued.
I learned that telling someone that you find a statement to be offensive is considered having a go at them. I also learned that one should not try to raise an issue in what some would consider to be a mature manner as it could end up with a formal complaint against you.
The second one is what I find most surprising. Someone cold have found the statement to be offensive, especially the with the switch from some immigrants to a lot of immigrants being liars.
My apologies for using “manager” so frequently throughout the post.
As some of you may already be aware, yesterday there people held hostage in the Lindt café at Martin Place in the Sydney CBD.
It ended with not an entirely desirable outcome (two hostages killed), but it was far better than what I imagine a lot of people felt would happen.
I think the police force did a wonderful job.
It was a long haul but they managed to appear patient and calm. Obviously they didn’t have too many options but they did what they could. I’m glad they acted quickly when shots were fired and were able to take out the gunman quickly, although I wish it could’ve been resolved peacefully.
Channel Seven respecting the request made by the police force to stop live coverage was good. It was also good that most media outlets keeping speculation to a minimum.
I have great respect for those that have shown support for the Muslim community.
Understanding that the actions of the gunman do not represent the community goes a long way.
I have far less respect for The Daily Telegraph for publishing a “special 2p.m. edition” with the cover article being titled “Death Cult CBD Attack” well before we knew who the gunman was as it was one of the most sensationalistic moves I’ve seen in a long time.
Unfortunately I fear that this event will be forgotten easily. It is by no means the worst thing to happen in the history of the world, let alone Australia. However, it should serve as a reminder; not out of fear, but assurance, that although something like this can happen anywhere, it can be resolved.
Also, I imagine that Tony Abbott will get a minor rise in popularity. I am of the opinion that if he does, it is not warranted as he did nothing in regards to the event, save a speech or two. With that being said, there is no reason to dislike him more, as it was not his position to do anything, other than to choose to speak to the gunman (as per one of his demands) or not.
To the families that lost a member: It is truly saddening that this happened. I know many have gone to Martin Place to pay tribute to those affected. Hopefully this provides some comfort for you.
I was planning on having four written posts completed tonight but that fell through, so instead I’m going to finish the night off with a picture.
Ewe and I were in Katoomba to do some bush walking on the first weekend of July. This was taken early Saturday morning because I wanted to get a picture of the sunrise.
We popped back inside shortly after as it was quite cold.
I like how the tree appears to be quite strong and seems to be rising above everything else.
I also like how the sunrise mostly stops at the tree as it seems to bring more focus to the tree as the subject of the photo.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy.
Well, it was good.
However, there’s a a couple of things I’d like to mention.
Nick Cave appeared to enjoy playing more recent songs (from the last ten years) far more than he did the older, although he did appear to get right into “Red Right Hand”. He seemed to be going through the motions for a lot of it, so I feel he should focus entirely on newer material.
I also think he should switch to smaller venues. There’s not anything wrong with playing large theatres but I don’t think Nick Cave should be performing in them for a little while. I think something smaller would be a good thing for him. I can’t explain why; it’s how I feel.
Maybe I think he’s lacking a bit of bite and something less spacious would bring it out of him because he still seems to have some sort of intensity in him that he’s trying to repress.
Other than that, as said before, it was good.
This isn’t that interesting, but at one point there was a guy next to me who would go from saying that Nick Cave was a shadow of his former self to praising him.
Last week on Monday I did not go into work due to feeling ill.
As I was home I decided it would be a good idea to try and organise for the kitchen tap to be fixed as it had been leaking from the handle (something I mentioned in a general update last month; I forgot I had mentioned it when I started writing this), so I called the plumber for my real estate and told him about the issue. He advised me he was in North Sydney all day but he’d have someone come out and check it.
Our tap had been leaking for a few months now and the real estate had known about it since September. It was gradually getting worse so I was a bit annoyed they hadn’t done anything about it (probably due to the place being up for sale, but it still should’ve been fixed).
Anyway, no one came out.
I called the plumber around 5:30 to ask what happened.
He told me he needed to speak to the real estate first and would come out on Tuesday around lunch time.
By about 2:45 on Tuesday I asked one of my housemates if the plumber had been around (as I was at work). I was advised that he hadn’t, so I called him up. He told me he was waiting for the service order to arrive and would contact me as soon as he had it.
On Wednesday evening we had heavy rainfall. It was heavy enough to cause one of the light fixtures in the living room to start leaking heavily. We switched off the power to the house due to safety concerns and tried to get as much water out of the carpet as possible (as one of my housemates was in the living room and didn’t notice it had started, so it had been a short period before anything was done). Once it stopped, power went back on. Luckily enough there was little damage and the water seemed to be coming from behind the light fixture. The upstairs bedroom directly above the living room was dry, so unfortunately we were unable to locate the source of the leak.
