Tag: Business

The ebbs and flows of 2013


As I stood in the shower in the gym this morning, I realised I wanted badly to just stand there and let the water run down my neck. It would only be a few hours at work this morning before we all go home as the office would be shut at noon.

There was no pressing work needing to be done and as long as I make it in by 9am I should be fine. I didn’t need to be in at my usual 8am and I had taken longer on the cross trainer and moved on to the stationary bike and my gear had been soaked. I was just going to stand under this hot shower and imagine being washed and rinsed of all my cares which have piled up over the year.

I had started this year looking for a home, church wise. I got to a point I didn’t bother if I was going to church on a Sunday. I could only see the negatives in churches and the people in them. The brouhaha in my previous church had escalated, affecting people I cared about. I did things in response which though I would do again in a heartbeat, I wished I didn’t have to do.

I have had Kiddo leave home a second time, to a land close to my childhood home. Singapore feels foreign now. The new felt old. Or is it the old felt new. It is a city state which is modern and yet traditional and conservative at the same time. It is singularly far from home where Tress and I are. Other than a little dog, all we had was our work and our home.

Work was increasingly busy. I was asked to be in arenas I didn’t want to be in. Locking horns and battling in cauldrons and with people I did not think or wish to be in or with. An environment which is chalky at best permeated. Unhappy shareholders who no longer trust the board or management, translating into a cascading tide of finger pointing and – dare I say it – bullying. All I want is work. I want to go in, do my work and go home and drink my wine. Watch my footy. Walk my dog. Be with my lovely wife. But the mistrust, the second guessing, the finger pointing, all add up to make each day a laboured one, from which I continue to seek to escape. But the scriptures have taught that work is good and all that is part of work, so I remain grateful. Head down…

It has been a year with various changes and challenges. As tiring as it has been, I almost don’t want it any other way. I am learning to take each tide as it comes and ebbs. It all adds to this tapestry I did not know was being weaved. And in the midst of all that, I have had the constant love of Tress and Kiddo and the soothing, blessing presence and company of Tress my lovely and loving wife. I am ever grateful for her.

2013, in as much as I want to be washed and rinsed away as though I am standing under a shower, I also simply want to experience the sensation of being pushed and sucked by the ebbs and flows of the tides. Thank you my Lord for 2013…

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Short end of the bargain


I was at another CPD session yesterday but this time it was out of a work driven requirement. The ever growing need to reconcile corporate drivers (profit, margins, market share) with the equally increasing volume in terms of noises made, from the community perspectives. So a corporate entity seeks to report on its corporate social responsibility which was all the rage where I was some 5-6 years ago.

Apparently this has evolved and corporations are now required to report not just how it discharges its CSR, but also how its vision, mission, objectives, strategies, activities etc creates value not just for the corporation but also for its shareholders and all stakeholders at large.

That was why I rocked up to the session yesterday but as is often the case, the delivery was something else.

It was partly my bad however – while the promotional literature talked about “Global Reporting Initiative” and “Integrated Reporting” framework, the workshop was targeted at people who had to produce the report as a whole – albeit incorporating aspects of GRI and possibly, into the future, IR. Maybe the letters GRI and IR jumped out because I was looking for such material. I was possibly misled because of my own agenda and priorities.

Sometimes however, one is misled not because of undisclosed agenda or expectations. One is often misled because counter-party misled you. Tham Fuan Yee proclaims you are his first team, he publicly says things like it would be crazy for him to forge ahead without board support – it would be suicidal even, for him to proceed in this manner – yet actions and day-to-day words suggest to be his first team and to support him means no questions are to be asked. Any questions asked are interpreted as lack of support. That then gets communicated to everyone working for him. The Board is prevented from communicating to the same persons and so that miscommunication is never given a different perspective. Over time, the board is made to appear to be obstructive and unreasonable.

