Friday....

Allow the world to live as it chooses, and allow yourself to live as you choose.” -- Richard Bach

“Every human has four endowments- self awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom... The power to choose, to respond, to change.” -- Stephen R. Covey

Wow! The hits on the blog have gone absolutely crazy over the last couple of days…thanks so much for reading. I am agog… I was going to take the comments off again but many people have asked them to remain, so they shall for the moment. But, if you prefer to email me with a comment – please do – amarinda_jones@yahoo.com.au

“For top executives to award themselves these kinds of compensation packages in the midst of this economic crisis is not only in bad taste, it’s a bad strategy, and I will not tolerate it as president,” Mr. Obama said. He said such pay is “exactly the kind of disregard for the costs and consequences of their actions that brought about this crisis — a culture of narrow self-interest and short-term gain at the expense of everything else.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/05/us/politics/05pay.html?_r=1

I am sure I am not alone in agreeing with the US president. I have never understood why CEO’s who basically do stuff all at work get paid exorbitant amounts of money while their staff members get a pittance in comparison. One of the major banks in Australia has a CEO just like that…okay, there are many but he is just one of them. He is being rewarded with millions of dollars while thousands of staff are being retrenched with some pissy little amount as farewell-piss-off-and-look-for-another-job-because-we-don’t-want-you-here money. They are thrown out onto the job market to fend for themselves while this corporate wanker gets to retire with millions for sitting on his arse all day. It’s criminal in this economic climate when corporate greed and financial ineptitude by Wall Street and others have got us to where we are. Utter fucking wankers. And that countries are bailing these banks and other business out with taxpayer funds that actual workers have paid out of their less than CEO type wage packets and then the CEO expects to get paid lots of $$$ as a bye-bye-see-you-later package...it is so wrong that it fascinates me that they neither see it at all or care a damn. Sure – work hard - rise to the top – earn a good salary but when it comes down to it no one, in my opinion, is any better than any one else and to be rewarded for a title is insane.

At work things have tightened up a lot as you’d expect. Staff have gone and those that are there are juggling other duties. I was asked could I take on this or that and I said yes, I could - my job is a doddle. Okay, I didn’t tell them that because the less they know the better. I surprised the crap out of them when I said I would even join those going down into the factory the odd afternoon during the week to work down there for a couple of hours. The factory is down to skeleton staff. They work bloody hard down there. If you have worked in a factory you know what I mean and I don’t think it kills the office staff to wander down into another work area and pick up some tools for a few of hours a couple of afternoons to help out. And it gives me a chance to wear my steel cap boots…man, they are so comfortable. So yesterday, I got checked over to make sure I could lift stuff. You know, the factory physio makes you pick something up and put it down - add a weigh to it now pick it up again and put it down again - pick it up and walk with it – left hand, right hand, put it down – pick it up - add another weight and pick it up – walk to the door - then put it down and pick it up…it was so funny I could not stop laughing. Sure, it's necessary but it reminded me of a Monty Python sketch or maybe it was Candid Camera. And hell no, they’re not going to let me do anything important in the factory in those odd couple of hours here and there…damn shame that…I like power tools…

That’s it for Friday…for those of you freezing your asses off – keep warm. For those of you sweating in record heatwave conditions – keep cool, drink lots of water unless you are up in FNQ and you are probably sick to death of water with the floods – yet all of us still battling the drought would love to come up and take some of it off your hands…….strange planet we’re on….

www.amarindajones.com
www.amarindajones.blogspot.com
Go Ahead : Live with abandon. Be outrageous at any age. What are you saving your best self for?