Sunburnt in Europe

Geez, what was I thinking? It’s not like the concept is foreign to me, I have shaved my head since my early twenties. I pretty much carry a hat everywhere with me because I know what happens if I don't.

I’m from Australia, I know all about the effects if the sun, I am well aware of UV radiation. In Perth during the weather report at the end of the 6 o'clock news, they list the UV index warning us of potential adverse conditions.

So how did I get so sunburnt? Well, somehow because it was autumn in the northern hemisphere, I thought the sun wasn't as strong as i’m used to. Up to this point, this is true, however, I was out all day with my cap in my backpack, now that was stupid.

I hadn't washed my cap from previous days and the sweatband was covered in sweat from previous days causing some irritation. My thinking at the time was these UV rays are not so strong here so I can afford plenty of sun exposure here.

Wrong, when I returned to the hotel room I then knew I was burnt - the pain left no doubt in my mind. That evening was uncomfortable for sure but the next morning all pain was gone. Sure, I was still a little red still but I had dodged a bullet and gotten away with it.

So you only speak English

I had to laugh at the comments of a conductor on a train from Trier in Germany to Luxembourg City in, well Luxembourg. As she was trying to explain the ticketing structure to us in German, when that didn't work she switched to French.

Still, we couldn't explain in my limited German and she replied *so you only speak English” in a dismissive tone. Firstly, I live in Australia, a continent with an official language of English with each state speaking the same language so no need to change languages as you cross borders.

My partner who was with me at the time is a native Japanese speaker, she can also use some Chinese as some characters change over and I’m sure she could get the message across in Korean if needed.

Australia is 12,000 kilometers away from Europe so for the best part it makes no sense to learn German, French, Spanish or Italian unless a specific need arises. Due to our proximity to Asia; Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese or Indonesian would be the better option at any rate.

Even for someone such as myself living in Perth, to get in a car and drive across the state border will require about 12 hours of travelling time only to find they speak English there too.

Technically, Australia isn't a continent as the original inhabitants have around 2000 different languages or thereabouts. What I am not able to state is how many are in frequent use or how they differ between each dialect.

Developing multiple income streams

I had yet to complete my apprenticeship although I was either close to, or considered an adult at this stage, so I was around seventeen or eighteen. I had a group of friends who were older than me by a number of years and they were transitioning to their new lives with their partners.

We became involved in Amway and they were doing ok; me not so good though as nobody was interested in being signed up by someone so young - I understood and accepted that. I went to all the meetings where they taught their network marketing scheme and was actively involved.

They were heavily involved in motivation and that is what I really enjoyed - being around motivated people. They also taught basic business and finance principles and one of the concepts I really embraced was generating multiple income streams including a passive income.

For the majority of people their primary income is from their paid employment or through their business; should they become injured or fall sick and become unable to work for a period, they would normally endure financial hardship.

A second job on weekends or evenings brings in a second income as does freelance work or a small business servicing clients. These are still generally related to your direct labour inputs, although a small part-time business may hire staff.

What interested me the most was developing a passive income; that is an income that is not directly derived from my sale of labour. A passive income may be derived from sources such as bank interest, although that is generally a poor return with low interest rates requiring a relatively large capital investment for little return.

Cash is important as a buffer although very inefficient in terms of returns, cash holdings may be funds reserved for future investment opportunities. Fixed interest through term deposits and bonds is a reasonably defensive strategy allowing a degree of diversification.

Residential and commercial property derives an income through rental income although a high capital expenditure is required, sub-letting a room is more efficient but you have to share your home with someone.

Dividends from shares is a brilliant passive income with an advantage in Australia of franking credits from dividend imputation removing the double taxation burden.

Reinvesting your dividends is the best course of action if you don't require the income to support yourself as you are really investing in future returns setting up the longer term. I prefer long-term investing and generally shy away from short-term investments instead seeking an income stream so your initial capital isn't eroded over time.

Closing in on 1000 posts

Closing in on 1000 posts, since starting Observations in an Undemocratic World back in 2013, I have been publishing posts on a regular basis.

These days I average three posts a week released Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday with the shortest post on a Thursday and the longest Saturday. So where to from here? I am going to keep posting, I am full-time employed so writing is one of my pastimes but I have other avenues of expression too.

