I work for Tabcorp and the boss for business services decided to have a lunch BBQ at Albert Park in Melbourne last Friday as the weather was pretty good. As with the last Tabcorp BBQ that I went to, I was not expecting much.

Upon reaching the BBQ area, food was of a pretty similar standard to what we had last time. Sausages and meat patties were the cheapest sausages from Coles/Safeway, bread was a little stale. The most expensive stuff would be the can of Schweppes Lemonade in my hand or the Masterfoods mustard sauce on my patty.

When I thought things couldn’t have been any lower than this, towards the end of the BBQ, the organisers started to auction off the leftovers. Morale is already very low among the staff at this company when management decided to freeze pay for most staff when at the same time our CEO was paid a bonus in the million dollar range.

I can’t believe how low this company can get after seeing the food auction took place.

While wasting my time at work I came across this. It’s the SA Attorney-General basically knocking back the idea of a R18+ classification saying his personal constituents determine media classification policy, even though the rest of the world would generally disagree with this stance. An R18+ classification would be in line with movies and allow adult content (like drugs and violence to be sold in a similar way to the way one buys beer or smokes).

Does anyone find it strange that just weeks before the Copenhagen climate change conference, editor-in-chief of The Australian Chris Mitchell deals a death blow to the science of climate change by abolishing the paper’s Climate section?

Trouble in luvvie land: You may have noticed NIDA in the news lately, “Dramas of the Wrong Kind” SMH detailed the resignation (under duress) of the librarian whose 30 years building up the best performing arts library in the country were discounted as she was seen as “obstructive” when she refused to work further extended hours, re-staff the library with less qualified technicians, or condone the carving up of the physical space to create more teaching rooms.

Along with this, NIDA has taken the attitude “if you don’t like it, you can leave” to staff who dissent from some of the new directions Williams is spearheading. Artistic and educational differences are seen as “an unwillingness to change” which naturally stifles dissent, as teachers try to appear happy campers while in reality, deeply doubting the wisdom of proposed changes.

The most recent examples of the kinds of problems staff are facing include an acting staff meeting that everyone in England is using microphones in theatre these days, therefore voice training is rather old fashioned. Absolute crap, of course.

We do not wish to see another great Arts education institution go down the path diminishing standards due to bureaucratic incompetence. NIDA is in danger of doing just that, and the beleaguered teaching staff (less than 20 full-time teachers) are fighting it.

Regarding yesterday’s article “Virgin’s Velocity Gold blue“. The same thing happened to me on Friday, only I had just signed up for the program last week, and have absolutely no Velocity points! Must have been a glitch in their email system, but it’s pretty poor form!

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