My, aren't we fascinating?

Lifestyle & Culture | October 7, 2009

PEOPLE fascinate me.

And the people who fascinate me the most are the ones I have worked with.

I am pretty sure I have run the gamut from dangerous narcissists, initiative-devoid dumbos and egotistical wankers to the ambitious sharks, lazy slobs and unprofessional disgraces.

A judgemental bitch by nature (skills that were carefully honed at an all-girls Catholic school), I have cringed, winced, battled and gossiped about any and all of these weirdos who have shared my office space for varying lengths of time.

My favourites have been the utter cows who have been repeatedly promoted by a management completely blind to their ruthless ways. People who somehow have heap upon heap of misguided praised laden upon them, when that praise should clearly be replaced with a type of shit as vomit-inducing as their personalities.

They are a breed unto themselves. They are a type that hardly ever utters the words " thank you", "would you mind" or "sorry to bother you".

Humility, eagerness to learn and courtesy go out the window – if they were ever on the right side of the window in the first place – and are replaced by arrogance, selfishness and getting ahead at any cost.

These should all be barriers to getting ahead, if karma is any guide. But for some bizarre reason, the opposite happens, and these traits end up fuelling golden girl or boy status.

Bitter much?

Once, sure. But these days, not at all. Honestly.

Ageing is a wonderful thing. The older you get, the more keenly you realise that life is really quite fucking short and cold-blooded ambition is a wasted emotion.

The older you get, and the more children you have, the less energy you have. So, in a primordial attempt at basic self-preservation, you make a decision to avoid wasting any of your precious energy on ridiculous pursuits like bitterness, regret and envy. You go into hibernation when those cold, negative-energy snows are blowing a blizzard outside.

The older you get, the less you lament the mellowing of that drive that once upon a time caused you to take no prisoners – personal or professional.

Chew them up and spit them out? Only if you’re talking about olives and their pips, these days, not fellow human beings.

It took me a while, but I have recently realised that I am not being lazy or apathetic because I do not have a five-year plan or a strategy mapping my journey towards having the letters C, E and O in my title.

These ruthless piranhas are so damn scared, so damn insecure, so damn desperate to impress.

Was that me a decade ago?

I am fully aware that those rose-coloured glasses make a neat fit when we reminisce about the type of people we were in our younger days, but I was never that full-on.

I was actually petrified of anyone who had more experience in a workplace than me. I felt I had no right to challenge, to usurp or to question the words or actions of anyone with more seniority than me.

And yet I am seeing that happen increasingly around me.

I detest all that generational cliche crap, but maybe this is just because Generations Y and Z are entering the workforce: a group seemingly born with a chip on their shoulders and who feel and act like they are owed something.

They are a group raised by Generation Xers and Baby Boomers, who were forced to learn the value of a job because they suffered through the uncertainty of real recessions and hardship.

The chip that circumstance created on their shoulder caused them to raise their children as go-getters, to battle against a world that clearly had proved itself to be one that offered no favours and even fewer free rides.

Expect, fight and thrive.

Of course this is a generalisation, but perhaps a reason for all these high maintenance randoms in our workplaces – and the reason why Gen-X and Baby Boomer bosses are so endlessly in awe of them.

Whatever it is, I think it’s fascinating.

Rants and ravings from bad drivers to corporate dominance

Politics, Community & Society | August 27, 2009

We all want to get ahead. And that’s fair enough, isn’t it?

Whether by some Darwinian drive to survive or an insecure need in most of us to be first, to be noticed, we have competition coursing in varying levels through every one of our veins.

Don’t believe me? Take a drive.

There is a race to get through the intersection before the light turns orange. There is the race to squeal off first when the red light turns green and beat the car beside you to the other side. There is the race to figure-eight your way past slow-moving traffic, in this lane and that, to gain three, maybe four car lengths.

I know it’s dangerous, but I still do it. I have toned right down thanks to kids and a lot of birthdays under my ageing belt. But I still do it.

I am getting better at trying to avoid that split-second feeling of shame that comes after roaring off to overtake a slow-coach in the right lane, fuelled by indignance, only to look in my rear view mirror when I am stopped at the next red light to see that same car idling patiently right behind me, just inches away.

But we need that drive, a bit of it anyway. At the very least, it gets us off the couch. The key I suppose is balance and perspective.

What is the point of killing yourself to get ahead if you’re going to be dead before you get there?

