I was diving in Subic Bay and introducing myself to the people on the dive boat. People are generally pretty reserved as we all climb on the boat, I prefer to instigate a conversation with individuals as I am fairly conversant with proceedings and how our morning will pan out.

We were chatting about finance as I was asking about people\’s careers, I really enjoy asking about what people do for a living. I meet a diverse range of people on dive boats, they tend to be successful types with high disposable incomes and I like making friends outside of my usual channels. As I spoke further to him, he was recruiting for his finance operations, I was somewhat surprised to learn he was claiming 2000% returns. I am generally happy with 10% returns for a ten year rolling period, sure I would appreciate higher returns but one sees just over 5% as a fairly standard yardstick.

He also requested time to make back any losses, he explained that this doesn’t normally happen but should it, he required at least six months to recoup losses. I would have thought a high risk/high return strategy would generate some losses from time to time but he appeared adamant this wasn’t the case. Despite his constant assurances, I was not under any threat of sending my hard earned money to him to speculate with. I have always thought there is no lower return than not getting your money back and my personal risk/reward factors are firstly determined by capital preservation and secondly a return on capital.

When I first finished my trade back in 1989 and was on my first major project I was given some advice by the Leading Hand that was very simple. It was “make a decision and stick by it, even if it is the wrong decision.”

I have also heard the term ‘frequently wrong but never in doubt” used and while you are able to amend the process the implementation period – that is decisiveness. So how did this advice come about? Simple really, the Maintenance Superintendent on the project was terribly indecisive, to the point of making no decision and becoming frozen with inaction. What we needed was leadership, we needed support and we needed action – we got none of that. He was a really nice guy, I liked him but we just couldn’t rely on him. Even worse, he lost the respect of the guys under him but what torpedoed his career, well at least at this company was the loss of support by the upper management.

Naturally, we all like to make the correct decision every time under pressure from cost and time restraints but we will be wrong from time to time. In my MBA education we undertook a whole unit on decision-making. However, this training came close to twenty seven years after I received this excellent advice, I was involved in plenty of decision-making in that period and I heeded the advice of my then Leading Hand and made sure I was decisive. During our education, we didn’t have a definitive text on decision-making that we could reference although we had plenty of academic reading to perform that didn’t really hit the mark in my opinion. I believe MBA education is heavily based on analysis utilising models to aid that process and post graduation I will draw up a decision-making grid to assist future workplace decisions.

The Suunto Vyper dive computer has been around a long time, they were an industry changing computer. Prior to their introduction, the favoured dive computer for dive professionals was the Aladin Pro computer; then everywhere I dived, the Suunto Vyper led computer sales among professionals and new divers alike – the Vyper was strapped to every diver’s wrist.

The Vyper was smaller in dimensions to the Aladin computers, the algorithm was the then new de Winke Reduced Gradient Bubble Model (RGBM) as oppossed to the Aladin’s Buehlmann neo-Haldanean model. The favourite feature of many divers was the safety stop count-down timer, an altitude compensation setting along with a personal compensation setting, nitrox was standard and you could set a depth alarm. Like the Aladin Pro, the Vyper was a clear leader of its era, the Vyper is still in production and whilst now super-seeded, the Vyper is still a pretty decent dive computer for specific dive applications.

I couldn’t believe it, waiting around the departure lounge of Adelaide Domestic Airport I wanted to go and have a look at the international departure area. Upon our arrival in Adelaide we viewed the international departures already, there was a 22:30 flight to Dubai, our arrival at 22:05 was the last arrival for the night and the terminal was all but closed.

When we headed back to the airport after a week in Adelaide, I had expected the airport to be busier, I was terrible mistaken. At 2:00 in the afternoon, the international departures room was closed, lights off and barricades erected preventing entry. I thought how unusual, how many international flights a day does Adelaide have?

Due to its central location on the southern coast of Australia the real value of the airport is domestic travel I guess. I began some online research of international departures and arrivals at Adelaide finding there was generally one arrival and two departures daily. The three major east coast cities of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane service the major routes to the east and north of the country from South America, the United States and destinations such as Hong Kong. Perth on the west coast is ideal for flying to both southern Africa, Asia and Europe.

No one is flying any further south than Adelaide, of course Hobart is further south than Adelaide as the island is located south of Victoria so a short flight to Melbourne pretty much opens up the world for Tasmanian locals. Adelaide is pretty much a regional hub these days and with longer range aircraft already being built and many more planned, Adelaide Airport looks like further slipping into obscurity.

What happens when a career stalls? Many people have been that predicament so they are faced with two basic choices – stay put or move.

I don’t have that choice at the moment, my career has stalled and a move back to the private sector isn’t a real option. I still have a job so I am in a better position than most people so I can’t complain. But I want to progress and that isn’t happening for me right now, the group of people who don’t actually have the authority to hold power are doing a fantastic job of holding the power. The problem for them is we have an audit trail and their impropriety can be uncovered.

Reviving a stalled career can be achieved by uncovering impropriety, dishonesty and corruption. This doesn’t make you popular and you aren’t going to be nominated for any awards; but when you are dealing with public funds, your loyalty is not covering up co-worker’s indiscretions but defending the public interest.

I thought I wouldn’t be changing employers, so I had to not only expose corruption, but I have to ensure I maximise my role in uncovering corruption to revive my stalled career. Changing careers is actually easier than moving forward in the government, especially moving back to private enterprise. So changing careers is my best chance of progression – I am happy with that.

How is this so? They know that I have uncovered their impropriety, the rest of the team are oblivious as to what is happening. They don’t fully understand the training process from funding, allocation of funds, resulting, personnel management, training design and training reporting. They are being bribed with preferential treatment and a status they haven’t earned or deserved.

