Changing faces
Plastic surgery - once the playground of the rich and saggy - is uncomfortably common these days. It's your face so you can do what you want to, to paraphrase a 60s song. If it makes you feel better about yourself so you don't have to address the real issues of what is making you unhappy, go ahead.
Great plastic surgery is the sort that people never notice. Kylie Minogue is an example of subtle surgery and Dannii is the after-photo plastic surgeons don't use.
The catch with plastic surgery is it's like home renovations. Once you renovate the kitchen, the living areas start looking a bit tired. You render the house and then the garden doesn't match. Well, cosmetic surgery isn't too different.
Get a brow lift but then the skin left behind gathers so much that your crows feet look like a pterodactyls have partied there. Botox the lips but next to your droopy jowls, they make you look like first cousin twice removed to Donald Duck.
Growing old gracefully may come back in fashion one day. Nursing homes with distorted 20 year old faces just don't look right.
YouTube-ing It Up
Forget pay tv, definitely forget free-to-air...
YouTube is the answer to in-home entertainment. It's a trash and treasure of mpgs in the internet age - whatever tricky stuff you're into, you'll find it on YouTube.
Anything from music videos from long ago (see New Kids On The Block and dodgy leather jacket dance moves in
The Right Stuff), to
airline crashes to
movie trailers, it's all there.
You must see my current favourite -
two Korean girls taking karaoke to new heights.
Brown-nosers have feelings too
There's one in every office. It's an office held without thanks in every culture.
Nope, it ain't easy being a brown-noser. If you are really good, people won't even notice what you're doing. But most are unskilled in the art of seamless brown-nosing, so they are easy to spot.
But let's take a closer look at the sacrifices a brown-noser must make:
1. Everyone hates you. They may say it to your face or they may laugh at you behind your back, but be warned, your colleagues are not stupid. They recognise a suckass from the stench of your muzzle.
2. The exhausting surveillance for opportunities to ingratiate yourself - forcing yourself to watch sports you have never heard of so you can have a carefully planned corridor conversation about last weekend's game on Monday morning, laughing like a drain at wretchedly unfunny jokes and applauding abysmal decisions.
3. The loss of dignity - going to sleep every night knowing you have sold out for so long that you're not sure what your own values are anymore...unless you check how the wind is blowing first. It's hard to sit up straight when you don't have a spine, much less your own opinion. You crave and crave for your masters to bestow you a nickname - a sure sign of acceptance in The Golden Circle, of course - even "Serf" has a nice ring to it. Sounds summery.
4. The underlying fear that one day the people who champion you will no longer be around. Best get your paws on the bitumen quick-smart and sniff out which way your new master is beckoning.
So, not as easy as it looks, eh? While by no means condoning the career-making choices of brown-nosers, spare a bit of pity (or derision...they'll take it, they're not too proud) for those whose entire life is based on the relentless search for approval from Important People.
Ode to central heating
There are many reasons to live in Melbourne but weather is not one of them. For someone whose idea of perfect weather is 80% humidity and 25 degrees, it can be a miserable experience in Melbourne when her winters appear to last 10 months of the year.
Central heating is a marvellous invention. By raising the house temperature to a figure greater than two score, all your troubles melt away.
Gone is cumbersome polarfleece jumper that makes you look a back-packer who has only two pairs of underwear (efficiently extracting maximum usage: front, back, inside and out).
Gone is the foetal hunch of one preserving every last ounce of heat.
Gone is the need to be within a 30 cm proximity of the foot heater, limiting movements from the sofa to only emergencies.
The freedom in wearing only a t-shirt and shorts in the middle of winter is not to be taken lightly.
...and I'll scratch yours
Who doesn't love a back scratch?
To my great disappointment, I have never been able to find a back scratching service. There are plenty of places offering massage but nothing is quite as satisfying as fingernails on skin. (Self-service back scratchers just don't cut it.) For all you entrepeneurs out there, take note - this is a business idea that would fly!
There is nothing at all kinky about it. Back scratching is as legitimate as massage. (You'd want to make sure the Scratchor's fingernails were not harbouring any skin from the previous client but you'd run the same risk with a massage.)
The pressure is very important - not too hard. The Da Vinci Code "
cilice" look is not in this season. Not enough pressure results in a feathery approach which is hard to enjoy if you are the ticklish sort. You want enough fingernail friction to cause a slight reddening of the flesh. This will go away in time and is no different to the result of a hot shower.
Back scratching is a craft so perfecting the stroke methodology is critical. Ideally, a back scratch starts with sweeping strokes of consistent pressure covering the entire back and then narrowing in on the itchier parts with some shorter, faster strokes.
If this is not a commercial transaction but a reciprocal service, attitude should not be over-looked as playing a part in the overall experience. Impatience and indifference from the Scratchor tends to reduce the enjoyment by the Scratchee. And don't cheat on the scratching time. The experienced Scatchees
always notice.
The Three Second Advertisement
If you have ever wandered into your local supermarket or convenience store, no doubt you will have been dazzled by the riot of colours enamating from packaged goods. If you listen hard enough you may hear the desperate pleas of "Pick me! Pick me!" as well.
