Spurs won the most boring finals in recent times 4-0, and as much as I think Lebron is overrated, a premature ejaculation rather, I gotta say I feel sorry for the guy getting totally rolled like that. but hey it's a team sport, and I feel sorrier for Nowitzki.
So, the NBA playoffs just fizzed out in a fit of boredom, I watched every game up to the playoffs hoping those two teems wouldn't go through.
6 months ago
So after cutting off my long locks I more or less sported a variation of this fauxhawk and shaved various patterns into the side of my head. I like the lightning bolt I managed on this one. And that my breasts seem reel small in this photo.
5 months ago
The fauxhawk gave way to the reverse mohawk above. I debuted this at the christmass party. At this point I ran out of hair to work with, so it regrew out into a fluff ball for about 4 months.
the mighty undercut
this is what I currently sport. A haircut is no good if it doesn't make me instantly laugh. The undercut is powerful. I say the word cunt 150% more than my pre undercut days. I was never any good at spitting. Where to from here tohm? I plan to style it out into a fairly spherical fro by the time I reach Japan and then I will have a tilt at the De La Soul circa 1991.
Morley seldom crosses into the realm of pure artist but when he does he probably could make a living from it, in one of those countries like France.
The said art piece was a polystyerine coffee cup from our Dining hall with warning labels placed all over it: 'Warning this is a cup' and 'Achtung: Die ist Cup' or something.
Who knows what happened to that cup but it made a potent comment about human nature and self interest.
It was during O-week and somehow through the democratic process we had elected a President and Activities Officer that where more interested in being President and Activities Officer than doing a good job of President and Activities Officer duties.
As such when threats were levelled at said roles, they caved unashamedly, almost as if it was the rational thing to do.
It was almost as if they held their positions for priveledge and not on account of being popularly elected to represent the students of IH.
Like their foremost responsibility was to the poor and shortsighted, unprofessional and irrational business objectives of the administrative body and not to the students who financed both the student club and the college.
And as such when faced with threats to make O-week less enjoyable or face 'mysterious consequences' that never were articulated or real, they caved, they accepted the first offer and started scaling back the enjoyment of o-week because they were pussies.
All them paragraphs were summed up beautifully by one cup.
The sort of cup I will one day purchase at auction for $10,000 when Morley is rich enough to live his dream of shooting his televisions with a magnum and replacing them rather than turning them off.
Scared of what? nothing.
It was a cup and we were duly warned...that it was a cup. What else to do, it wasn't like it was a 'sharp cup' or 'cup will become hot when heated' or 'do not squeeze too hard' the warning was simply that it was a cup.
We would possibly as a society benifit more from such warning signs.
Obvious examples would be 'caution: terrorism' terrorism what? what about it? what do you want me to do? be afraid of it.
Or maybe Howard's next campaign can be: 'Warning: Economics'
In the immortal words of some guy Les Claypool quoted - 'Think it's not illegal yet'
there are a whole load of reasons as to why probability doesn't match fear, eg more people are afraid of getting eaten by a shark, than getting killed in a car crash.
People will take more precautions against being mugged at night than preventing a housefire.
A kid dying on any day is tragic, but on Christmass day it's extra tragic.
A kid is safer statistically in a house with a gun than a house with a pool.
A gun is more likely to shoot a family member than an assailant.
Yet fear often runs counter to reality.
If everything was a business and human life had a $ value. Tragically the world would probably be a lot safer.
Example: Flying a plane into the twin towers kills a lot of people unexpectadly.
Work Place Health and Safety issues kill a lot more people even more unexpectedly.
But the first one is more outragous which is why it became a trillion dollar (failed) solution to a billion dollar problem.
Similarly, the sales of gas masks skyrocketed following the twin tower attack, now I believe that not a single person who bought a gas mask believed any organisation short of the US government capable of launching a gas attack on every street corner of every city of every state in the US. People opted though to try and solve the problem of their remote probability of being attacked in this specific way without any real evidence that this kind of attack was probable in the first place.
