Whilst understood, there isn’t too many businesses I have been involved with that doesn’t place timeframes on employees. There is an argument that tight schedules increases productivity but naturally increases stress at work, this is only feasible for short term projects as it tends to burn people out over the longer term.

So where does that leave us? I work in the engineering maintenance department on a copper and cobalt mine and our project based maintenance work requires tight timeframes and budgets. You need to find creative solutions to solve problems within budgetary frameworks and tight schedules. Now I understand that I am viewing this from my own perspective and I would like to work in a job where I had neither financial or time constraints – but I don’t. I would like to know who does and how they are able to produce a service or product in a business without any of these factors – now that would be a good job.

I love flying on the Airbus A380, I know airlines are looking to downsize to the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, but as a passenger, I find the A380 far superior for long haul travel. I understand Airbus is having trouble selling new aircraft and the A380 production may cease – that’s a shame.

I had a long-haul flight from Perth to Dubai on a 777-200 and I can’t say it was a great experience. The aircraft was operated by Emirates, a pretty decent airline but I still felt uncomfortable and cramped. Even with a aisle seat, I was able to stretch my legs but was bumped into by staff moving up and down the aisles.

The entertainment system didn’t work, the movie kept losing sound, the screen froze or I had issues loading programs. Maybe that just added to my annoyance, I gave the entertainment system away and used my own tablet to pass the time instead. I understand this is just an annoyance and not indicative of the aircraft design.

From Dubai to Frankfurt, the A-380 was a totally different experience, it was easy to get up and move around. I was four rows back from the front of the aircraft, people were standing in clear spaces chatting, walking around and generally looking relaxed. I felt the atmosphere was vastly improved, people genuinely looked better and appeared happier. My choice is definitely the A-380 even though the 787 has been promoted to ultra long-haul travel from point-to-point instead of the current hub-and-spoke model.

Was I semi-retired in my 40s? I would argue the time spent working in the recreational dive industry in my late 20s and early 30s was semi-retired. Although I received a salary, I felt like I was getting paid to have fun and it felt like I was saving money by not paying for diving experiences.

I was becoming a little concerned, I was now mid 30s and had to make a decision, do I continue in the low wage diving industry or do I return to a career? I chose to start a new career in training and education; this was really an extension of being a diving instructor with better pay, conditions, leave entitlements, job security and the all important retirement benefits.

During my dive instructor working period, I made some superannuation payments along with employer contributions on my behalf, but this was grossly under what I should have been putting away. I wasn’t salary sacrificing as I paid the bills but funds were tight, overseas holidays evaporated but most weeks were like a holiday as I led tours within Western Australia anyway.

But, during my mid 30s I was accepted into state government employment. I now had a pretty decent salary, eight weeks paid leave, one day per week working from home and I was accruing long service leave entitlements. Sure I was back in full-time employment but it was Monday to Friday with one day per week working from home.

Even better, I joined the Government Employees Superannuation Board (GESB) where my employer contributions were deposited into my account without the mandatory 15% contributions tax deducted. I was now accruing a decent retirement benefit with all the fantastic conditions attached to state government employment.

The eight weeks paid leave was the selling point, that’s two months off per year where I traveled overseas, dived the South East Asian region from Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia. There were also trips to Europe and the United States, no point getting all these holidays and sitting around home trying to save money.

Sure, I didn’t get paid to take people scuba diving anymore but my now more than generous salary easily covered that. I was still working as a part-time instructor at a number of dive centres as a part-time employee as well part ownership of a dive business for a while. I also renewed all my diving equipment, undertook renovations on my property, updated my car, made extra contributions to my retirement account, got myself a university education and then there was the travel both in the state, interstate and international.

These days I don’t work part-time in diving anymore although I keep my membership current for possible future references. My summer Saturdays are spent at the Royal Perth Yacht Club as a crew member racing a S97 cruiser. Whilst my dingy days are over, the Saturday afternoon race is a highlight of the week.

The club also has mid-week races with Saturday being very competitive, Thursday evening is the twilight race that really isn’t a race, this is a cruise with no spinnaker for down-wind legs, mostly inexperienced crews enjoying time on the Swan River. We generally refer to this race (of sorts) as a booze cruise with further drinks and BBQ up the club afterwards.

I am an idiot, I should have known better. Why would I request a coffee on an aircraft when we are experiencing turbulence?

Not only that, it was a full cup and it was going everywhere, it started by spilling out of the cup and onto the tray table. I’m scrambling for a napkin or some other absorbent material to clean it up before it spills over the edge. I’m too slow and unfortunately the closest absorbent material is my trousers, now I have two wet legs – great.

It is not so much the burning, sure the coffee is black but it isn’t that hot, I’m just annoyed with the large stain on my leg. This is the first leg of the flight with a stopover in Dubai, I have a the next flight after that and want to look reasonable and presentable as I will be catching trains and other local transport on my arrival in Frankfurt – damn.

Is the performance review dreaded, or is it really an opportunity to state your case? If you have a poor manager, an overbearing manager, a micro manager or just plain old incompetent manager – here is your chance.

I look forward to a performance review but in all reality I don’t get many opportunities in the workplace I am employed as they just don\’t perform performance reviews. Now they should as it is the state government that pays my salary and it is mandated in the public service code of conduct that a performance review is to be performed at least annually – it isn’t.

In the nine years I have been employed in the job, I have received just one performance review and although it was supposed to last an hour, I turned it into a two-hour meeting much to my manager’s discomfort. The role of the performance is to naturally review your performance but it shouldn’t descend into a chance for your manager to just direct criticism at you – this is generally what happens though.