HERE'S ANOTHER THOUGHT...

One day soon, there will be only one big fish in the pond.

It will be enormous and ugly like Jabba the Hutt, only the world’s humans will collectively play the role of Carrie Fisher, straining and struggling on the end of a rusty chain clutched in Jabba’s tight, fat fist.

It will have an insatiable appetite, having gleefully gobbled up anything smaller than it as part of a strategic gorge, better known by the seemingly innocuous term: "acquisition".

Let me tell you what I’m going on about. Woolworths has announced plans to take over Danks Holdings.

So what? Well, Danks Holdings is Australia’s largest hardware distributor and such a takeover, jointly launched with America’s Lowe Companies, means Woolies would essentially own every Home Hardware, Thrifty Link and Plants Plus store in the country, and they would effectively own distribution rights to 2000 "independent" retailers.

So what? Well, Westfarmers took over Coles in 2007, which means Wesfarmers owns every Coles and Bi-Lo supermarket, every OfficeWorks store, every Liquorland and Vintage Cellars bottle-o and, wait for it, every Bunnings in the country.

See what’s happening here? It’s hardware warfare. But why are only two super-sized soldiers allowed to fight?

I think there is a serious problem with anti-competition in this country and we supposedly have regulators and watchdogs to monitor this and stamp it out.

How desolate, boring and dangerous a landscape are we painting here? And how easy are we making it for collusion and rip-off merchants to thrive?

I wouldn’t be so worried if I could find an example, just one, of a big chain store that did customer service well. Macca’s may claim to be the "have a nice day" experts, but I prefer sincerity, thank you.

I fear this move, if it goes ahead, it will be another baseball-bat strike to the head of an already-comatose customer service.

I remember a good decision by the ACCC a few years back, denying a Coca-Cola Amatil takeover of a certain brand of juice on anti-competition grounds. And thank god too, for it would have meant one company, and an American one at that, would have owned every drink inside the fridge of every shop in Australia.

The only reason I remember that decision is because it was a rare lighthouse blinking on an otherwise dark and dingy coastline. Coke will no doubt have another crack in our lifetimes. And, by then, that big ol’ fish would most likely have gobbled up the ACCC, so it will have a much safer passage.

Monopoly used to be a game we played as kids. Increasingly, it’s become a description for the modern marketplace and consumers everywhere should be worried.

Using kids as conduits

Politics, Community & Society | June 26, 2009

Is it wrong to use your children to fetch you stuff, make you cuppas, do the chores you don’t like doing or even act as the subconscious mediator for a family feud?

I have a 17-month-old boy. He has hit the "little helper" stage and I feel like I have to make the most of it before he grows out of it.

I’ve got a very small window of opportunity here.

It won’t be long before his continual urgings to sweep up or take something to the rubbish bin or bring me my shoes are replaced with annoyed moans, dismissive tut-tutting, eye-rolling or, worse, explosive tantrums all to communicate that he most certainly will not take the bins out.

Admittedly, his sweeping or shoe-sorting does not save me any time. It does the contrary, in fact, as he doesn’t so much sweep, as spread the crumbs further afield and he doesn’t so much bring me the one pair of shoes I need, as drop them all Hansel and Gretel-like from one end of the house to the other.

I have found another "use" for him in the past few days. My partner and I have had a disagreement about money. My partner spent a lot of money on a very out of the ordinary, and I think totally unnecessary, purchase without consultation and we live on one of the tightest budgets I have ever had to adhere to.

Anyway, I find that I am still so incensed by that purchase that I can’t quite bring myself to speak to her directly. But if I need to communicate something to her, I use my son.

Scenario One: it is morning, I am getting ready for work. I smell the unmistakable aroma of dirty nappy as my son toddles by. I realise that I have no time to change the nappy. I would normally ask my partner to change him, please, but this morning, I cannot for reasons outline above.

Action: Speak in raised baby voice to son: "Go and ask mummy to change your nappy because I am too busy getting ready for work". He cannot speak, so there is no way he will be able to do that.

But in a smug, and slightly immature way, I feel I have made my point.

I won't bore you with the other 15 scenarios here, because they all end in the same action: speak in raised baby voice, projected in the direction of my partner, but cleverly hidden as discourse between myself and my son.

Poor child. He may as well be a vetriloquist’s dummy.