Hence - 'Warning: Terrorism' is all you really need to say. Then you simply go and invade countries and buy gasmasks, and advertise toll free numbers to report suspicious 'anythings' or 'pieces of information' all in the name of taking the necessary precautions against 'terrorism'
which is likely to be a far too political analogy. I simply want to highlight the disparity between how willingly people subscribe to fear for some things, and not for others:
eg. 'Warning: Terrorism'
vs. 'Warning: Diabetes'
Two unspecific warning labels, but I'm not sure anywhere near the number of people are afraid of diabetes than are afraid of Arabs. (Arabs = Terrorism)
And it could be that similar to cars, the threat of diabetes may only be averted by sacrificing parts of our lifestyle we have grown accustomed to.
Eg. Fast food and sugar in the case of Diabetes (and driving walking distances etc)
and driving over the speed limit, whilst drunk & driving in general for car crashes.
But some of the shit involved in 'preventing' terrorism require sacrifice to lifestyle as well - eg. civil liberties, national dignity, having to actually think hard about a career in the armed forces etc.
The real thing the cup said to me, is, if you are going to be afraid, have a good reason. Don't just be afraid because it's generally thought to be a good idea.
Flashman is a primo example of someone who get's afraid for good reason, he runs away when his life is in danger.
People who run away, sign things over, or pay money when nothing is in danger we call, dumbasses.
The other thing for me is the old definition of insanity - more of a strategic overview overall - 'doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result' this sentiment was also espoused by the sad social climber of a high school principal I had when he used to say the no less valid 'you'll always get what you've always got, if you always do what you've always done'
Which makes assumptions - the best case scenario is 'you'll always get what you've always got' it needs to be qualified with 'or less'
Bill Russell had a take on it too in terms of basketball which was 'if you are doing something right, don't stop it for your oponent, let them stop you' infact if you want a good read, read Bill Russell's nba finals/playoffs blog.
If there is no evidence to suggest a current strategy will stop being successful, this is the best reason to continue. Contingencies sure, and obviously the evidence in a bball match that a strategy isn't working because you stop getting stops on defense and scoring on offense.
Anyway, that is all I really have to say, today.
I was walking down the street on sunday, and this guy dining al fresco started yelling at me. I was wearing my Mambo shirt circa 1998 full of holes and shit so I was pretty sure he couldn't have mistook me for a waiter and I was about to say 'I'm not a fucking waiter' when he said 'you're from brunswick right?'
Anyway this guy started talking to me about my long socks and my crazy haircuts, then told me how I should come to him for haircuts.
We talked about his store and he offered me my first haircut free.
I'm not sure if he was hitting on me but he said he could do the detailing so I'm tempted.
Pity I'm growing a fro out now.
I'll put up my hall of shame, still I'm flattered to join the ranks of crazy guys that walk around brunswick and get noticed all the time.
Last night I put on my first dinner party as an unmarried young professional.
I like to think it was a step away from adolescence, into the realm of adulthood.
What it was was a fearful range of emotions as I realized the imagined pressure middle age people go through when they do these things for a good time.
I mean the company was excellent, and thanks to the ring in chefs I don't think there's ever been better food served.
It ended up through my own disorganized panic over catered and under attended by my fellows who just aren't ready yet.
Which is odd since I'm the one in a basketball jersey and sporting an undercut.
But I seriously felt the whole spectrum yesterday you know from joy through to despair.
I usually have the attitude that people should be grateful no matter what shit I serve up but for some reason I got real performance anxiety.
I had sold it as an iron chef event, and only I ended up running around stressed out and cutting dishes from my entry.
I destroyed a blender but ended up pulling off all my dishes.
Sonam cooked something shit hot but couldn't stay to eat, I do love that big guy, he cut my onions up for me as I really get done in by their noxious acid.
And I can tell Janice will be talking about Amrish's tofu at dinner parties for the next three years or so.
There was so much good food you almost wished for a vomitorium so you could go for seconds.
Fortunately I will be spared the dissapointment of returning to corner store food for a week or so thanks to the miracle of Tupperware.
But I realised the dinner party was sort of a profound metaphor for my life, that is a wonderful idea with dismal execution. And I wonder, could this mean I will never be organised enough to command my army of ninja's?
What place does art have in our society?
The answer seems too obvious at first, on walls to be observed by high society who wear monocles and top hats and spats and sashes and medals instead of neck ties. Man those neck tie medals are works of art in and of themselves. It would be awesome if one of them was like a flaming skull with a snake going in one eye and out the other eye.
