[sdiy] OT: Bad News

[Batz Goodfortune]

Y-ellow Tim.
         My heart felt condolences go out to you at this time of (insert 
expletive here) grief. I know only too well what that's like.

I'd employ you in a second if I had a business. Even if you had to spend 
most of your working day twiddling your thumbs. You'd think businesses had 
learnt by now. With so many of them now going to the wall because they 
down-sized just a little too much.

I was talking to the telstra linie who was here the other day trying to 
sort out which end of telstra's network had fucked my internet connection. 
He was saying that Ziggy (Telstra's CEO) had cut staff so much that there 
are now perhaps 50 people in the whole of Adelaide employed to fix the 
phones. Where in previous times they had plenty of margin for error, they 
are now run ragged from one job to the next. The guy seemed positively 
relieved to be in a situation where he could just stop and talk for a 
while. Subsequently they don't care about the phones and the customers 
complain about the service.

Telstra is a very contentious issue here at the moment because the 
government want to sell off the last 3rd of it to private hands. And the 
only reason telstra can get away with their continuing cost-cutting 
measures is because they are a monopoly that even microsoft couldn't 
obtain. Only in this country, it's legal. Every year the CEO, Ziggy 
Switkowski, (who was sacked as an exec with AT&T at one time) want's his 2 
million dollar performance bonus. The only way he can achieve that is by 
providing a huge dividend to the share holders. Since the telco market has 
plateaued out, the only way he can achieve that is by cutting staff and 
costs all the time. So everyone who works for telstra is constantly on 
notice and subsequently they don't give a shit about your phones.

Having a telstra technician come to your house to fix something is like a 
visit from Santa Clause. Not only is it a rare and often mythical event but 
you have to leave out a glass of milk and a piece of cake for them because 
if you don't treat 'em real well, your phone will probably never be fixed.

You would think these companies would have learnt by now. You have more 
staff than you need and plenty of resources to go round. That way you get 
things done. And if your customers like your service, they won't be 
constantly looking for alternatives. Keep your core customer base and you 
stay in business.

Unless of course your a monopolistic bully boy. Ah lah 
Sony/Microsoft/telstra. In which case you can quite happily kick your 
customers in the gusts all the time and say. "Yeah well what are you gonna 
do about it sucker?"

But I digress.

I'm sure you will find a better job anyway. Probably spoilt for choice in 
the finish. And maybe you'll find that in the long run, losing this job 
turned out to be a good thing rather than bad. Perhaps look for a job in 
the anti-terrorism sector? I hear business is booming there.

Be absolutely Icebox.

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