The older I get, the more I notice the increasing existence of cycles in life. With each birthday this realisation comes, because, like an image on a Polaroid picture, it takes time.

Music, the economy, fashion, clashes between the generations are all endlessly recycled and, no matter how much we swear we won’t, we will become incarnations of our parents. It’s the unstoppable cycle of life.

Death follows life, bust follows boom and reconciliation follows fight.

Aussie Television's Tectonic Shift

Lifestyle & Culture | June 15, 2009

I think the Aussie television landscape has undergone a massive change. The sticky, samey, cliched concrete that held together the tectonic plates beneath it for so many decades has finally crumbled and caused a shift. The volcano has erupted after years of gurgling promises and pitches for new formats.

Pretty much gone are the shows about gardening, travel, lifestyle, renovations and makeovers.

Better Homes & Gardens is hanging in there, but I guess if you keep winning Logies and you affiliate yourself with a best-selling magazine, you’ll be alright.

I think we are all Getawayed out, quite frankly, and Domestic Blitz gives us the shits.

Sure, HomeMADE has premiered this year, but let’s remember, this is Channel Nine and they are always late to the party. Besides, the show is awful and its supposed design guru host, the unfortunately named David Heimann, is even awfuler. Nine is already playing shuffle with its timeslot.

Instead, the volcano of TV newness has spewed forth a smorgasbord of tasty lava treats: Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation, Sunday Night, Master Chef Australia, Recruits, Mad Men and Random Acts of Kindness.

Shaun Micallef, thank god you’re here, presenting this very entertaining show. Top mix of generational ambassadors, hit and miss guests, thought-provoking games and just the right amount of tacky cheese to make it laughable.

Isn’t Master Chef a revelation? I love it, but then again, I am so obsessed with cooking shows I will even sit through that messy twit Iain Hewitson’s show and have been known to watch Delia Smith on very regular occasions.

Who in their right mind would have thought that Master Chef, a reality show with ordinary face-for-radio hosts that airs six nights a week, would pull close to two million viewers at a time?

Surely that annoying little gelfling George Calombaris would have people switching off faster than you can say "what is the hero of this dish", yeah?

Seven’s new current affairs offering Sunday Night intrigues me. It’s a newish format and has hit the headlines with some supposedly hard news breaks. But I will never like Mike Munro, especially after this week’s prostate exam exercise in extreme inappropriateness, and Ross Coulthart needs to suspend a bit of ego to avoid placing himself at the centre of every story.

Chris Bath is good, but better than this and is not having her potential exploited. Jamie Durie and Monique Wright do not add credibility, they remove it, and the show needs to be cautioned against leading viewers up a very big garden path with their over-hyped promos. Daniel Morcombe anyone?

But this brings me to an interesting point, hammered home by the fascinating Ramsay versus Grimshaw title fight of recent weeks.

After decades of sanitised, over-revised, rehashed, rehearsed and overly scripted deliveries from our prominent journos, we have now returned to the age of the personality presenter.

That’s right, our well-known reporters and program hosts are finally reversing what was a very slippery slide into a land of robots reading autocues.

I know I have criticised Ross Coulthart and Mike Munro for their look-at-me editorialising in this very blog, but if they had something worthwhile to say, I would be applauding them as loudly as I am Miss Grimshaw. If they were likeable, respectable and intelligent, I would lend them my ear.

At last, a genuine issue that really did divide a community, and both Gordon and Tracy took decent stands. Sure it descended into a steaming tabloid pile of poo where issues like sexuality, honesty, fairness, the role of the media and celebrity clouded the real one of plain rudeness and a joke too far...but a tabloid pile of poo is where it all started in the first place.

And, my, it was good for ratings. Ramsay will be kicking himself that he didn’t have a new book on the market at the time.

I reckon Tracy, Kerry O’Brien, Tony Jones, George Negus et al should be given weekly editorial slots on their shows where they just get on air for three minutes of uncensored, unbridled opinion-making. Kind of like Hughesy Loses It, but with a refined journalistic edge.

Honourable mentions must go to Recruits – a step backward in the evolutionary process to a time when reality ruled, but nonetheless a gritty, moving show full of compelling characters. And if you have not seen Mad Men yet (SBS, 8.30pm Thursdays), watch it, watch it, watch it! It is one of the smartest, most skillfully layered productions you will ever have the privilege of witnessing; plus it has a script that’ll make you swoon.

