The incredibly entitled and privileged will.i.am

Displaying the very traits of an entitled American victim, rapper will.i.am from the Black Eyed Peas embarrassed not only himself but pretty much any public personality. I hate the term celebrity, he acted as a spoilt child initially before claiming racism - bad move mate.

He was in Australia and flying on a Qantas flight, this is the airline with the world’s best safety record. If he is instructed to stow his laptop on landing to prevent the object from becoming a flying projectile and injuring an innocent person in the cabin - then he should do just that.

His entitled behaviour was reprehensible, he is clearly used to getting away with whatever he wants based upon his celebrity status in the United States. The rules apply to everybody, especially when safety is involved and trying to claim his noise cancelling headphones is just a weak cop out.

He is quickly learning that Australia has an egalitarian society, sure there is business class and economy class but you pay for that level of service. However, he is finding out that regardless of the seat you have on an aircraft, an expected level of behaviour is required and he failed that expectation.

Then the situation becomes funnier, or more absurd, depending upon your point of view. He then claimed racism because he was told to pull his head in and follow the cabin crew’s instruction when he would not follow mandatory safety requirements.

So like a spoiled brat, he goes and tweets he name and details of the flight attendant trying to do her job to his legion of 12 million plus Twitter followers. Only the unintelligent and weak minded go and claim victim status for their poor behaviour instead of just apologising and stowing his laptop as required.

Qantas has been brilliant, CEO Alan Joyce has supported his employee superbly by willing to sponsor expensive defamation action against the rapper. He thought he was untouchable, he incorrectly thought his wealth and privilege would protect his boorish and unacceptable behaviour.

Now he will find out that Qantas has deeper pockets than him and will pursue him harder than he ever imagined. I respect a company that supports their staff and I fully support Qantas here. They have backed their staff to provide a safe working environment and I hope they take this defamation action all the way and hold him accountable for his actions.

Getting your drink spiked

The footage is a little old now but still unbelievable; the young woman at the festival taking a selfie and having her drink spiked. Some say this this was a set up, do I believe this? No, I do not; neither do I know if it was indeed staged. What I do know is this could have sinister outcomes.

Women do get their drinks spiked, the news networks are littered with these reports. Women are constantly told to be careful, be aware and not leave their drinks unattended. All good advice, but what this video shows us is how quick this can actually happen.

What is also not known is what the drug was and what effects it could have on an individual, I don't know much about drugs so I don't know the likely effects but I do know the manufacturing of these drugs is a criminal activity and they don't produce their product for the benefit of consumers; these dealers are in the trade to maximise profits at any cost.

A missed connection

For a major national airline, South African Airways offers a pretty crap service but this is well known, but for certain routes, we don't have many options until better options become available.

My flight was delayed from Perth International Airport, this happens at airports all around the world for a variety of reasons and is not the issue. However, on board the aircraft I notified cabin staff that this delay in departure needs to be forwarded to Air Katanga check-in staff so they can hold the aircraft for me.

The integrity of South African Airways is at risk here, their service is poor, everyone knows that - that is a given. There are not too many options available, if Qantas starts flying the Perth to Johannesburg route again then their monopoly is broken and their lousy service will not be accepted in a competitive environment.

I requested that as the flight is delayed, my information is forwarded to the check-in counter of my next flight. They assured me that this has already happened, I pointed out this is a company charter and still no issues they told me. Needless to say, this did not happen, they were dishonest in their dealings with me - in short, they lied.

I arrived at the check-in counter 2 minutes after the staff left, needless to say, they had not been contacted so I missed my flight. But in true South African Airways it gets better, they loaded the luggage on the wrong conveyer and these guys are in no rush to do anything.

Had South African Airways lifted their game ever so slightly then this wouldn't have been a problem. To say these guys move in slow motion is an understatement, they have no accountability whatsoever, it is not hard to work out why they are in financial difficulty.

The unraveling of Tenke Fungurume Mining

So the project at Tenke Fungurume Mining (TFM) unraveled very quickly, the Chinese owners of the mine decided to demobilise all western expats and bring in cheap Chinese labour.

On international projects, government contracts and mining leases stipulate and expat to national ratio to train the national population to take over operations within a given timeframe. This is not what is occurring at TFM, the management is bringing in cheap (and largely unskilled labour) from China.

As Western expats, we are being moved out and replaced by cheap Chinese labour that has been found to be sub-standard. That happens, I can live with that as I possess a certain skill-set that makes me highly employable. However, the national workforce should be afraid - very afraid.

I place little respect in the Chinese management, they are generally low paid idiots that make embarrassingly poor decisions without any thought for consequences. However, one decision they made half right was to demobilise the expats in waves according to importance so the project didn't stop altogether.

So that left me some time to contemplate employment options, I was to be demobilised in the final wave of retrenchments. I counted less than 10 Western (white) expats remaining on site on my return from offshore R&R rotation.