The purpose of the performance review is to see how your job can be performed more efficiently, what your manager can do so you can increase your productivity, what problems they can sort out, what training you need and what systems can be improved. With the exceptions of the best managers, this generally doesn’t happen, if this was indeed the case, the performance review wouldn’t be dreaded.

Back in 2015 I wrote a post about why talent leaves and non-performers remain, the inspiration for this post was about a woman whom I wished to remain anonymous. I admired her self-belief, her inner confidence and her courage to take a huge risk with her career to back herself in to a senior role, she did really well and I wanted to write about her personal achievements.

I always knew she was talented, hard working and resourceful; she had leadership potential and all she needed was the right people to notice. I reposted this on my Facebook page as she had moved on again to a higher position and I wanted to remind her that I recognised her talent back then. I have also changed roles, so naturally my former colleagues saw this as a slight on themselves and I was back on the most hated list. I care little of their small-minded narrow views; had they even taken the time to read the post they would have worked out the publishing date was four years ago.

Attention to obvious detail, limited research skills and a small degree of comprehension would have informed this bunch of egotists this post wasn’t written about them. Instead they would rather sit around the office gossiping about something they know nothing about. What really made me laugh was I checked the analytics and there was a single redirection of this post from my Facebook page from that geographical location. I could count the page views from Australia so I knew they hadn’t even read the post themselves.

It is true, I do lack respect for my former colleagues, I find little redeeming qualities in them. Maybe they need to go back to watching YouTube videos all day and stop gossiping about topics where they are clearly out of their depth. I might not have written the post about them but clearly they believe they fit the stereotypical government employee – for once, they may actually be right.

I love creative writing and I feel I find topics to write about when I am sitting on a plane either heading to work or off on holiday.

Now I am back working on a mine site I find myself short of topics to write about, then when I am sitting in the business lounge ideas seem to flow. I get up at 4 am and despite going to bed early, I seem unable to write, I feel mentally drained. Before I returned to the mining industry I had an energy to write; ideas flowed easily. Now, by the time I arrive home, I am exhausted both physically and mentally and have trouble coming up with ideas – writer’s block so to speak. Sitting in the rear section of the aircraft way back in economy class, I easily find topics to write about again, I have my tablet out and I am able to put my thoughts into the notepad ready to transfer into my blog when I come online again.

When I think of a business partnership that can deliver value, I think of illy and Nespresso. Both are coffee suppliers and in competition with each other, but really in differing key markets.

Firstly, illy is a supplier of coffee beans to reputable cafes, their branding is well known and sought after. Also, illy coffee is able to be purchased by the container and consumed in your home coffee maker. This would boost the exposure of illy in key consumer markets and tie the product to a reputable distributor with scale and coverage. Living in Perth, I really lack the opportunity to purchase illy coffee from a reliable source. On my trips to South East Asia, I have better opportunities to drink illy espresso than I do in Perth.

I can purchase illy beans from my local supermarket; however, I have long retired my Delonghi coffee machine for the convenience of Nespresso pods. They have a reasonable selection along with a reliable coffee machine without the hassle of disposing of coffee grounds. Now, I just wait for the announcement of illy teaming up with Nespresso. Nespresso comes up with Limited Editions on a constant basis, an illy Limited Edition would be a pretty decent combination and a unique sales promotion.

Diving in 28C water, is a wetsuit really required? If we talk about exposure protection, now there is a different requirement. I was diving in the tropics in really warm water, my 75 minute dive wasn’t going to see me get cold, but what about skin protection? To my detriment, I never took that into account. I was diving around a pier with a little bit of current around, not a great deal but enough to make you think about it. If you are not thinking about what you are doing in regards to positioning, it is pretty easy to be washed up against the pier uprights damaging the growth or maybe getting stung, reducing your exposed skin is really important.

As we ascended in the shallows to off-gas on our safety stop, I nearly swam into a stinger, that would have earned me a nice mark on my face. As I broke the surface, it was almost impossible to move through the water without contacting the stingers in the water – they were everywhere. The boat was some distance away and I needed to swim backwards allowing my cylinder and BCD to deflect most of the tentacles away. 

As I only had a set of speedos on, I had plenty of flesh exposed and I was copping stings pretty much all over my body. As I approached the boat as he cruised in, the boat boy was telling me to take my fins off before trying to climb up the ladder. No chance, I dug my heels into the ladder rung to remove the bulk of my body from the water and out of the reach of those electric tentacles.

My usual procedure on these really small boats is to throw my equipment in the water and get in it on the surface for deep water or let it sink to the bottom for shallower water and put it on there. Normally getting out of my equipment underwater on the way to the surface so I can hand it directly to the boat crew is my normal procedure – not today. 

I tried to climb out of the water like it was toxic, for all intent purposes it was for me, I wanted no more exposed skin being touched by these box jellyfish. These stings are not going to cause respiratory shock to throw me into a coma like some box jellyfish are able to – still, these stingers really made me jump so lesson learnt. I might not need a wetsuit to keep warm – the exposure protection it provides is the real key for warm water diving.

I have walked past plenty of Victoria’s Secret retail stores in shopping malls and airports. I didn’t think it was much of a secret, Victoria wore undies and more than likely didn’t get around commando.

When I wandered in, well dragged in, not to my surprise I was the only male in the store. During my brief appearance I found they retailed all sorts of merchandise from fragrances, body lotions, cosmetics, backpacks and handbags. You kind of feel like a pervert in these stores even though I was accompanying a woman. I said already that I was brought in under duress right.