For myself, writing allows a certain freedom and this was especially helpful when I was studying, I could just turn off, write a post and then switch back on again. Now study is over for me, my tablet comes with me everywhere and I tap away at the screen on the train, sitting waiting for an appointment.

It may be straight after a run still covered in sweat too scared to hit the shower just in case I lose my train of thought. Sitting around at a bar is a pretty decent choice, I am happy to have a drink by myself and tap away on my tablet. It is relaxing and a pretty decent way to spend the afternoon.

Revisiting the toxic work environment

I have written before about a toxic work environment, I am interested from an organisational standpoint about how this is able to occur in a modern workplace?

I question why this occurs, why are managers installed in a business to manage operations? If their sole role is to manage, why are they unable to fulfill their role and manage people to a competent level? Management is really work done through others.

This is a leadership failure, there is no other explanation for it yet it is easy enough to rectify. This takes communication skills, the manager has to pull themselves out of office and away from spreadsheets.

You need to be out and about without micromanaging, I believe in delegation and providing support allowing people to expand their roles and knowledge.

You don't show favouritism, people are promoted based on strict and measurable criteria. It is inequity that generally causes a toxic work environment, it creates tension as the high performers generally become dissatisfied whilst the underachievers are allowed to run riot, by this time, the workplace has descended into chaos.

From what I have encountered, most managers possess poor leadership skills. Well, this was based on my thirteen years of state government experiences anyway. My return to private enterprise surprised me on how far leadership has advanced in the private sector.

I was employed in a leadership role, my manager took seven years to complete his MBA and he majored in leadership. From my experiences with such a proactive manager, he pretty much espouses the leadership culture he wishes to embed in our department.

Private enterprise really encourages university education to provide solutions to problems. The public sector less so, they prefer to maintain the old boy’s club and the old way of doing things. Sure, they engage in plenty of poorly planned and executed change management programs but I can’t really call them strategies.

Posters of eagles soaring over mountain ranges doesn’t equate to leadership, it equates to a lack of leadership ability in my eyes. I have yet to see a great private sector leader hanging such useless posters on their walls, they actively live the leadership culture they espouse.

The TAG Heuer Carrera

The Carrera was released by Jack Heuer back in 1963 espousing their motor racing heritage with the Carrera Panamerican motor race. The Heuer Carrera was the first chronograph timepiece designed specifically for professional racecar drivers.

In 1985 the Heuer watch company was in extreme financial distress; this was in no small part attributed to the quartz technology disrupting the industry. Heuer was duly purchased by the TAG Group, a company ironically involved in the motorsport industry.

Hence, TAG Heuer was born with not even the slightest whiff of arrogance bestowed by TAG Industries. Motorsport sponsorship is not the sole domain of TAG Heuer, the race track is the perfect marketing tool for timekeeping.

The Heuer Carrera was an iconic timepiece synonymous with motor racing with Jack Heuer one of the last direct family members aligned to such a heritage brand. I looked at purchasing a new Carrera but thought the face was somewhat cluttered in the latest models.

The skeletonised versions were even worse for my personal tastes. When I look back at the older versions, the basic shape and style confirm to me why this is such an iconic timepiece. The Carrera in its purest motorsport form is a chronograph, I do admit to really liking the three hand version.

Whilst I would love a vintage Heuer Carrera timepiece, I am wary of the current prices paid for older timepieces. The problem with vintage timepieces is wear to the movement, obtaining parts for older movements may be difficult and is certainly expensive.

Taking into account wear to the dial, hands and pushers, replacement of major components tends diminish the value of the timepiece. That being said, the classical style of the 1960s and 1970s Carrera is a pretty decent place to start.

At some point, one has to ask, would the funds be best spent on a new timepiece? I must admit, I am certainly interested in the shape, style and history of the Carrera and possibly missed my opportunity to become a Carrera owner on a number of opportunities.

I prefer the simple and classic styles and may add the Carrera to my collection in the future, until then I can admire the Carrera in its simplest and unadulterated splendor. I am out looking but as always, I have plenty of time to choose and the price has to be right.

The YF-17 fighter prototype

The US military started to number their fighter aircraft sequentially after the 100 interceptor designations were superseded; the F-14 Tomcat, F-15 Eagle, F-16 Falcon and F-18 Hornet filled a number of differing roles.

