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Blogs by Vena McGrath
Monday 10 November 2008 - 12.10 am 11/9/2008 3:33:14 AM
Blogging issues/keyboard issues. Holidays and all that. I don’t have a lot of luck with my blogs. I have one of those ergonomic keyboards and I often wonder why I bothered to buy it, as it’s not really that user friendly. As an example, the keyboard is divided in two sections with a zoom button in the middle space (that I never use). The number 6 key is on the left hand side of the keyboard and as a touch typist of many years, I am used to using my right hand to hit the number 6. With this keyboard however the number 6 seems to have been a number the maker of the ergonomic keyboard had difficulty in placing, and in placing it on the left hand side he/she has made it a very difficult key to hit from any angle (without looking at the keyboard). I have and still do find this totally frustrating and, as the letters are wearing off the keys now I will no doubt very soon throw the blasted thing in the back cupboard as a ‘desperation spare’ and happily replace it.
I truly am greatly disappointed with this keyboard. As far as the blog bad luck, I have many times gone to the trouble of writing a fantastic blog (to my mind anyhow) only to somehow, when almost at the end of the typing, hit some key down the lower right hand side of the keyboard that totally closes down Authorsden and wipes out what I have blogged. Being a writer who is unable to just write a few lines, the blogs that I lose have invariably been long-winded. The air becomes blue as I thump my head on the desk and the pig in my head takes over and I refuse to begin again. Hence the sometimes longer than normal break between blogs.
Such an event happened just over a week ago and I had written a really passionate blog that was totally obliterated off the face of the internet world never to be seen again. All in a keystroke and I know not which key. Just as well because I would no doubt attack it with something lethal to disable it and possibly destroy the keyboard in the process. Ah but I forget. I have a laptop that I can change over to until a new keyboard comes home with me from the local computer shop. Hmmm wonder where that sledge hammer is????
Tonight I am blogging in word and will copy and paste when it’s complete (just to be on the safe side).
Hard to believe that it’s now November and the second week of that month that is so close to the Festive Season. I wonder how long it will be before the Christmas break we have in Australia fades into oblivion in this modern world where Christianity is often taking a back seat to what is deemed politically correct religious beliefs. We have Christmas Day as a public holiday and then we have the following day which is called Boxing Day.
Many people have the strange idea that Boxing Day has something to do with the sport boxing, when in fact it’s an old traditional day when people in better financial circumstances than others would give gifts to the poor. It was also a day when employers would visit employees with gifts or when employees would take an empty box to their workplace and there would be coins placed in the boxes as a gift for the families for the Christmas season from the employers.
In Australia today Boxing Day is when stores launch one of the year's biggest sales. Some Australian states—including New South Wales – are tightening restrictions on Boxing Day retail trading, deferring Christmas sales to the next day (December 27).
Boxing Day has become a significant sporting day in Australia (similar to Anzac Day celebrations). In Melbourne the Boxing Day Test Match is played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, often before the largest single day crowd of the Australian Cricket season. In Sydney it’s the day that the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race commences from Sydney Harbour. All of these events being held on Boxing Day don’t seem to be important enough to cover the cost of having this day a public holiday every year in this day and age. Don’t get me wrong; I would hate, as a worker, to lose this day off and yet I can see that perhaps in time to come the holiday will disappear.
This year Christmas Day is on a Thursday. So, most workers (except those in retail and essential services) will be home on paid leave for Thursday 25/12, Friday 26/12, Saturday 27/12, Sunday 28/12. Permanent Public Servants then have Monday 29/12 off as an extra holiday.
If for instance Christmas Day fell on a Monday permanent Public Servants would have Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday as public holidays. Then a couple of days later we have New Year’s Day as a public holiday and sometimes we are fortunate enough for this day to fall on a Friday or a Saturday or a Sunday or a Monday and once again we have a three day weekend with a paid public holiday. If our public holidays fall on a weekend we have the first working day of the next week as a public holiday to make up for it falling on a weekend when we don’t work anyhow. Seems fair enough and we all love it, but at what cost?
On January 26 each year (I hate that 6 key!) we have Australia Day and every now and then we are fortunate for it to fall on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday or Monday. Again, it’s a 3-day weekend for us lucky non-retail/essential workers.
