dolebludger

i simply refuse to compete

Sunday, November 23, 2003

 
I got paid

in

cannot believe it!
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meika 11:27 AM

Friday, November 21, 2003

 
Work for the Dole

people on work-for-the-dole programs are worse off because of the stigma associated with the program and the shorter time they have to hunt for real jobs

or

Probably we think the most likely explanation is that these type of programs have what are called lock-in effects. That is, while people are participating in these type of schemes they actually reduce the extent of their job search activity, put together with the fact that these type of programs tend to be fairly sort of minimal interventions in the sense of providing extra skills to enhance job finding prospects.

I still not have heard anything on my Mutual Obligation placement. Full story here I left it with them on Thursday, October 02, 2003, and thats where it still is. Am I worried??

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meika 10:40 AM

 
or
And today I have added egold. It seems more of a pyramid scheme than anything else.
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meika 10:24 AM

Wednesday, November 19, 2003

 
donations
To the right there I've added a Paypal donation button, if you are so inclined, and you happen to have a Paypal account with too much dosh in it. Just remember that if you donate enough I will no longer be a dolebludger.

A worthy cause, indeed.
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meika 3:27 PM

Tuesday, November 18, 2003

 
Real knowledge Workers: the Saints, Fakes, and Dupes
Saints are ascetics. Asceticism results from people not being true to their bodies. The social uses of the body are more important to ascetics than individual uses. Their bodies are a stage for their beliefs. The body is martyred to the cause. By rejecting the material needs of the body they can over-emphasise the social information that 'informs' their patterns of consumption. The body is a symbol of their views. The good is the goods of their own body. "Here, eat the bread of my body, its good for you too."

Fakes are hypocrits. Hypocrisy results from people trying to have their cake and eat it too. They display social messages, but the choice of what is displayed remains contingent on what is perceived to be acceptable (as created and advocated by competing teams of saints). They do remain true to the bodies but only in private. So long as no one knows (Bacon eating vegetarians). Its a pragmatic thing. They may feel good while being seen to be good. They may even feel good at being seen to be good.

Dupes believe what the Saints say and believe the Fakes are as true as what they see of them. Dupes believe the mission statement. They believe it is the real thing. They believe they do not have enough of it.

For me, consumption is a trap. Spending is a failure. There are no goods. Only spills, mistakes and abject failures.

The "real world" only offers a choice of being a saint, a dupes and a fake, saying, at least you have a choice, stop complaining.
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meika 9:14 AM

Thursday, November 13, 2003

 
mycareer futility
Especially searches "hobart metro" & admin, or managment, or hospitality...

If you don't get defense jobs, chefs in fiji, or work from your computer at home you are a lucky person.
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meika 9:11 AM

 
certification craziness
Stop and Go Ticket
Don't get me wrong. Safety first!!
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meika 9:06 AM

Wednesday, November 12, 2003

 
jobnet cash cows are drying up

A fellow dole recipient, and previous jobnet ESP (employment service providers) employee, told me tonight that some friends of his in the western burbs of Sydney took up one of the first Jobnetwork ESP contracts. The plumber, accountant and sales combo made $700,000 clear from the first year. It tightened up the second year and they only made $350,000. The new tenders are too tight now so they have turned their offices into a real estate agency.

I knew I should have put in a jobnetwork tender that first year. I would have been set up for life.

I'll console myself with the faux thought that I like the security of the dole.

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meika 10:57 PM

Tuesday, November 11, 2003

 
Applied for Job ID: 67602201 office manager.
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meika 10:53 AM

Friday, November 07, 2003

 
our new blog
Stickebana's blog is up and running now. Things will slow down here considerably.
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meika 9:18 AM

Tuesday, November 04, 2003

 
live
STICKEBANA.com now accepts credits cards. This last step was supposed to have taken a week or two at most. But. Two months later...

I had to go and write an email to my chosen bank's customer relations department starting off "I got this email address from the Banking Ombudsman website..."

Once I re-applied it took a couple of weeks to come back and I had it up and running within three days with no drama, in fact credit card facilities been live since thursday but the test transactions have taken until today to appear on my bank statement.

Soon there will be an active blog at STICKEBANA.com and communication here will slow until they cease.

Still no word on that job interview... or that work for the dole assignment....

Rough Total cost for the dotcom set up:

domain name annual fee ....AU$30
site Hosting annual...AU$120
SSSl certificates ....AU$40
payment gateway annual....AU$285
Merchant faclities set up fee .... waived to their stuff-ups
(merchant facilities monthly .... AU$45)
Total AU$475

Probably 4-5 days intensive coding.