One feels betrayed and short changed. To be treated this way by a pastor hurts immeasurably. The damage is far more destructive than a day lost in mismatched training. To this day, our church life suffers and I feel like a homeless potted plant seeking to be part of a productive plot. Thanks Tham Fuan, for the continuing damage you wrought. Thanks to your harsh words and inexplicable nonchalance for so long, I continue to wander. Instead of gathering like a godly man would, you have succeeded in scattering. Tham Fuan, do you know how that is?

Rubbish Man … and Simplicity again


I was griping to Tress last night, about the behaviour of some of the tenants in my building. They’re all mission organisations so I expected a higher standard of behaviour but in some aspects, it is worse than a secular set up.

Part of my routine is pushing out the bins of the building, on rubbish collection days. On alternate weeks these include the recycling bins. The way tenants deal with rubbish and the way it is disposed, leave much to be desired. It just makes an unpleasant job even harder and more of a pain than it should be.

Bins - MIne, all mine!

Such is the humbling nature of my work now. I wheel out up to five bins on Tuesday evenings before I leave the office and wheel them in again the next morning. Every time I do this I wonder what the Lord is doing to me through this exercise. I’m sure it can only be for the better, but it is just that I then get tagged as the guy who does the bins (amongst a myriad of other little stuff) and when someone has shredded paper or such other stuff to throw they would ask me if the bins are full, if they are in or out etc. I mean, why cant they just think and have a look for themselves? It is one thing to be the guy who wheels out the bins (relatively harmless thing) but it is quite another to be the guy people think of when they have rubbish to dispose!

I guess when I stressed simplicity, I get whacked with the extreme experience of being a simple person!

Speaking of simplicity, my boss is in the process of replacing his laptop computer. His is a HP – an almost 5 year old one. We’ve been looking at laptops in recent weeks and it is amazing how cheap they are these days. For under $1,000 you can get a pretty whiz bang machine, what with iCore 7 processors, 16GB chips blah blah blah. His wife uses a Mac (a personal one) so I thought he may want a Mac but he would have none of it. I guess he was just mindful that we’re a missions organisation with responsibility over other people’s hard earned money so we better be careful with how we spend it. Why blow more moolahs when you can go pretty far with relatively less?

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Food Handrers


See this story about dodgy food outlets.

Sushiman is an outlet in Box Hill Centro and unfortunately I have bought my sushi from that outlet a number of times before.

This does nothing to my disdain for Chinese migrants who bought up food businesses simply as a means to maintain their residence status. For may of them there is little interest in the food business overall, let alone safe food handling issues. In the case of Sushiman apparently a fine of $145,000 was levied. Again, this is of little consequence to Chinese migrant business owners. Sure, such a fine hurts and it may make them take more notice but I suspect it would have little impact on the malaise of Chinese businessmen buying up food outlets with little or no interest in food service. Many of these business persons are wealthy and what drives them is not the relatively puny fines but maintenance of their residence status. The way to deal with this effectively is to disqualify them from owning, operating or investing in food business. Some form of risk assessment which takes into account what can better act as deterrence or incentives, ought to be in place to deal with this. Just my untutored observations…

If you want a bit more info, see here.

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2012?$


2012 may yet turn out to be a tumultuous year, albeit for different – principally economic and financial – reasons. It’s all a bit worrying, depressing even. That’s what happens when you catch up on financial news in this climate I guess.

I have not read financial news for a while now. My current role does not require this beyond the most cursory glance at interest rate trends and general property market well being.

Just for fun however I decided to catch up on some news and it was a mistake. 2012 now feels like a harbinger of bad things, from the perspective of how the economy and finance will fare.

First there’s this swathe of industrial disputes fought out in a climate of economic uncertainty as a result of what’s happening in Europe. Collective agreements companies rushed to sign before the Fair Work Act – courtesy of Julia Gillard – kicked in after Rudd got into the Lodge, are due to expire in 2012. So apparently workers and employers are slugging it out in anticipation of new deals and the Fair Work Act is apparently more focused on processes than outcomes.