But I digress,
Art is surely important because it's literally the tip off of the creative process for visual type thinkers. Plus given that art beign definitionless extends to written and audio forms as well I guess as 3d objects which can be felt by people who can neither see nor hear, and since said people won't be reading my blog, I frankly question their ability to appreciate good 3D art in the first place.
I hope nobody invents a computer-type device that can turn text into a 3-dimensional sensation and I get beat up by a bunch of deaf-blind guys that enjoy nothing but working out in a gym all day.
But I digress,
Anything is art, I once proposed in a debate that if we simply declared our Nuclear Waste as an avant gaurd artpiece we could sell it to the Louvre instead of have to pay people to take it.
The art is anything debate was defined by some artist signing a toilet that some artist being Marcel Duchamp and he signed it R Mutt 1917.
It was a challenge to people who thought they could define art.
The versict is you can't. And since most people didn't follow the debate, most people get angry when governments spend taxpayer money on art, with such famous exhibits as the 'nothing' exhibit, which I really wanted to see.
but what function does art have in progress?
I guess for me all art is the tip-off of the creative process, it is inspiration. Or examination, it generally is done with porpuse but no clear sense of direction.
For example Surrealism drew on images from dreams to inspire us, even though often the images portrayed made no clear social comment.
Cubism could have been construed to talk about perspective and perception, yet also carried other messages or told stories within it.
Leonardo invented anatomical drawings.
Warhol mass produced art out of a factory, creatively challanging the need to be creative.
A picture of nothing challanges the notion of what we want to get out of art.
Art clearly examines us, its not quite communication, it's not necessaraly productive.
Similarly though, if sci-fi is agreed to be an art-piece taking the form of a written art composition sci-fi has provided the starting point for many modern inventions, such as cyborgs, cloaking devices, lasers, mobile phones, the internet and so fourth.
Was Da Vinci a scientist or an artist? he made more bread as an artist than as an inventor, though had he been in the patent age that may have switcherood.
But would he have done anything if art didn't have a place in society?
Well I guess like any famous artist, if art didn't exist I guess he wouldn't, because that is precisely what he is famous for.
So take that fucktard.
Oh yeah and Picasso is to Cubes like Anna Nicole is to Boobs.
Almost three years ago now I met Don. Don was the most whipped guy I had ever met. You met him and thought, man what a cool guy, I bet he gets all the ladies.
Don had himself a very very nice lady. Mary, she was pretty damn cool.
Mary clearly wore the pants.
This became apparant early on when Don would consistantly spend his weekends going to hilary duff films despite being the same age as me.
I have a pretty good track record of weasling my way out of so called 'chick flicks' and the more subtle cousin 'romantic comedies'.
But anyway, the thing that stuck that whipped crown or mister whippy hat on Don's head was that one time when Mary was doing a class presentation as part of the PSP program so near and dear to my heart.
Mary did it on the popular past time of jewellery making, that hobby that justifies the existence of stores that sell beads.
Her presentation was straight forward and lacked any real punch.
Feeling the feedback from the audiance was a little flat, she busted out with a story about how Don enjoyed making jewellery and earrings.
And Don burst out 'Why would you do that, I was just sitting hear?' and Sonam and I just bashed our fists against the table while tears ran out our eyes.
I mean you'd have to know how cool Don should have been to truly appreciate such cruelty for all it's comic value but a couple of weeks ago I walked into a bead shop to check out and see if I could find a cheap plastic ring or something to send my gf in Japan.
And I saw these beads that where little fish. And then over a couple of weeks or so it culminated in my mind this idea for a bracelet. But the bracelet was not for Miki but for me.
Salmon are the simbol of the samurai because they are strong enough to swim up stream to mate, very masculine in themselves, and 'my salmon are all swimming upstream' is a way to say 'yes I'm still fertile' to boot.
So I thought it would be pretty manly to go make myself a bracelet out of beads.
And here it is.
incidently I also saw my friend swanny in a bead shop. But he had his girlfriend take him in. You never think you'll get caught by another guy in a bead shop.
I was there for me, it was a shameful day.
Living as if is a simple but necessary philosophy. Living as if is a way to effect personal change, it kind of ties in a guess with the 'law of attraction' as pushed by 'the Secret' although instead of focusing on selfish material goals of average people who want to unlock alladin's cave it's more a philosophy for an altruistic lifestyle.