I took Thursday off to try and get the leak looked into as well as following up on the leaking tap. When I spoke to my agent at the real estate he advised me that they had sent the work order to the plumber and didn’t know why he hadn’t been out yet. I told him about the light fixture leaking. He said he’d get the plumber to look at that as well (which I found odd as although the bathroom is also upstairs, the pipe for it is about five metres away from where the leak was visible and goes down). At the end of the conversation he told me he’d speak to the plumber and then call me back.
At about 5:02 I called the real estate back as I hadn’t heard anything. I was told by reception I’d be called back in a moment. About six minutes later I received a call from a different agent at the real estate (as mine had finished for the day) telling me that the plumber was going to come out but they only found just prior to returning my call that he wouldn’t be coming out anymore.
I then decided the sensible and mature thing would be to start arguing with the agent.
Whilst telling him I wasn’t angry at the real estate, part of me was as even though they didn’t know the plumber would decide not to come out, I still wish they had called me earlier in the day to advise me that he would be. I would’ve at least had an approximate time and not been at home for most of it (I headed out briefly to get lunch).
I told the agent I still expected the plumber to come out that evening as this was not satisfactory and my housemates as well as myself were going to be away from the house for December as of the following day (which wasn’t quite true). The agent said that there was nothing they could do. I told them that it was still not good enough as the plumber had known about it since Monday and the real estate had known about it for a few months (which they had when they conducted an inspection).
The agent said that despite this, anything could have come up with the plumber that put them in a position to not be able to come out.
I told the agent that the leaking tap, whilst not having a major affect, has been costing us money and that the leaking light could be dangerous. The agent responded by saying that they didn’t want to cost us money and they wanted to get these fixed quickly.
I said that I expected the plumber to be out that evening as these were serious.
The agent responded by saying that although they would get these fixed quickly, the real estate didn’t consider these emergency problems.
At this point, I became a fair bit angrier. I brought up the possibility of an electrical fire as well as it being disappointing considering they’ve known about the tap for months.
Eventually they said they’d send the order to the plumber again. About 15 minutes later, I received a message from the plumber advising he would be around on Friday. As Je was going to be home until 12:20 in the afternoon, I responded advising that I could only guarantee someone would be home until 11:50. He responded by saying he’d be out around 10.
A different plumber with an apprentice showed up late but they fixed the tap with a new one. Reversed the hot and cold position on it as well.
Yesterday I found out that the aerator had been loosely screwed in as it decided to give in to water pressure and detached from the tap. I was glad it was an easy fix.
They also fixed our toilet as it was leaking from the cistern pipe whenever we’d flush and attached a new flush button (as Al managed to flush it one time he had food poisoning). The plumbers thought the light leak came from the bathroom as well, but I still have a hard time believing this due to having it happen only in heavy rain and not at any other time.
Anyway, come Wednesday and we had heavy rain. I was able to witness the light starting to leak. I found it interesting to watch despite being annoyed. We already had a large bowl underneath it as a precautionary measure though so we ended up with a relatively dry carpet underneath it.
Whilst I do enjoy having an occasional water feature in the living room, I do hope it gets fixed soon.
Earlier this year when Ewe and I were about to start bush walking into the Royal National Park (starting in Otford), we saw this.
I took quite a few photos as I found it to be quite amazing and beautiful.
Here are two of them.
I hope you enjoy.
I had a fight with a taxi driver yesterday morning.
When I got in I asked the driver to take me to St Leonards via the Pacific Highway.
After crossing Sydney Harbour Bridge, instead of taking the turn off for the Pacific Highway the driver continued along the Warringah Freeway.
I told him that I wanted to go along the Pacific Highway and ask why he didn’t turn off and he told me it was faster to go along the Warringah Freeway and Chandos Street.
Having spent a good portion of time traveling to St Leonards, I know this is not the case.
I also know that it is more expensive.
Anyway, the driver told me he could take be through the Crows Nest exit. I told him not to as we would hit traffic and he responded with “exactly”, then went on to tell me the freeway was faster again. Whilst this is happening, I noticed there was a bit of traffic around us.
I told him again that it would’ve been faster by the Pacific Highway, to which he told me that was “bullshit”. He told me that only I have ever said to go along the Pacific Highway. He also may have said that only people like me request to go along the Pacific Highway, but I’m not too sure.
I said that it was my right (which is the first right listed for customers in the taxi) to decide on the route. He responded by telling me I didn’t specify which exit to take to get onto the Pacific Highway. The problem here is that there is only one exit from the Warringah Freeway to the Pacific Highway if you’re coming from Sydney Harbour Bridge and if he was unsure, he could’ve asked me. I told him that I didn’t say which exit as I didn’t consider him to be stupid.
I told him I had been traveling to St Leonards for the last six years (which is a lie as it has been slightly more than five years and eleven months) and due to this I knew which way is faster. I asked him how long he had been doing this and he avoided the question for a bit before telling me he had been doing it for five years. However, I doubt he had been traveling to the same location every day he worked for that period.