Then there’s the credit outlook. With banks exposed to the sick men of Europe seeking to make up gaping holes, borrowing – mainly the interbank sort – is going to be a lot more expensive. Bond on the other hand are seeing low yields as a result of capital leaving Europe and seeking new low risk parking lots. Apparently companies thought 2012 would see the GFC ending so heaps of corporate bonds were structured to mature then. A host of factors would combine to heap pressure on funding and make the business environment very difficult.

I wonder what 2012 would look like. It probably isn’t “The End” but it looks like it could well be messy.

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ANZ Rewards Card


If you have an ANZ Rewards Card, make sure you don’t get slugged with the $42 annual rewards program fee. Check your statement and if they charged you, ring them up and get them to waive it. I did, but I was prepared to just cancel the card if they didn’t so I guess you have to be ready for that if they don’t budge.

I get annoyed with big corporations like that, who try to sneak in little bits of fees and see if they can get away with it. I don’t know if they deliberately target unsuspecting customers who don’t check up on details and blissfully pay unnecessary charges and fees. I am guilty of that sometimes – paying unnecessarily – but given the vulgarity of senior banking executive remuneration, paying banks fees which are totally unnecessary and unjustifiable has become a lot less unpalatable. Even revolting.

So if you are an ANZ Bank customer, and hold an ANZ Rewards Card, make sure you don’t get slugged unnecessarily. It’s only a 5 -10 minute phone call to get rid of this and save yourself $42.

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pIGs


Silvio’s peccadilloes? No one’s laughing or simply annoyed anymore. Italy‘s sovereign risk issues have triggered a Wall Street bloodbath overnight. Another plunge – this time just over 3% n the Dow and nearly 4 on the Nasdaq – means things continue to look really gloomy, even worse than the storms in Melbourne overnight. I wonder if Europe PIGS scenario can get any worse. I’m really glad I didn’t take the London option back in 2004. What will become of the economic scene, I wonder…

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Penny Wong’s Greek Gift


The report that Finance Minister Penny Wong has plans to withdraw hundreds of millions of dollars from the Future Fund is most disturbing. There appears to be no reason for such plans safe to keep intact Labor promise for a surplus budget in 2012. This appears to be wanton and reckless behaviour that tells us our worries that Labor Governments are more fiscally irresponsible are not astray.

When Peter Costello set up the fund, the understanding was that no withdrawal can be made unless actuarial advice is that the liability arising from public sector superannuation obligations would be fully funded. This advice has yet to be given in fact the current advice is that for the 2012 budget, the liability would not be funded.

So why is Penny Wong and her boss the discredited and unwanted Julia Gillard, so hell bent on this course of action? Australians should be up in arms and say to this government to stop messing with our future. First the carbon tax to wreak uncertainty on the economy, now this banditry of a raid on our future fund.

While not every one of us has a direct interest in this fund, undermining the future fund would do serious damage to the government’s sovereign financial rating which would in turn send our country down the Grecian path with similar tragic outcomes. Hands off the future fund!

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Home Reno? Forget Supa


We’ve been toying with the idea of renovating our home, as opposed to looking for another one. The idea was to get ourselves a place with another living area. A house down the street from us  just had something done and we liked what we saw so we asked them to come around to discuss some design ideas and get a feel of the budget involved.

Extensions Unlimited had someone ring me, came over, and provided great service in terms of letting me know what’s involved, what’s possible and what’s not advisable, etc. The professionalism and courtesy from them was terrific and if I do proceed, they would definitely be considered.

Having heard about the SupaGroup on the radio, I thought I’d also contact them. They rang, we teed up an appointment and all was looking ok until I got a call from a Sales Rep, basically saying the job’s not what they usually do. They tried to be polite about it but the bottom line really is, the job’s not big enough for them. This sounded really strange, especially if you look at this page which describes what they do. The Sales Rep had said SupaGroup doesn’t do renovations, just extensions. Yeah, that’s right.  I mean, have a look at this page – on SupaGroup website:

Renovations

Why move when you can renovate ?

The home you are living in is most likely the home your family has grown up in.  It’s been the scene of so many unforgettable family parties and events.  Your driveway is probably the place where your children took their first wobbly bike ride, and your street has become familiar as the back of your hand.