The way I live as if is that I live as if riding 15km to work each way is the most practical way to cover said distance. And it is, it probably takes double the time it would to drive but it costs me roughly the price of my bike given how long it last:
$450 for the bike plus $130 maintenance a year divided by 25 years.
Or
130
x 25
+450
/ 25
/ 52
Which breaks down to roughly $2.85 a week to cover 75km so even if the onroad costs were to double and adjust for 4% inflation I'm still looking at $5 or so a week or less than 1% of my earnings.
Now that's affordable.
So everybody talks about cars being practical. Now I'm not sure if petrol is still in the basket of goods used to calculate the CPI for inflation, I imagine the ABS would have been instructed to remove it like credit card debt as these things tend to drive up inflation which in turn drives up interest rates which cause recessions.
But anyway about 3 years ago I read the average cost of a car is $100 per week, in insurance, depreciation, fuel etc. and I assume that doesn't include parking tickets (and fines) and that petrol by the sounds of it has been outperforming inflation.
Thankfully true cost economics aren't really applied to petrol so we pay indirectly for the repairs to the environment necessary.
But anyway I'd put the weekly cost of doing the same thing that I do now on a bike at $115 a week. Now you get the added benifit of it only taking half the time.
Car 30 minutes each way at $115 per week
Bike 65 minutes each way at $2.85 per week
Car = $57.50 for same benifit (distance travelled)
Presumably the hour a day you save can be spent, sleeping watching tv or working out at the gym.
Now I already slagged off cars a couple of weeks ago, what is the real travesty is what I recently discovered since I stopped taking the oft promoted viable alternative Public transport.
Unfortunately my 15km each way is not a winding path through Metropolitan Melbourne but a straight line out of town. Said straightline follows the train line from my station onwards and thus presents the train as a viable alternative.
But a straight line of 15km takes you just out into the zone known as zone 2. (1 & a half stations deep no less, which is to say almost too little zone 2 to bother with)
Now let it not be said that metcard doesn't give ticketing options to it's commuters you can choose between:
Full fare 5 x daily Zone 1 + 2 @ $45.20
Full fare weekly zone 1 + 2 @ $45.20
the advantage is that with a weekly ticket you get to use the ticket for your travel on a weekend.
But with 5 x daily presumably the ability to commute one of the daily tickets outside of a 7 day time frame makes up for the fact that you pay the exact same amount for 5 days of travel as you do for 7 consecutive days travel.
Which would lead one to conclude that you don't pay for the weekend travel anyway.
so $45.20/5 = $9.04
A grand saving of 70c per day.
Plus as I said you either lose part of that value any time you have a sick day, day off or offsite day. or if you've done the 5 x daily you have to buy a daily ticket on the weekend to cover that travel (or use one of your 5 x daily in which case why charge as much as a weekly?).
Even if you were to try and amplify the benifit of a weekly zone 1 + 2 it gets complicated:
45.20 / 7 = $6.46 but any weekly ticket gets zone 2 free on weekends so the benifit is half on the weekend because adding zone 2 doubles the price.
So really it's:
45.20 / 6 = $7.50 a day except that on a sunday you can get a sunday saver for $2.50
anyway the point is rather than giving us full value, all the convoluted ways to save money in an overly complicated ticketing situation the discounts frustrate connexs most loyal users.
And the fact remains that connex trains on peak are unreliable (around 3-4 cancelled services a day) over crowded (you never know if you are getting two carriages or one) and as such you lose all the convenience of a car, they are as much as I hate to admit it, not in the same ballpark as far as transpot goes which is why price wise the $12 difference between driving your own car with air conditioning, flexibility and personal space.
I'm sorry but the heirarchy currently ranks:
bike = $2.85
car = $57.50
train = $45.20
right now connex is everybody's dog to kick I know. But they deserve it, add some real incentive.
The Sunday saver is the greatest thing in the world, it should be the daily lynchpin.
I think it's worth remembering, that if a person wants it bad enough they can conquer the world and capture the imagination of everyone.
It's national sorry day.
I saw Michael Long being interviewed by Voss, but my long walk of reconciliation was followed by a longer walk home so I didn't see what was actually said in the interview. I guess I can't comment on it. But you know if it's going to be Channel 7 coverage then it's probably some mincing of an understanding of reconciliation as well.
I mean I have a lot of respect for both Voss and Long but you wouldn't want them talking about the Middle East situation either. Well scratch that, you would want them talking about it, you wouldn't want them to be the forefront of conversations about it.