Otherwise known as the three-second advertisement, packaging is important in sucking in consumers to try something they do not need nor did they know they wanted.
It may come as a surprise how much gnashing of teeth and employment is created by this packaging artwork. Now, I use the term packaging "artwork" loosely here. By the time layers of management have diluted and mutated the original intentions, it would be unfair to compare it to art.
Do consumers appreciate the attention to detail that has gone into agonising over the font type or whether a particular colour is masculine enough?
Every packaging artwork tells a story in the battle between the brand manager and his / her stakeholders.
The art of saying nothing at all
I love the beginning of the Star Trek: Next Generation credits where you can hear the hum of the stars just before Patrick Stewart's dulcet tones reverberate across the universe.
This singing of the stars is my favourite representation of silence. After the incessant ringing of phones and the necessity to talk all day in order to earn a crust, silence is a welcome and comforting doona at the end of it all.
Silence is a thing of beauty and under-utilised. Like punctuation.
Defy the urge to always fill in the gaps in a conversation.
Have the curiosity to listen to what other people are saying. By listening, I do not mean "active listening" - that hideous 90s management tool to encourage employee communication, which only served to more effectively mask the fact no one was really listening to anyone.
Active listening champions peculiar behaviour such as excessive nodding, the criminal use of superlatives ("definitely" and "certainly" are choice gap fillers) and a plethora of "uh-uhs" to convince the other person you are listening. All this whirl of activity to hide the fact you are engrossed in formulating your own rebuttal without having listened to the argument.
Being silent and listening does not mean other people will believe you are stupid. (Well, actually some might, but they are not the sort of people you should be worrying about or associating with by choice.) It means you have the self-confidence in your own intelligence that you don't have to prove it to yourself and everyone else every 5 minutes.
Pants on fire
I guess Howard's promise to hand over the reins after a term and a half was non-core, eh Pete?
Northern Lights
I have been looking forward to the film adaptation of one of my favourite books,
Northern Lights by Philip Pullman, and had been dismayed by rumours
Dakota Fanning had been cast as Lyra Belacqua, one of the main characters.
It made about as much sense as casting
Haley Joel Osment (
Sixth Sense) as Harry Potter, as is rumoured to have been Steven Spielberg's recommendation, if he had won the gig to direct the films.
Philip Pullman's
His Dark Materials trilogy (
Northern Lights,
The Subtle Knife and
The Amber Spyglass) is a story of the corrupting power of organised religion, a complex tale that belies its appearance as a children's book. I could read these books over and over. If you are the sort of person who protested at the inclusion of Harry Potter in school libraries, here's another author to add to your book burning list.
Anyway the good news is Dakota Fanning is
NOT going to play Lyra - it's another Dakota, Dakota Blue Richards. A real English girl, hopefully with Grit. Dakota Fanning's limited acting range of lip-trembling, pleading eyes and manufactured precociousness could never have brought Lyra to life.
Hollywood child stars are generally not convincing as children on screen - Macauley Culkin acts as a chilling reminder. Is it the American film industry environment that accelerates them through childhood? Or is it the cliche of a young child / old soul combination hasn't lost its appeal to the American movie heavyweights yet?
In either case, these artificially ripened children are about as appealing as the bright red but essentially flavour-free tomatoes at Woolworths. I had to grit my teeth to sit through all of
War of the Worlds (resisting the temptation to put the DVD on fast forward with subtitles) and spent most of it hoping Dakota Fanning's character would be killed off. Pronto. Preferably in a way that matched the amount of pain watching the film brought me.
I Love the Smell of Bullshit in the Morning....
Leon Gettler from The Age has a sharp blog on the smoke and mirrors that is Corporateworld - check out his latest entry:
http://blogs.theage.com.au/managementline/Flagging crises to senior management via "bad news folders" is a novel concept. What does it say about the culture of an organisation where employees are afraid to speak up for the purpose of helping the organisation? Does it suggest too much time is spent wordsmithing and distorting reality to create an inaccurate (albeit rosier) picture?
In organisations where spin is encouraged to hide bad news and average results are ignored, who would be brave enough to put their name to bad news? Imagine the time wasted over who should put their name on the issue and carefully crafting the words to deflect blame.
"Tell them what they want to hear" should be drilled into every ambitious young graduate. You'll save yourself years of frustration if you submit to the rules early on.
Uterus Pants
What ARE Uterus Pants, I hear you ask?
DefinitionNoun plural: pleated (usu. polyester) trousers that fan around the wearer's hips to exaggerate its girth in an unflattering fashion (origin: A Evans, 2006). See left for example.
If you are over 40 years of age and wearing these, we forgive you. Time is marching on, after all, and you have more pressing things to worry about.
If you are under 40 years of age and still wearing these, well that's another story. A word of advice - you may want to consider flat fronted pants.
If you are under 40 years of age, wear these Uterus Pants
and work in a profession where you are expected to have a clue about design and style, then stop labouring under the impression you have the right to tell other better dressed colleagues what great design and style is.
You have no style. And hence no voice in any matters of style.