They have reduced duties, less stress, increased remuneration and promotions beyond what they could have ever expected. They are supportive of such actions as it is in their own personal interests but they need to overcome their own personal interests and think of the interests of the students in their care and the people who fund their employment.

I can’t say I think much of their coffee, but the big advantage of a large corporation such as Starbucks is their access to WiFi when traveling around. The best part is, you don’t even need to step in their retail outlet, you can stand outside and access their WiFi from across the street. What I do respect about a company like Starbucks is their marketing, their brand is popular, their product is ordinary but their coverage is extensive, they really have outlets pretty much all over the world.

I think the last time I purchased Starbucks coffee was in New York city wandering around lower Manhattan one morning. No doubt there is better coffee in NYC, I just didn’t know where to look. I also purchased some Starbucks bottled ice coffee for a road trip from Daytona Beach to New Orleans in 2014 after the trip to NYC. So, I guess I can say I am a Starbucks customer of sorts justifying my use of their WiFi connection, although I prefer not to drink their coffee if I can avoid it.

Smokers are arrogant, they only care about their personal satisfaction and hold everybody else’s well-being in contempt. This is a well known and established fact; I am glad I live in Australia where the rights of non-smokers are now no longer infringed upon by smokers.

Increase nicotine taxes, price smoking out of the realm of most budgets, significantly  increase the cost of insurance, limit areas where smoking is allowed including open air venues and locations and prevent smoking during work hours. Why do the smokers get to take off and take a smoke every hour when everyone else has to keep working? This must include only allowing smoking during allocated times – no excuses.

I am constantly appalled at the behaviour of smokers and the need for anti-smoking rules. On my trips to South-East Asia where pretty much no rules exist out of the major centres, I come to understand why such anti-smoking rules apply. When in bars and restaurants people just light up and blow smoke all over you, I have to go home and take a shower and change my clothes as the stench of cigarette smoke leached into everything.

Then there is the health issues, you choose to poison yourself; that’s fine, but as a smoker with with a smoking related illness you should be made to pay a significant premium for health, that includes public health services that prevents non-smokers from the poisons they exhale. What gives you the right to blow your cancer causing smoke all over me – fuck you.

Described as a hard look at the soft practice of management, Henry Mintzberg crafts a masterful analysis of contemporary management practice seeking to identify solutions in current management education.

Feeling that the conventional Master of Business Administration programs were teaching students more about the science of management than the art and craft of management, Mintzberg seeks to help organisations survive and thrive. Mintzberg explores the concept of management as the practice of blending craft, viewed as experience with art, viewed as insight and science, viewed as analysis. Released as a sequel to The Nature of Managerial Work that sought to dispel the myth of overly analytical managers, this current work examines soft management skills lacking in current managers.

Mintzberg described his personal growing disconnect between the practice of management taught in classrooms of the leading universities and what was really going on in the corporate world. Ironically for myself, I have undertaken all the soft management units to yet no avail. You really need the scientific knowledge and skills of cost accounting, financial accounting, finance, quantitative analysis, macro-economics, micro-economics and decision making to firstly get a shot at certain jobs and to gain promotion to coveted positions.

My gripe is different, I constantly deal with people who have been promoted beyond their abilities the lacking the prerequisite technical and quantitative skills. Instead I see those possessing only the ability to build close relationships with people in power as their main skill-set. Soft management skills are needed in business, no argument there but they can’t be rated higher than technical skills. We all know what that means, promotions in my workplace are based on friendships and favours, not on skills, so unless you are part of the crony club – better to look for promotions elsewhere. As the old adage goes, if you are not on the inside then you are on the outside.

I hate mobile phones, I dislike listening to mobile phone conversations on the train, in line at the check-out or people weaving down the street texting and I especially hate mobile phones and driving.

I hate the pure arrogance and selfishness of people willing to risk people’s lives so they can carry out their bullshit conversations. How do I know they are bullshit conversations? Well, I have to overhear these conversations when on the train, bus, coffee shop or supermarket. Apparently these conversations and text messages are more important than the safety of other road users – these people need to take a long hard look at themselves.

Fifty isn’t the new fourty, I have learned that although in my mind I believe I am cool and relevant. The only problem in this personal delusion being that I was never cool and relevant in the first place. I was already suspicious that this wasn’t the case – I guess I can’t even fool myself anymore.

You come to the realisation that your life is more than half over; well, that isn’t the case if you are planning to live to one hundred I suppose. Since the average male life expectancy in Australia is eighty two then you have reached the halfway point of your life at 41; so based on these scratchy calculations I guess I am already on the downward slide.

Most days I wake up and my kidneys hurt, my right side more than my left. I went from having brilliant sight to wearing glasses to laser vision to still requiring glasses to read. It takes about thirty minutes for my eyes to focus in the morning; not so brilliant went I shave in front of the mirror and miss patches only to identify this on the drive to work. I really should carry an electric razor in the car to fix up all the mistakes.

I\’m still running and certainly feel better upon returning. I really do feel better about myself after getting up and heading off in the morning, I hardly run in the evening now although I know I should. My pace isn’t great and I guess my running style less so – still, I enjoy the opportunity to think as I run.

As  I walk down the stairs after getting up, my right foot aches with every step, my left knee clicks and I’m still moving gingerly as my perennially torn left hamstring tightens up. If I can convince myself that this isn’t hurting and decide to head out for a run, I really enjoy it, this isn’t a chore and then home for a short and sharp weights session.

That being said, I am really enjoying this time in my life. I have changed jobs, taken on a career change and with that new challenges. Despite some minor knee and foot issues, I am still pretty mobile and hit the gym, ride my bike and run (albeit slowly now) and I look forward to the next phase of my life because for me, life couldn’t get much better.