Unfortunately for Australia's standing in the world, and possible Deontilogical historical standing a pre-game interview on Channel 7 probably is the forefront of discussion on this topic.
I think the issues are pretty clear establishing that this land was misappropriated from a white supremacy position, and that the indigenous peoples of this country have been poorly treated in by 'white' Australia. Up until the 70's they were legally subhuman (maybe not explicitly but it was Whitlam that got rid of confiscating property owned by an Aboriginal woman).
There are some questions as to how we should feel about this 'Is genocide better than slavery?' but overall we have to say, with the wisdom of hindsight though historically the colonial mindset was probably the best to be expected at the time, we should look back on our past and seek to pay reparations.
Now, sorry day I have to say is less distracting than 'thanks-giving' day.
Here's how I would say sorry*:
Since all wealth in the nation of Australia can be attributed to the productive use of land (less foreign investment of capital) The net present value of the nation is attributable to property stolen from the indigenous people less the efforts of labor.
So what is to be determined is the net value of the unimproved land at the time when it was confiscated, plus any damages to the land by the unauthorized tenants to calculate at what price the land should have been bought under a preferable treaty arrangement, as opposed to the terra nullis policy wereby we simply had the unwilling seller legally declared not to exist.
But this should come up with a principle that can then be adjusted to figure out how much this blight on our reputation that is our stolen nation makes up of our present wealth. Then add interest.
Then determine a payment plan.
I would suggest, switching to land taxation, as in geonomics, as this will minimise damages to the land in the future and create more equality of opportunity as well. Then simply add a levy to said land to start paying off said amount.
It may take a thousand years.
But you know I think it says sorry, and it's possibly workable.
Anyway, I'm sorry about the stealing, the racism, the genocide, sorry about the fear and discomfort, sorry for the dishonesty, sorry about kidnapping, sorry for the injustice, sorry for the violence, sorry for the lack of opportunity, sorry for the exploitation.
*Not of course a practical solution, I would as usual be required to be supreme military dictator or something to swing this.
No this post isn't a scathing remark from a 'bleeding heart' liberal on US foreign policy, global citizenship etc. It isn't about climate change or the rise of religious stupidity.
It's the rags to riches story of Latrell Sprewell.
I was on Youtube last night watching Kareem Abdul Jabbars highlight tapes last night. Now yes there is the occasional dunk or jump shot but it was more just a capture of the amazingly consistent mind boggeling sky-hook. After watching five minutes of dedicated footage I felt I knew less how to pull off this move than I did before seeing it in detail.
Then hoping to find some comedy gold I looked for a Sprewell mix. Now a fan had lovingly removed some of the less flattering aspects to leave us with a tasty cordial of one simple explosive drive/jump to the basket for some rim rattling dunks.
He was a hungry man at a buffet, if there was nothing occupying the space between him and the basket for a split second he exploded into scoring.
He also could nail 3 pointers.
His nickname I find amusing is 'the American Dream' now this is the kind of guy, no matter how idealistic I ever get, no matter what Utopia I create here on earth, no matter how expansive its borders I hope this American Dream stays alive.
Now you have your Rasheed's and your Rodman's and other angry angry millionaires but Sprewell was the only one that would have such episodes of the red haze that when criticised for not making 'cleaner passes' escalated an altercation to choking his coach. Not only that but when the fight was broken up, returning later in the game to try and finish the job.
That's right, in the time you or I would normally spend calming down and getting a hold of yourself he spent planning a heinously brilliant surprise attack.
A plan so perfect that nobody saw it coming, it sort of reminds me of street fights I've seen where 3 big drunk guys rough up 1 small drunk guy. And in their judgement impaired state rather than consoling themselves that they are okay and it could have been much worse. Run at the biggest guy and try and plant an uncoordinated kick in their back thus escalating their beating to one where they will be physically hard.
Just so stupid, so very stupid that's why nobody sees it coming.
So then the American dream was banned by the NBA from playing in the league due to his assualting his coach on two occasions in the one match under provocations that was in fact the coach fulfilling his required role.
He won an Appeal and was traded to the New York Knicks where he enjoyed some success.
When it came to renewing his contract he was offered US$21 million. An amount Sprewell felt was beneath him and his official line of arguement, which may be my new favorite of all time:
'I've got a family to feed'
This puts me in mind of MC Hammer's building a gated mansion in the ghetto's to inspire the kids there that they could achieve their dream.