Must now get on with inventory build up and nice stories on stickebana blog...
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meika 10:26 AM

Friday, October 31, 2003

 
BTW
I wore a skivvy yesterday to celebrate the result of Connect Credit Union's general meeting and the failure of the proposal to demutualise the Credit Union.
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meika 12:10 PM

Thursday, October 30, 2003

 
Our Mutual Interest

Last night I went to a General Meeting of the Connect Credit Union. The Board and all consulting professionals supported a schema to demutualise and list on the ASX. The Hobart Mercury report here (careful its a Murdoch rag and its headline spin shows a huge degree of exactly what we are up against in the mainstream lets-head-for-oligarchy economy ).

Director John Hensby confidently presented a persuasive case to demutualise. Basically regulatory conditions mean they are treated like banks (on our level playing field) while being constrained by the legacy forms (the various mutuals ie, credit union, mutual societies, co-operatives) agreed to by previous generations with regards to things like taxation. This means they have all the disadvantages of these constraints (lack of access to capital) and none of the advantages (e.g. taxation provisions previously given on the basis on mutuality), while operating on a level playing field with banks which have all the advantages.

Connect will attempt to become Tasmanias own Bendigo Bank (which has branches in the State now).

There is no alternative.

Funny that.

I thought it was a free market. (Only for Family Trusts????? Oligarchy here we come!)

But then over my adult lifetime there have been changes in the regulatory environment (through de-regulation and re-regulation) which make agreements and legal precedent based on the principle of mutuality irrelevant, at best, and downright disadvantageous and destructive at worst. this changes do not directly attack mutuals by wiping them out in a clean legal swoop, but by making the activities uneconomic by (a) allowing them their forms and constrains for previous regulations but, (b) making them compete as if they did not have them.

This last quarter of a century has seen the bipartisan destruction of any hope of agreements to form various corporate groups, associations, co-operatives other than those agreement based on capital (Unions of Equity, and like Labour Unions, it could be claimed are run for and by Union Officials.)

At the meeting I rose and spoke. This is basically what I said:-

† Director John Hensbys presentation was persuasive, the logic supporting demutualisation was irrefutable. The regulatory conditions do demand it.
† But I (and my 4 proxies) would vote against the demutualisation as a censure against the lack of strategic leadership by organisations of mutual interest over the last thirty years [that allowed the regulatory conditions to demand it].

I added that on demutualisation that the members I represented including the Cohousing Co-operative Ltd would take their money elsewhere (few of us have loans). And that Cohousing Co-operative Ltd recognised that while in search of a loan we were to big for Connect Credit Union (for the reasons Director John Hensby outlined, lack of Connects access to capital) we had our own ethics and regulations to follow. (Co-operative Principles, e.g. see Schedule 2 of Cooperatives Act 1999(Tas)We were caught on both horns of the dilemma.

I returned to my seat. Thanks for nothing.

But why is this the case? Why is Connect Credit Union at this juncture? Why are those forms of organisation based on the principle of mutuality, of a mutual interest so depreciated?

Basically this form of organising human affairs has failed itself.

It has been swamped by mainstream business values and attitudes. There is no ecological support for these forms of co-operatives, mutual societies or credit unions, this means lawyers, accountants, bookkeepers, management professionals have no real idea what a mutual interest is, so they treat it like they do any business based purely on a Union of Equity. Rather than a mutual interest in football, as sellers, as buyers, as borrowers and lenders which more co-operative ventures focus on.

The sector has failed to educate its own professionals, it has failed to inform public debate, failed to invest in academic discourses (Connect sponsored Management Phd Scholarship in Mutual Interest anyone??? Harvard MBA in Credit Unions???) failed to inform Politicians (including both business and labour parties) by complaint through the years (started thirty-forty years ago), it/we has completely failed to educate its membership, that they are in fact members, and not just mere customers.

An uneducated membership is an inactive membership. An inactive membership is an uneducated membership. Its a co-evolving thing.

Worrying in the immediate current circumstances about ones fiduciary duties as a director in the face of this forty year mess shows how stupid we are in the face of long term strategic change. Reacting in the short term to various changes has ripped the gonads out from mutuals over the last generation or so. Mutuals are going extinct.

What we should have done is this.

† recognised our mutual interest in mutual interest and form a broad politicking/lobbying/advocacy grouping for Co-operatives, Credit Union, Mutual Societies etc.
† sponsored policy, taxation and management research (PhD Scholarships, Chairs, a publishing venture, and even think tanks)
† built an integrated flow of resources and people in co-operate venture to compete with competitive models (there is less choice and competitions between forms than ever), and,
† bloody well worked at it.

But what happened was that the frog was in the pot and never noticed the temperature was rising. It was too imperceptible. And then it boiled.

I usually add at this stage in a blog post how glad I am to be on the dole, because all you miscreants failed me. Again.