The F-17 never made it into production with the F-22 Raptor released as the fifth generation fighter jet, I wondered why the F-17 never made it into production. I am certainly no expert on the matter, I am just a little inquisitive - that's all.

Then there is the 19, 20 and 21 designation aircraft that also never reached the production phase either. The Northrop YF-17 prototype looks like a smaller version of the F-18 Hornet currently in service with a number of military around the world.

The aircraft was to supplement the navy F-14 interceptor/air superiority role. The aircraft had to fulfill the attack capacity that was then covered by the Vietnam era A-7 Corsair II and F-4 Phantom, these aircraft were to be phased out.

To enable the aircraft to reach production, Northrop teamed up with McDonald Douglas to redesign the aircraft to operate on the flight decks of an aircraft carrier allowing the F/A-18 to enter service with the US Navy and air forces around the globe.

Toby's Estate - Ortigas

I was meeting a friend in Ortigas for lunch whilst she was at work and we headed off to Toby's Estate, I was impressed. This was a great little cafe, this was a great place to hang for a few hours.

This is an excellent coffee house in an up and coming business district, this is a great place for lunch and not just a coffee. This place gets a little busy during the lunch time rush period, but you can never complain about a business that is pushing big numbers through and still looking after their customers.

I had never heard of Toby's Estate before and then I told this was an Australian chain of coffee houses. I thought they must be big on the East coast of Australia because I hadn't seen any on the West coast until I wandered into the domestic terminal.

For a lot of these East coast businesses, they view the West coast as the wild west and they tend to display a little fear with expansion beyond the higher populated states New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria on the eastern seaboard.

I thought it was an unusual growth strategy, normally a business pursues a domestic strategy before embarking on international growth but I'm pretty happy the have. So some research was in order, I can't just rely on what I am told and I found out Toby's Estate Coffee Roasters is a Brooklyn based chain - I'm glad I took the time to verify. 

Joining a leadership team

Is leadership the new business buzzword? I certainly see it overused and used out of context in the government sector, but what about private enterprise? This is where I actually see leadership applied in the workplace.

I am now getting to use my business skills learnt in university in the workplace. So ok, when you are in a leadership team, what does this really mean, what does this entail? Management was once the domain of getting work done through others, is this now leadership?

I prefer a situational leadership model and without reciting the Hersey-Blanchard model too much, a directing, coaching, supporting and delegating range of situations is the most effective method based on both workplace conditions and personnel.

I certainly believe values plays a major factor in not only leadership decisions but the influence factor of leadership. Motivation is certainly a major sub-skill of the provision of leadership along with providing direction, this requires role model behaviour.

So, as part of a leadership group we are supposed to achieve outcomes through others in a similar manner to what management was. To my way of thinking, management is concerned with measurement and leadership is getting the job done efficiently and effectively.

As a leadership group, our job is to implement the vision as defined by senior leadership. The role of the leadership group is not purely implementation, ideas are developed within the team and turned into policies that benefit the entire workforce. Yeah, I am happy to be a member of a high performance leadership team. 

A 2009 Witchmount shiraz

A number of years ago I went to a wine tasting evening arranged by my brother at his local wine store. They had invited the winemaker over from Witchmount to speak about shiraz in general and also tell us about his pretty decent version.

This was around the time Witchmount had become popular after winning the Syrah du Monde international wine competition held in France for the world's best syrah. This is what we prefer to call shiraz and I prefer in its purest form, I never appreciated cab/shiraz blends or even worse shiraz/cabernet blends, a peppery shiraz is still my favourity.

Whilst it was the 2004 vintage that won the competition, I was able to get hold of the 2009 vintage. I was pretty happy, I was able to get a taste of what was considered the world's best shiraz. I have to admit the French style is softer and far different to the Australian style so I tasted this vintage with a degree of trepidation.

Apparently, the black label denotes full bodied, although I feel this is a medium bodied wine and not full bodied as I am used to. That being said, I like to try new styles and a medium-bodied wine suits me some days, the judges know what is a good shiraz based on blind testing, now it is time for me to appreciate it.