I mean all those kids out there eating mac and cheese, and cut up hot dogs, doing paper rounds just hoping aspiring to have the chance to become a sporting star just like Sprewell.
Now that's the American dream I could toast to.
One of the only reasons I was looking forward to reconnection at home was to once again be able to update my music.
For a long time Black Sheep, the dark side of the Native Tongue hip hop collab. and they didn't dissapoint. Anyone who has listened to hip hop enough to have tastes and preferences, and particularly if they lean towards the De La side of the spectrum, do yourself a favour and get Black Sheep into your vocabulary. Now the group crashed and burned I hear on their second album but 9 tracks into 'A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing' I have to say it is worth spending money on, not that you'll ever find it in JB hi-fi. Going by my old rule of thumb in my teenage years that a good buy had minimum 4 decent songs on it (Foo Fighters being one of the few LP's to fail this test) was worth the $30, faith no more put an end to that low standard.
A Wolf in Sheep's clothing is at least half killer and by the time I listen to the remainding tracks and they decided to unnecessarily fill out the album with some fizzle, then this may be one of the greats of all time.
If you got $15 in your pocket get Black Sheep: A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing.
I was just trying to nut out something for work, and it's so expansively fragmented I thought I may as well chuck it down here and see what happens.
The 'normal' career is a serious of positions, followed by milestones, followed by a promotion to a new position, followed by a milestone and so on.
Paths can be predefined, flexible, individually tailored.
Now the earliest turn off with my employer occured in my job interview where my prospective manager started talking about the 'ten year plan' for me, and what the career path was. You know how you progress through the organisation and when you start earning the big money.
Fortunately said career path fell to pieces after one year, after another one we scrapped my job title as meaningless and have just worked on my personal development ever since.
So anyway I am trying to figure out a way to make the recommendation that we move away from a mentality of pre-designated career paths.
I was going to start out something like this:
We should move away from pre-designated career paths.
Now the reason I say this is a matter of focus. I'm assuming people if they are developing in their current role will eventually outgrow it and move into a bigger better position. Not essentially different. However I feel a mentality that requires a focus on a career path allows us to blindside the development process, stunt growth or miss opportunities.
It's leaning towards being inflexible. Furthermore there are limited avenues in a pyramid organisational chart for all those on the bottom to rise to the top.
Eventually at least two people will contend for one formal position.
Okay so where I'm stuck is that surely shifting the focus from career paths to 'personal development' that is focusing on the gap between promotions (increasing an individuals ability and therefore value) instead of the process of the promotion itself. My reason being that a promotion is seen as a contest, a contest seems to draw in percieved competitive advantages such as politicking the process.
Now the only way I seem to be able to figure to do this is to make the development of an individuals value aligned with the incentive rather than the promotion to be the incentivater.
Rewind that, that is to say what's the pain that the current system causes - being passed over for the promotion.
It's fine to compete and win a promotion, it hurts to compete and lose a promotion. It feels like ones progress, ones momentum is lost. Its hard to then go back to one's existing role and continue to develope (which is precisely what should be done regardless, the other option is to leave the company in pursuit of opportunities).
But an assumption oft made is that a promotion is attractive. Usually related to pay/rewards, whereas developing one's current role has less dramatic effects on our reimbursement, it can often be seen as a requirement of the job.
So that leads me to think:..... break the relationship between reimbursement and promotions.
Which pragmatism tells me isn't as easy as management saying 'Now your position in the company, your job role has nothing to do with your pay.' people don't trust this sort of thing. My experience tells me people say 'bullshit' because such bold claims by management have to be taken on trust. Unless, unless you openly display wages for all to poor through the books and see that it is the case.
But this too pragmatically has it's problems. This is where some people's palms are sweating because people will see the big pay gap they were previously privy too. Other people's palms are sweating because they will see that after 50 years loyal service their pay will be for all to see, less than the pimply teenage kid sitting next to them.
Which means people have to justify to their community what resources they are taking out of it.
Transparency is a good thing except for the problem of how unfair it is for people to have to justify their wages when they have only a part say in what it is.
In most positions of most companies, the HR department has gone and come up with a valuation of exactly what that person contributes. And said person may have had some variable degree of success in negotiating higher or lower reimbursement than the norm.