Stop dumping on other people your unwanted baseless ideas on what great design is. Because you wouldn't know what great design was, even if it bit you in the face. (Although you may experience a slight tingling sensation by something you could never hope to identify in a line-up.)
Uterus pants are OUT, OUT, OUT.
And don't give them away to charity. Just because people have no money doesn't mean they want to look like a relic out of the Museum of Premature Ageing.
The First Commandment of Organisational Politics: Thou Shalt Judge A Book By Its Cover
Remember when you were growing up and your parents taught you these little homilies:
- It's what's inside that counts
- Don't judge a book by its cover
- The cream always rises to the top
- Empty vessels make the most noise
- Don't blow your own trumpet
- Good things come to those who wait
- The meek shall inherit the earth
Maybe your parents thought they were doing the right thing imparting these values. It will come as a shock if you join the corporate world to discover that hanging onto your modesty will hinder your career progression.
Sadly, career progression has nothing to do with how good you are at your job. It's all about whether people perceive you to be good at your job.
Sometimes, great work is recognised. Unfortunately, not that often. When it does happen, it plays an important role in not only rewarding the worker in question, but also sets an example for the rest of organisation to appreciate great work and to inspire more of it.
More often than not, it is all about perception. Instead of promoting a culture that encourages great work, organisations today overtly foster the culture of "perception is reality".
This has spawned a cartel of people who get by knowing very little and doing even less, but who are adept at obfuscation and inveiglement. These are the ones who are the Olympic champions of brown nosing and politicking for their own ends, rather than adding any true value. How do these people sleep at night? (Actually, I suspect they sleep very well, in their 300 threadcount sheets and possibly with a key stakeholder.)
So, the rules of engagement are that "perception is reality". Are we all too lazy these days to dig a bit deeper to understand each other? Isn't this how world wars are created? Are we missing out on the fantastic skills of a person just because he / she refused to conform?
Oh, that's right. Conformity.
Large organisations reward conformity. If you express views that are different and challenge the complacent, God forbid we may miss this year's target but lay the groundwork for growing the organisation in the decades to come.
We talk about Innovation with a capital I, but do leaders of organisations understand that innovation is rarely borne of rigidly structured roles, group think, systemic sycophancy and work practices that discourage seeing daylight? Simply employing the cliches of "thinking outside the square" (alert: if you are still using this phrase, you are IN THE FUCKING SQUARE, to quote Kel Richards from ABC NewsRadio...except Kel doesn't swear...on air) and "thinking big" does not an innovative culture make.
So how long can these organisations exist with a culture of rewarding the wrong people? Politics will always exist as long as there are human beings, but hasn't anyone realised that SOMEONE, at SOME POINT has to do the work?
To paraphrase S Sammartino,
"Large organisations are too sluggish to be true innovators...they are trading on
the diminishing goodwill of plastic cheese created decades ago."
Sickie
I have taken the day off work today because I am not feeling well. Headache, throat issues and dizziness. I would be useless at work.
It's quite soothing to be on the couch when everyone else is hard at work. I wish I had installed Foxtel, though. Dr Phil + assorted freaks do not a great viewing experience maketh.
Why do I have this niggling feeling that I should be at work? That I am not really quite sick enough to be at home? I wonder what it would take for my subconscious to be satisfied that I am really unwell enough to be at home on a work day. Leprosy? Bubonic plague?
You're too hard on me.
Coaching from the couch
Winter means many things in
Melbourne - it's the time to bring out the woollen parts of your wardrobe, dial up the themostat, more cosy nights in. It also signifies the start of the
Australian Football League competition.
The AFL competition originated in Victoria, who are the most obsessed about AFL (although South Australia would have to come a close second, given there isn't much happening regarding amusement in that state).
(As an aside, Victorians are very defensive about being beaten at their "own" game, as other states have being dominating the competition over the last few years. Victorian baiting is always fun - there's a low cost of entry. Just start with a few choice comments on how badly the Victorian sides are performing. It is as certain to get them riled as presenting a few key facts on how unfriendly Melbourne weather is. Victorians tend to have a bit of an inferiority complex about their city. Having to beat tourists over the head with their own self-generated claim that Melbourne is the most liveable city in the world is a sure sign of low self-esteem. I am not sure that Melburnians have noticed that
Big Sister Sydney doesn't really care and considers herself in the league with Real Cities like New York and Paris. Melbourne - get over it. We love you for the shopping and the food, not the weather or cosmopolitan outlook. But that's OK.)
Anyway, I digress....
Winter means conversations at lunch no longer linger on cricket and home renovations....it's all about last weekend's match, how your team appears to be deliberately letting you down, speculating endlessly on who's in and who's out, whether so-and-so will be let off by the tribunal.
I can understand this level of interest. Really, I can.
But what will never fail to amaze me is the belief by passionate football fans that screaming at the television set during the match will somehow enable the players to hear the advice.
Is there something about television that I have missed? I did not realise it was a two-way communication device.
One day television may become so advanced that the players will have an opportunity to politely offer the disenfranchised spectators a chance to prove he/she can play better.
I'd like to see that!