But this time I speak of direct experience. I have spent all my adult life in paid and not so well paid positions in co-operatives and associations of one sort and another.

Ten years ago I understood you could evolve through co-operative organisations working in a free market to created a non-capitalistically focussed society. About three years later I faced the personally reality in sickness and burnout. I physically failed. I personally failed.

As an individual I failed to create a co-operative venture at its best. We got third, and fourth, rate temporary versions instead, to fade out soon in 15 or 20 years.

I am still involved in co-operatives, its a personal preference. However, its a choice that is being gradually taken away from me. Choice is actually shrinking. There is no alternative. Mmmmh, soon I will be glad I have spent an entire life on the dole.

If only there was some support from mutual organisation for what we tried. Support from professionals educated and specialised in mutual principles. Support from financial institutions not overcome with mergers, and re-regulations, and capital constrains. Support from mentors who had doen what we had done before...

If only mutuals had been more aware of their power to do good. (Like family trusts have somehow been able to do... oh rich people have them???? mmmh, on the font bench, ???mmmm National Party....)

Why was is there no Mutuality Party? No Mutual Think Tank?

Is it all really my individual fault....?

And the demutualisation proposal lost by 170 odd votes, 75% of votes were required, but only 74% was reached.

We have delayed the enevitable. Unless we do something...
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meika 10:09 AM

Wednesday, October 29, 2003

 
token refusal, or, symbolic rejection

I've added a little motto or slogan at the head of my posts. I think it best expresses my general position on things.

The first time I consciously rejected competition was at a sports carnival. I was in grade four at St Thomas Aquinas catholic primary school, Springwood in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales. I may have mentioned it before in this blog.

I feel most of my lifelong attitudes were formed in that year. I was eleven or so.

I quite like the idea that Mr Economy cannot use my talents, however atrophied by twenty years on the dole, simply because I refuse to compete. Because I refuse to be competitive.

I leave that to the saints, dupes and fakes.

Its a token refusal because I cannot see it working in a practical way.

I suppose I should publish a manifesto and gather like-minded adherents. But, of course, that would be selling out to a competition model.

I'll leave that to the market driven charlatans, shiny suits, and sex slavers.

However, try as I might I cannot eschew competition entirely. The best I can do is to choose where I do so to my best advantage. And it is a place far from the shiny suits. So at best it is a symbolic rejection, possibly 'successful' in the cultural rather than the immediately political — its the economy stupid, because by rejecting competition I actually refuse a schema that requires consensus, rather than competition.

So I am tempted by the meta-competition of ideals, paradigms, and personnel preferences, and in this arena of conflict I am easily taken as a malingerer.

But then the market, incarnated as a commercial or religious institution chasing profits or souls, is incapable of working at this meta-level. There is no meta-level competition. Only guns and butter.

By rejecting competition I can hope to influence the greater structuring levels... culture.

While of course sacrificing any personal "gain".

I am an economic ascetic. By chosing an impractical style of life, and indulging my own ascetic preferences and not behaving as a neo-classical agent maximising my utility I show that such a model (e.g. neo-classical economics) only goes so far. Something our masters refuse to admit. So I must refuse them. (I appear 'indulgent' only as contextualised by enlightenment economics, neo-classical, marxist etc.)

I refuse to compete.
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meika 9:56 AM

Monday, October 27, 2003

 
absolutely!

Like ..... , I feel strongly that this will not work and will in fact destroy an organisation that has, so far, provided me with superb service. The desiccated carrot of 400 shares might sway some people, but I don't give a damn. I'm no ASX shark - never want to be, never will be. According to the Scheme Booklet distributed to all members, a reconstructed CONNECT (trading as CGL) will splash around in the ASX paddling pool for two years (no shareholder can own more than 5% of shares; one member/one vote; the majority of directors must reside in Tasmania, and; the head office must be in Hobart [Scheme Booklet, p.9]). However, after two years, the gates are opened and chubby little CGL is pushed into the big pool, where the floaties are off and it's very much sink or swim. The shareholding limit is lifted to 15%, those with the shares have the votes and the head office can be moved inter-state. Fabulous. Not to mention the fact that Directors' fees increase from $136,000 to anything up to $248,000 p.a, a move deemed appropriate '...in comparison with fees paid to directors of comparable companies.'[p. 83]. Right... (link will change as days go by)

I agree, the demutualisation of the Connect Credit Union simply prooves that the shiny suit is king and if you prefer something you will just have to lump it. Demutualisation is a process that prooves that there is no such thing a capitalism, merely that the managers are in charge and everyone, even shareholders, are in their thrall.