Why would you every want to move ?  Particularly now that Supa Group Constructions can help turn the house you’re living in now into the dream home you have always wanted.

Our designers willcreate practical and stylish proposals that:

  • Maximise space
  • Effectively fuse your existing floor plan with the new renovation
  • Satisfy your everday usage needs
  • Captures the ambience of your existing home
  • Creates a setting for a new lifestyle specifically based on your ideas and Dreams

We have been thinking about converting our car port into a double garage, creating a front entrance, and building a new rumpus where our deck on the side lawn now sits. These are the main works, and at the back our minds, we were also thinking another bathroom. Sure, it may not be massive work but aren’t these sort of works precisely those within the sort of stuff described in their website? Why agree to an appointment and then call to basically say sorry your job’s too small, albeit euphemistically conveyed? All of the goodwill possibly generated by their promotional expenses on radio etc just got shot in a 2 minute conversation. Even if Supagroup provides a superior quote for me, I’d have to now think really hard before I would even contemplate going with them. Supagorup has a really strange sales practice. Not bad, not unethical, just really weird PR approach. Maybe it was just the Sales Rep being lazy. Never mind, just cross SupaGroup off my list – hopeless group, not supa for sure.

Moral Will Be Hip One Day


Fabrice Tourre was the trader at Goldman at the centre of the SEC prosecution. Only 28 at the time he was flogging the stuff (“ab cdos” etc) off to “widows and orphans”, he is the type of glorified salesman whose methods to fame and fortune will one day be frowned upon. I

I believe there will come a day when it will become noble and fashionable for someone to do what is right. Public perception of what is success and how to best reward it, will change. It has to.

 The days when young professionals are paid grotesque amounts for boosting sales of high margin products which benefit no one but the seller, will end because sooner or later, truth will prevail. Good must win.

Already these bankers and traders are viewed with disdain and they are probably considered greedier and more disliked than even lawyers.

A few weeks ago I read “3 Cups of Tea” by Greg Mortenson and admired how a passionate person could be totally uninterested in money. Money was just a means to an end – an end which has nothing to do with his personal benefits other than his satisfaction of having helped someone else.

 Unfortunately for Goldman and its many employees like Fabrice Tourre, a warped sense of what capitalism is has made money as an end in itself. It is easy to think and behave that way.

Unless you belong to a religious or not for profit organisation, money is the raison d’être of your daily work. Money is everything, and more. One is measured not just by how much money one makes either for himself or his employer, that measurement is also a relative one. I may be making $200K per annum for myself and $20million for my employer but if a colleague makes $250K and $25million respectively he becomes more valuable. That trend goes on. It is also not about a company making a profit of $50million or a return on equity of 15% or a market share of 10%, it is about whether the next company (especially if that company is a competitor) makes $60million, a return of 18% and a market share of 12%. The latter company will be seen as the more successful and the chief executive officer will be rewarded accordingly, making him more valuable than the CEO of the first company.

And so the chase goes on and on. The CEO drives his sales and distribution team up, drives his operations and support teams down and gets more into the face of his customers.

More is done to draw attention away from the competitor and unto itself. The “look at me” mantra takes an even bigger footing. The marketing guys dream up more and more ideas to make consumers look at their clients. These ideas increasingly become more outlandish so as to better attract even greater attention.

Gradually the importance of drawing attention unto oneself becomes of paramount importance. Attention itself becomes the end. If you draw plenty of attention to the point of becoming an icon of sorts, you are more valuable.

Hence we have complete flakes like Paris Hilton and the Kadashians who have achieved absolutely nothing in life and whose sole value therefore is the ability to draw attention unto itself. These nincompoop nymphs in turn earn hefty income and thus become valuable in the eyes of the likes of Fabrice Tourre and others of this ilk. They have both advanced the cause of humanity absolutely no further and have in fact eroded the value of neutral media.

Fundamental moral considerations will have to be the basic popular culture one day.

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This is a repeat entry – just picked it up again somehow and thought it worth repeating

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