The superior management joke

So a trend I am seeing is the self-designated superior management term being thrown around by the incoming Chinese management at the mine I was working.

Nothing could be further from the truth; inferior management, that is a more accurate term. I have never seen a major project unravel so quickly. This is by far, the worst management team I have ever seen in my life and I thought I saw dummies first hand in the government.

Their sole purpose is to get rid of the expat management team and replace them with mostly low paid and sub-standard Chinese workers. This 10 year old project was sold just over a year ago to Chinese interests who pretty much kept the workforce intact.

Then, they decided to unload the very expats that made the 2.63 billion US dollar purchase price possible. The project is already unraveling, their poor decision-making is amazing to watch, they work to no plan let alone a strategic plan, they change their mind frequently and nobody, I mean nobody knows what is going on.

A personal email

I sent a personal email to a former work colleague based on a discussion we had on the final day of my job. I explained that I respected his contribution, he had put in so much unpaid work for the strategic business unit to make it work.

My work email at my new job lit up, apparently he printed this email out and placed it on the lunch table for all to read. Based on the responses I received there was some anger attached but I actually care not even a bit.

From what I was told, it was the same blow-hards, workplace bullies, non-performers, social climbers and yes men. They are not the sole reason that toxic workplace exists as it is a series of complicated social interactions but it forms a large part of the issue.

It is kind of fun to stir these morons up from my new job, what's even better is I have been granted two years leave without pay so I can return at any time. Because of their embedded government mentality, they are angry, nasty and unable to leave this toxic workplace they created.

So now I know he is printing out private correspondence I now have the ability to write with a little freedom and be a little poignant with my prose. I never mention names, they all think they all think it is them so I get some laughs.

The blow-hards think I don't know it is being printed out and they all repeat parrot style their dislike of anyone who has the ability to break out of this cycle of bullying and intimidation.

I'm out of this horrible workplace full of professional youtube viewers, work shirkers and opinionated loud mouths. They have been employed way too long in the sheltered workshop of the government and adapted low productivity practices.

A large contingent watch youtube videos all day in full view if everyone in the open plan office, there is no accountability and although everyone knows what is going on, there are no consequences for their actions.

A large contingent have never held a job in private enterprise, some for just a brief period so they have never been under pressure to perform in free markets. I made sure I never adapted the government work ethic, I always kept my options open, for me, it was a seamless transition back to private enterprise.

My first time in snow

Having grown up in Perth, my only experiences with snow involved throwing open the refrigerator door and peering into the freezer. Stage 2, flying over the Rocky Mountains from New York to Vancouver saw a positive sighting from a airplane window at 30,000 feet and then saw snow again over the Blue Mountains when flying from Sydney to Perth 4 weeks later.

That was until I headed up to the Jung Frau in Switzerland on the rack and pinion train, I walked out onto the snow from the station, slipped over and ended up with a wet backside. This was not the first experience I had envisioned, but your pants dry soon enough and you get on with it - this was an excellent day out.

Enjoying illy coffee in Perth

Founded in 1933 by Italian Francesco Illy, this dark roast coffee is a favourite of mine since first introduced in Turkey by Germans, illy coffee is difficult for me to source in cafes in Perth, this is not like Italy or Germany where I can walking into a cafe at random for a illy coffee. 

illy produces only one blend made from Arabica beans from different parts of the world. This blend is available in three varieties – decaffeinated, normal roast and dark roast.

As a matter of course, illy coffee has been steadfast in its adherence to the highest quality standards. Coffee experts from the company visit different parts of the world to personally select the best Arabica varieties and prepare the unique illy blend. The processing of beans is done under highly controlled conditions.

In the 1980s, illy coffee stopped buying green coffee from global commodity markets. The company buys directly from the producers and has exclusive deals for Arabica coffee from Brazil, Colombia, India, Africa and other countries in Central America.

This practice brings two advantages – firstly, 100 percent assurance on quality and secondly, the cost benefits. Ground illy coffee is pressurised using insert gas instead of air. In fact, the technology of using inert gas in an automatic coffee machine was perfected and implemented for the first time by Francesco Illy.

The technology he used was the predecessor of the modern espresso machines. In order to preserve the precise flavours of each type of coffee, illy coffee company uses steel canisters are used for packaging.