Our next public holidays are at Easter. Now that’s always a long weekend because of Good Friday. As Easter Sunday is a Sunday and we don’t work on Sundays, we have Monday off as a public holiday to make up for the Sunday. So every Easter it’s a 4-day weekend for us lucky non-retail/essential workers.
When Easter falls in April we look forward to another public holiday which is Anzac Day. This day always falls on April 25 so there are a number of years when it’s just a day off during the week. But every now and then it’s a 3-day weekend for us lucky non-retail/essential workers.
Then comes June and this month always brings us a long weekend with the Queen’s Birthday public holiday. It’s not her birthday but it’s a day traditionally set aside for Australians to pretend to be monarchists. It appears that we just follow the UK with the timing of this holiday which it’s stated came about because there weren’t enough winter holidays and it also was around the time when the Queen announced her Birthday Honours List. The Queen’s Birthday is actually on 21 April.
After the June long weekend we have a long wait until October for the next public holiday and again it’s a long weekend. This day is called Labour Day and is another Australian traditional holiday of long standing. By the time this weekend arrives we are all really looking forward to that extra day off and realise that the next public holiday won’t be until Christmas.
So during a normal year in Sydney Australia, we have 10 public holidays (that is equal to 2 week’s work for an office worker who works 5 days a week). Add to that the days off some workers can have if they work under an award that allows flexible working hours.
Some workers are then entitled to three days off in a 6-week period but they have to work an extra 21 hours during that period to have those days off. So, if you have a heavy workload and you work more than 7 hours a day, you can accrue enough hours to have 3 days off running that are joined to a weekend. People are not supposed to use this as a means to have extra time off work unless they actually do have good reason to work extra hours because of their workload. But of course one can see how easily this can be manipulated to suit the individual unless it is policed which I don’t believe it is to any great extent. The 3 days off also have to be approved by a supervisor whether they are taken singularly or in a group.
And to top it off we could be entitled to 4 weeks annual leave on full pay each year. If you did work flexible hours and took advantage every 6 weeks of having 3 days off, then you have your 10 public holidays and your 4 weeks annual leave and any sick leave and FACS leave and other forms of leave available to you, the working year isn’t that long after all. It just seems like it is.
I doubt that anyone would say they had too much time off in a year because most of our jobs are so mind numbingly boring that most of us feel like caged animals day after day and the only thing that keeps us partly sane and able to get up and at it each day, is the thought that not too far down the track there will be a day or more extra that we won’t have to go to work.
I’m no mathematician but I figure it would work out that about 2.5 months of a working year is actually holidays, either flex days, public holidays or recreation leave. It costs the country a lot of money every year for all the workers that fall into the category of being entitled to that amount of time off (on full pay). And in years gone by most of those workers would have also received a holiday loading on top of their 4 weeks annual leave pay.
Looking at the statistics of paid holiday leave time one wonders why many people working in Sydney feel so down and out. I guess it’s a sign of the robotic work lives that a lot live, the amount of stress even just getting to the job and home again, the lack of adequate infrastructure between home and the job and the lack of motivation and incentive and management interest in whether they are alive or not.
Sometimes I think the only time workers are even noticed is when they don’t turn up for work for a few days. Most probably aren’t even missed for the first day or two. I wonder how many workers can remember the last time they were actually praised for their work or even noticed that anyone seemed remotely interested in what they were doing?
Roll on Christmas holidays I say. Our office will be closed from 22 December to 9 January 2009 and everyone possible is expected to take that time off work unless of course they are required to be there part of the time or don’t have any recreational leave to use for the days that aren’t public holidays. For my part I will be taking all of that time off work plus the rest of my recreational leave I have accrued, which should take me up to almost the end of January. And how will I feel after all that time off when I return to work? That’s easy to answer. I will be on countdown to Easter and the next long weekend.
On a brighter note. Interest rates have fallen once again and hopefully the banks will pass most if not all of that relief on to the people with backbreaking mortgages and other financial ropes around necks. Petrol prices have finally started to fall and yet we are still being ripped off. We have been brought to our knees and the bottom is falling out of the economy and many jobs are going to be lost. What is given with one hand is taken away with the other and nothing ever changes. Are we heading down the road to another World War? Heaven help us all if there is because here in Australia almost everything we buy comes from overseas.
Enough doom and gloom. Until next time I will put my thoughts to bed.