I 'managed' to get 5 proxies to vote against the demutualisation (due in today for the general meeting on Wednesday) but as everything defaults to the Chair of the Board (the shiny suit is king) its a symbolic effort only. Leastways until we all move our $200,000 aggregate to a real credit union.

Its times like these I am glad I am on the dole.

Of course the new credit union account will only last a few years before it does the same thing. They all 'employ' the the same economics degree shiny suit people. They know no institutional economics and would not know a mutuality interest if it sliced out their gonads.

We are living in the times of a fad and are doomed by it.

( I bet post-demutualisation the St George Bank (or similar size) buys Connect in a takeover bid in three or fours years and the present managers get a whopping payout. Mark my words. And I will still be on the dole. )
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meika 1:56 PM

 
geography
Look at this job. Its listing the work as in Moonah (the suburb north of North Hobart) It is listed by Rosny Salvos (east of the City and OVER THE RIVER, as we say in Hobart) for vineyard work 'south' of the city. Which is mostly the sea, so they must mean SW, except I wouldn't grow grapes there, damp, chardonnay perhaps. Or most likely SE, or DOWN THE PENINSULAR (as we say in Hobart).
Of course they (the Salvos ESP in Rosny) do not list their email address which means I have to go offline and ring them up separately, how I hate that!!
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meika 1:17 PM

Saturday, October 25, 2003

 
Why buying Software is a bad idea
I got ripped off. I've only bought software twice. I feel ripped off twice. Both are over 5 years ago, but I just found this link. I never feel ripped off by open source software.

If what appears to be true is in fact true, I feel seriously duped and used by Gibson, and I apologize to readers of this column who have shelled out their money for what may turn out to be a lame duck app. I hope it's not what is happening, but if it is, sorry I led you astray.

Screw Gibson!

I was ripped off $600 by Gibson for Vision DSP (a music/audio editor). Never again will I pay for software. (possible shareware excepted). SO DO NOT EVER BUY GIBSON GUITARS!!!!

I urge you to avoid buying software ever. If you feel this is a bad attitude to knowledge workers and copyright than you can send me $600 and I will reconsider my views. Maybe.
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meika 9:45 AM

Wednesday, October 22, 2003

 
no news

Is good news?

For job, no. For work for dole, yes.

And here is a picture of meika.

But its not me.
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meika 1:51 PM

Monday, October 20, 2003

 
mycareer.com.au
Been checking out this site and it is really hard to search, one has to keep selecting one's chosen location between different sectors, and one cannot just search a location for wanted ads, which would be good for Hobart, it being so small and all, as usual the big cities' preferences and constraints determine the regional experience...
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meika 12:10 PM

Friday, October 17, 2003

 
It was just An ESP Filtering Interview, not a real interview with the potential employer, but it was about a particular (re-advertised, they must be desperate) job

Straight away he looked at my feet.

Unpolished Blundstones.

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meika 3:58 PM

Wednesday, October 15, 2003

 
the second in twenty years
Got a job interview this afternoon at 2:30. Well. With the ESP about a sales job.

Cannot believe it.

So far I have a 100% success rate with interviews. Pity I do not get more of them.
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meika 8:53 AM

Tuesday, October 14, 2003

 
Experienced Labourer
New today. Tassie has job growth at the moment. They say they cannot get good help. Of course they still do not want lemons like me.
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meika 10:52 AM

Friday, October 10, 2003

 
phantoms
Still no word on where I have been referred to for my "MO". I am begining to suspect that there is a secret work-for-the-dole A-list where one's public work is recognised as a "mutual obligation" but as it cannot be publically admitted a secret and plausibly deniable list is chucked into the computer system. I am put on this list somehow (bit like being asked to join a certain club really) and thus i am prevented from painting rocks white, or at least mixing with people who paint rocks white.
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meika 9:42 AM

Wednesday, October 08, 2003

 
Four
Moved house over the weekend, after marriage, birth of numer two and a graduation thats four big things this year, and I am still open to job offers. Got a reject on a labouring job the other day, the ESP reject letter stated that the level of applications was very high!
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meika 11:55 AM

Thursday, October 02, 2003

 
phantom appointment
Yesterday I had to front at the Salvos (my ESP) for an appointment, i got the usual number of letters, emails and phone calls to make sure i did not miss it. I didn't.

When I got there, (besides a Sudanese man being mistaken for me) it turned out they did not know what to do with me. Apparenty there was no one to see me. Why?

Well, apparently, I have been automatically put on some work-for-the-dole scheme. Except they also told me I had not received any notification about it. Which i, naturally, was unaware of. They said, don't panic, leave it with us.

They also volunteered that they had no way to find out where i had been referred to. So i still do not know.

Curious system. Not how i would design it.
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meika 2:07 PM