We’re going back and forth about this for a while until he asked with a fair bit of hostility, “where are you from?”. I responded with “Sydney, born and raised”. I asked him the same thing. His response was “Sydney”. I then asked him where he was from before Sydney.
After a few seconds he said he was from Nepal. I don’t think it matters at all, but If he’s going to ask where I’m from, I’m going to ask him as well.
Eventually we stop across from a pub in St Leonards. He said he wouldn’t charge the bridge toll which he patronisingly told me was something they can charge for crossing the bridge. However, as I was paying by card, there was a surcharge which ended up being more than 10%, which as far as I’m aware is not meant to exceed 10%. I asked him about this and he told me that it was 10% plus 1%. He may have meant a dollar but it’s not what he said.
So we argued a bit more with him continuing to patronise me by explaining what the options were on an EFTPOS machine and what they meant whilst I told him the average I pay to get to St Leonards is $27.
He offered to call his boss and have them tell me I was wrong about the surcharge and which route was quicker. I agreed to this and told him his attitude sucked and that he was meant to offer a service and not an opinion.
Eventually he said something along the lines of “how about we go to the police station and sort it out there?”, as he was having difficulty reaching his base. I agreed to it.
We drove a short distance to the police station when he was able to get through to his base. The radio was turned up to an almost painful level of volume and had a large amount of audible distortion.
Eventually the base advised they’d get a supervisor to call the driver.
A supervisor called immediately and asked the driver what the issue was. The driver said that I disagreed with the surcharge and that I didn’t specify which exit to take to get onto the Pacific Highway and was disputing the fare.
When I spoke to the supervisor, I told him where I requested to go and the route I chose, how the driver behaved and what he said. I told him how long I had been traveling to St Leonards (six years; not almost six) and that I was indeed disputing the surcharge and fare and how the driver offered to go to the police station. I also advised that I was no longer comfortable with being in the taxi with the driver.
The supervisor asked me where I was picked up from and where I was heading to, then told me that the average fare price was about thirty-one dollars to get there, but then said that could vary a fair bit. I told him I knew this but I also knew that going via the Pacific Highway took less time than the freeway and reiterated that despite my choice of route, the driver didn’t follow it.
Whilst this was happening the driver tried to talk over me but I quite bluntly told him I was talking.
The supervisor asked to speak to the driver again. He told the driver that it’s best to get customers like me out of the taxi as quickly as possible. He continued by saying that sometimes a driver will come across a customer that is used to paying a certain amount so it’s best to accept it and keep going. He also said that there was no need to go to the police station for something like this. The driver tried to talk over him a bit but the supervisor stopped him by firmly telling him to listen.
He told the driver that it was costing him money as he could be getting other fares right now. The driver relented and when he did I said “good, because you’ve made me late”. The driver responded by saying “well you’ve made me late!”. Then the supervior said we were both late. He told the driver to accept what I’d give him. The driver then asked if I’d be happy with paying twenty-seven dollars and twenty cents (which was the original unaltered fare). I started rummaging through my wallet for change.
Once he got off the phone I gave him all about six dollars (most of my change) and told him that his service was shit, so that was all he was getting. He asked if he could have my details for the complaint. I got out of the taxi instead.
It’s probably quite petty and childish but I expect better service than that.
A few weeks ago we were sent out a copy of the dress code.
Out of curiosity I checked to see when the last one had been sent as I still had it.
It had been a year and a day so I’ve decided to make a follow up post a year and a day after the last time I wrote about the dress code.
I’ve noticed that it mentions nothing about males wearing female clothing (or vice versa) and it made me wonder what would happen if a male came to work wearing a dress or a skirt. I know that the manager who prefers to remain in their office would most likely become quite irate and organise for the dress code to be changed again.
Despite my wanting to do so to fully test what would happen, I also take issue with this as it would be detrimental to someone who identified as the opposite gender and could lead to discrimination issues (although our dress code discriminates a fair bit already but that’s for another time). I wouldn’t put it past that manager to not care if the concern was raised though.
If a male came in wearing a dress because they identified as a female, they would either be sent home, taken into the meeting room for disciplinary action or both. If they advised that they identified as a female, they would most likely be treated as though they were making a mockery of the dress code.
The same thing would happen to a female if they were pulled into the meeting room for violating the dress code in a similar manner.
I know it might not seem like a major thing, but to me it seems a quite backwards.
And here is the picture I was looking for.
I took this last year whilst cycling with a friend.
We had been to La Perouse and were on our return journey when I had the opportunity to take this photo.
For me, this photo shows a fairly stark and bleak contrast between rest and unrest.
I think that, at times, construction can be very pervasive.
I also think that here it looks quite menacing as it might be far away but it threatens to approach rapidly and engulf the cemetery.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy.
Stupidity Hole 