Most pay negotiations are indeed made from behind a fog of war (though employers generally make the first offer so you can't lowball yourself unintentionally) however, the salary can be based on numerous distractions unrelated to how much share of the value your work creates you take with you as opposed to the value retained by the company.
Said distractions can be: how much you think you need, how much you think someone else is worth, benchmarks, how much you think the company has etc.
The only real thing you should be contributing is how much you think you are worth.
And the most advantageous way to increase that is if you develop personally to be more valuable through a greater skills base, better effeciency, better integration etc. stuff that isn't related to the position.
So: reimbursement is not related to job description, but the value contributed by the individual employee.
But leaving it there would be half arsed because some people will feel hard done by by such a situation. these people we refer to as hard workers. These people have a conscious association that 'hard work pays off' despite all evidence to the contrary.
Take pistol pete, was required by his father to shoot 100 free throws after dinner each night. Child abuse: maybe. But pistol pete would sometimes get to 99 consecutive shots before deliberately missing so he could continue playing (by his own account).
Now Pistol Pete is listed as one of the 50 greatest players of all time. It would seem his hardwork paid off? Yes & No. Being a great free throw shooter is useless if you never get fouled taking a shot at the basket. There's no more reliable way to get to the free throw line. Pistol Pete was forced through a relentless training regime but he developed all the skills necessary to be a great player, he was not only an excellent scorer (before the introduction of the 3-point line) but one of the best passers and team players in the league.
Now the standard hard work sort of mentality is actually more akin to Syssero's eternal punishment of pushing a boulder up a mountain only to have it roll down the other side as soon as his task was complete.
That is people engage relentlessly in a task and never develope their efficiency or skills. What was the marginal improvement in Pistol Pete's free throw shooting from shooting an arbitrary number such as 100? what if he had only shot 80 in a row? what would his accuracy have been shooting 1000?
We don't know. Similarly what if he had taken one night off a week? how much would this have diminished his ability. A hard worker is unlikely to risk answering these questions, and thus unlikely to increase their value.
Which is an extraordinary leap in logic, but it follows like this - to learn effectively you have to be conscious of what it is you want to learn, this requires an evaluation or reflection on current circumstances (determining A the present situation and B the destination) then time & resources need to be dedicated to the journey.
If you work hard all day there is no capacity left to dedicate to development. This means you can't get beyond that initial learning curve of becoming efficient at the initial process. A big difference to making the process more efficient.
So look at Semco for a working example:
condition one: The companies finances are displayed publicly, and all employees trained to read profit and loss statements, therefore all employees know the financial circumstances of the company.
condition two: all salaries are disclosed publicly, for any employee to refer to.
condition three: the organisational chart is based on concentric circles rather than a pyramid and their are only four titles for job roles within the company.
Semco thus have the capacity to allow self-set pay. They have removed dead end jobs and people are responsible for their own training and development and thus can pursue their careers in accordance with their own ambition.
They add in many other factors over this starting point to remove other problems such as ambition exceeding natural ability.
But i don't need to go into that now... thanks me it's been helpful cognating with you.
I have had to conclude, inextricably that I miss misaki. After a week of eating fried foods and dragging my feet over all surfaces I started cleaning my room on Sunday.
Almost as if Miki was coming to yell at me for letting my room get into such a state.
But there was nobody to throw a tantrum at, and really as the cleaning process involved moving shit off my floor onto my bed and then when it came to sleeping time I discovered I have to move shit off my bed onto the floor so net effect 0.
Anyway I feel like chucking a tantrum, give my Miki back. damn miki.
check out my patented rebound king jump
Well obviously I am not a role model. Or maybe I am, I'm certainly pussy enough to be regarded as a role model. Apart from the language.
But what I'm refering to is Charles Barkley's Nike Campaign 'I am not a Role Model' Charles Barkley was the greatest opinionated player of the late 80's to 90's. He was good at playing basketball, the round mound of rebound. He was a short power forward that outplayed a lot of taller opponents and an NBA MVP.
But he was criticised like almost every other athlete ever for being a poor role model.
I mean we can look at John McEnroe, Bill Clinton, Ben Johnson, Ben Cousins, George Bush and on and on as 'role models' and every now and then the media will flare up about them setting a poor example as a role model.
We act like there is a socially binding contract to success and having a high profile. Infact it may even be worth my time to read up on this whole role model phenomena.