So I used my time remaining to research and apply for positions, I was fortunate enough to be brought in for two interviews for a position in Botswana during my break. Whilst I never believe I have the job until the door is shut, armed and cross-checked and we have push-back.

They did mention positive steps such as a final telephone interview with the Project Manager and mailing official contract hard copy documents to the site I am currently employed. The HR recruiter asked if I could hang out a further 6 months on this project but I told her unlikely.

So, where do we go from here? Sitting at the departure area of Johannesburg OR Tambo International Airport waiting for my delayed SAA Express flight to Lumumbashi, I have no idea how long I have left. The initial hand-over from the contract maintenance team to an internalised model went well because of the expat planning and organisation.

That was a great experience for me, that required advanced planning, organising and project management skills. Now, in their rush to throw the Western expats out, the maintenance program isn't as stable as they think. Now the component replacement program is 40% behind plan, machines will soon be running components to failure, production will soon decline.

There were four maintenance divisions headed by four experienced expats, now the want to join four divisions into two large divisions and place under the control of two inexperienced and newly appointed national Superintendents to save money. What a brilliant plan nobody said ever, let's watch a $2.63 billion project be transformed into a $500 million project.

So now they are planning to restructure to save minor costs when major costs are looking to blow out of control. Not that this will worry me, I was well advanced in my negotiations for the Botswana project as this is the future and Tenke Fungurume Mining is soon to be the past.

It looked like I needed to find a short-term position to keep me busy waiting for this role to eventuate until that position fell through and it was time to start looking for work again. Just when you think you are comfortable, everything changes and your plans are thrown into turmoil.

Should I go or should I stay?

Should I go or should I stay? When a restructure is announced the decision is, do you get out early before the mass retrenchments or do you hang on for some form of financial package?

As a contractor, the best I could have envisioned is one months salary and no one was really sure what was going to happen. We were in the middle of a large change management program so even the inept incoming management could see we were required.

That gave us some time, we knew we were going but no indications as to when, fortunately the HR Coordinator was an expat as well and kept us expats quietly informed. The change management program began to reach the minimum requirements that we set so they believed normalisation had occurred.

8/2 is a difficult roster

So now I am back on an international job, I am back working long rosters and 8/2 is a long enough roster. But it is an international job, life is good and I certainly have nothing to complain about.

For those uninitiated in mining rosters, an 8/2 is 8 weeks on and 2 weeks off, even better, I travel in my time off-site. For this international travel, it takes me 27 hours to get home so I am pretty buggered when I walk through the door.

Some could argue all I am doing is sitting in a vehicle driving to the airport or sitting in the pressurised tube hurtling through the air at high speed. It is not hard labour but it is certainly time you don't get back.

Rosters change depending on projects, I was being sounded out for a project in Botswana that has a 6/3 roster. Two weeks less to offshore rotation and another week off, whilst we hadn't discussed remuneration yet, I would expect it to be similar in pay and we have discussed retirement benefits that were not available on my current posting.

That is too far in the future, I need to concentrate on now, that is the current goal. Sure 8/2 is a tough roster but no roster is my biggest concern. Still, 2 months away from home is difficult, but if you enjoy not only the job but the people you work with then that 8 weeks goes fairly fast.

You miss a lot during the two months you are away, then when you return you lose days of your break. You are tired, firstly from your 8 weeks of work, then there is the flights and the mandatory jet lag. When you are feeling better, it is time to jump back on that flight and do it all again.

What happened at Tenke Fungurume Mining?

So the job at Tenke Fungurume Mining (TFM) in the Democratic Republic of Congo unraveled very quickly. TFM as it is known was managed for a decade by FreeportMcRan, an American mining giant.

However, an ill-timed foray into oil and gas at the peak of the boom left the company laden with debt as oil prices dropped dramatically. The company was in dire financial distress and needed to off-load assets to survive, hence TFM was put on the market and sold to CMOC International, a Chinese company.

The first year went well, the project ran pretty much as it had under expat control and CMOC International remained a good corporate citizen by all accounts. There were however forces at play within the company as the communist party in China was a shareholder and sought to exert control over their shareholding.

We have all seen the events unfold in Hong Kong, the communist party is neither a good global citizen, as the world saw in Tiananmen Square, any form of dissonance is crushed without remorse. The communist Chinese government and their henchmen are pure evil - there is no doubt about that.

The management made a request to the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo to crush the artisen miners and troops were called in. People were displaced, their homes burnt down in what can only be described as human rights abuses in direct contravention of the United Nations resolutions.

The mine maintenance section was under-performing and a new leadership team has brought in to develop a world-class maintenance program. Collectively as a high-performing team, that is what we did but that didn't last long as we internalised maintenance processes and were then retrenched once the handover took place and the maintenance stabalised.