Finally, Random Acts of Kindness. Such a lovely show, with such an regrettable acronym, but one that I would use were I to meet host Karl Stefanovic in the street: as in, "Ra(c)k off Karl, you are the most annoying Aussie Tom Cruise-type person devoid of personality!"

God, he hurts this show. That poor bugger with the horses on this week’s was in shock, a country bloke brought to tears who needed some support from a fellow human being – a hug, maybe. Instead, Karl gave him a corkie to the bicep with an overzealous arm slap in a vain attempt to act like a real country man. Uggh.

Thankfully, he’s not the only "talent" on this show, joined by the jocular Scott Cam and Simmone Jade Mackinnon, a strange addition Nine probably couldn’t leave hanging when McLeod’s Daughters died.

The time is right for this show. We’re all freaking out about money, confidence is low and we’re using phrases like "back to basics" more. I’m not saying this show is not predictable or somewhat confusing. Seriously, how much stuff does each person need to get?? Yes, they deserve it and more, but the show is structured like an old Demtel ad..."but wait, there’s more" and that’s not so much kind as just plain random. However, a few feel-good tears are necessary in times like these.

A lesson in life-drawing

Lifestyle & Culture | June 8, 2009

IT’S not a breast, it’s an oval.

It’s not a penis, it’s a cylinder.

It’s not a buttock, it’s a circle.

There may be a naked person in the room, but when you are standing near an easel and your fingers are stained black with artist’s charcoal, having a perve is as ridiculous an assumption as the thought that a six-week life drawing class could gift me the skills of Rembrandt.

And yet, most people have one response when you tell them you have signed up for such a pursuit: they express some shock, raise their eyebrows and giggle.

Precisely the type of misconception I wanted to bust out of the water by actually taking part in the experience, first-hand, for myself.

Go Arty runs regular life drawing classes in a cosy little space up the stairs at its Norval Court, Maroochydore premises. Artist Tony Coles takes the classes, which will set you back $180.

Admittedly, the first lesson brought with it some anxiety, but it was probably driven more by my perceived lack of talent and how poorly it was bound to compare with others in the group than the fact that I would be staring at a naked person for two hours.

The class is small, about six or seven, and the room is dominated by a table positioned directly under bright lights. The model in the first week was a woman, but there would be a different person each week.

Without any fuss and all of a sudden, she takes off her robe and climbs gracefully, naked, onto the table.

Instantly, the atmosphere in the room is overwhelmingly one of...“so what?”

What was I expecting? Someone to run from the room, screaming “Oh my God, she’s got no clothes on” as they went?

Instead, it’s down to the very challenging business of somehow converting the living, breathing subject before us into a charcoal image on white paper.

What an interesting journey that is: first, scanning with the eyes, then processing in the brain, transmitting those images via various synapses to stimulate arms and fingers, which then grasp charcoal and manoeuvre it this way and that, to hopefully give an honest replication of that initial vision seen just seconds ago.

For some, I notice after a few surreptitious glances left and right, that process is smooth and quick; for others, it is frustrating and peppered with mistakes.

Shapes, form, colour, light, shadow, reflection, line, nuance and tone collide at once.

This is a beginner’s class and the drawings are quick, two or three minutes per pose. Later in the course, they would extend to 15 or 30 minutes, as our skills developed.

And develop they do. Eventually, I went from completely ignoring the complicated hands, feet and faces to actually giving them a go. The shapes that nature is broken into – the ovals, cylinders, circles and others – are finessed with shadows, light strokes and smudges to appear much more real.

By the third week, it was getting complicated, but in a fantastic, challenging way.

We tried constructing our drawings beginning with the negative space – the triangle area in the centre of a bent arm rested on a hip, for example. We drew with our non-dominant hand, and without looking at our paper. Then we shaded out our paper so it was covered in black, and drew “backwards”, using an eraser to build a white-on-black image that popped from the page.

The effect was remarkable and it was the first time I felt I was worthy of grabbing the Go Arty Holy Grail: the can of hairspray.

That is the signal of a job well done, of a drawing so good that its creator wants to preserve it and protect against any accidental smudges with a quick spray of the sticky stuff.

It will never hang in the Louvre, but it will forever hang in my memory as proof of a time when I confronted those ever-present “I can’t” fears and jumped into the refreshing ocean that churns there always, way out past my comfort zone.