I mean I used to be all like: 'footy players being violent, that must set an example for young players which is why most people I met on football scholarship at my high school, I didn't particularly like them.'
But now when I think about it, what are my expectations of any sports star. Or if I was manager of a bball team what would I expect out of Dennis Rodman, I would expect him to pull down 12+ boards a game and control the glass for me. I would probably expect him to foul out. But if he left the stadium and started preaching the benifits of martyrdom, I guess that would be his business.
I mean I have to agree, just as it seems apparant that we shouldn't be able to place the expectation on a person to be straight in politics, sport whatever. It's less apparant to me that we should not place expectations on them to be nice, modest, mature, responsible, loving athletes, politicians whatever.
In short the only expectation you can put on a player is that they do what they are paid to do. And that goes for any role, ever. Regardless of the impact it has on children.
I mean, we act like we know what is good for a childs character development. Feasibly it is reasonable for a kid to want to be able to bowl flipper's like Shayne Warne without them leaping to the conclusion that part of his development regime is sending dirty text messages to pommy tarts.
Or that Bill Clinton's economic management required him to proposition interns for extra marital affairs. Or that Barkley's ability is directly related to how many people he throws through glass windows.
The whole role model arguement falls down on it's arse frankly. Its like a magical unicorn, we conceive of what it is but it doesn't really exist.
Ben Wallace. aka 'Big Ben' aka 'the Body'. The only player to win the NBA defensive player of the year title 4 times. The NBA's premier defence specialist, and bearer of the most stylish fro in the league. I am endeavoring to buy myself an alternet Ben Wallace Detroit Pistons jersey. Let's face it on the playground I'm finishing top ten in Rebounds, Blocks and possibly steals and my scoring average would be close to 0.8 ppg.
Sorry Kobe, but that romantic side of you put me off, maybe if you drop 81 again.
I just finished plugging the Semco lexicon into inspiration, mind flow software is such a cruch I don't know how I lived without it.
Furthermore the process engaged the learning part of my brain thingy.
Which is to say I had to look up the word 'Lexicon' and 'sabbatical' and you know what? I think I need a sabbatical.
About 2 years ago or something I read Growth Fetish and then I gave it to my mother to read. Predictably she never got around to reading it and my brother eventually did and then I took it back. Now it sits on my shelf as always.
Then about a year later I read the follow up Affluenza. It was pretty good aswell. Both books were highly critical of marketing (something I have a degree in) and particularly the unnecessary "stuff" we feel compelled to buy in order to feel successful.
Then for someone my age having to watch TV commercials by commonwealth saying 'retirement is your revenge' and those adds that should be illegal they are that bad the 'understanding over 50s' I tell you if I was over 50 and saw that add I would just go out and hang myself tomorrow.
Anyway maybe it's me going through a teenage-girl-turns-vegetarian-to-the-disgust-of-her-family type phase but I think the cracks between generations are starting to appear.
I mean I always though my folks were pretty 'with-it' well maybe not mum but dad enjoyed RATM, Soundgarden and other Grunge bands. They've always been pretty laid back and swore casually. Yes they occasionally tucked tshirts into jeans but otherwise were doing good.
But their general attitude is starting to seem really dated, it seems to be the paradox of Australia dated thinking is the way of the future.
Anyway I walk out the other night and my dad's cooking snags on a Beef-Eater BBQ. These things are a couple of grand and are usually marketed as the 'Outdoor Entertainment Area' or 'Outdoor Kitchen' which is to say excessive.
I guess I was wholeheartedly dissapointed to discover said purchase decision, this being capped off by 'it's the lifestyle we want.'
it made a bunch of purchase decisions my parents hade made in the past couple of years click into place.
My parents are deluded.
The fundamental 'truth and lie' that makes our world spin.
truth = if you are naked, in the rain on a cold night having not eaten for days and somebody gives you shelter, warmth and food you go from being sad to happy.
lie = if you double the amount of shelter, food and warmth you have you go from being happy to double happy.
My parents have thrown down and for all their brilliance and achievement in life are going for the 'who dies with the most toys' end game.
I wish when they were setting these lifestyle goals they looked into the mirror and saw that they aren't extravegantly wealthy millionaires.
Just like when I look in the mirror and see a 6'7" african american NBA star looking back at me.
