I never look forward to a Perth to Bali or Bali to Perth flight, this isn’t a normal airline clientele and flights never appear to be routine. Today I was hopeful, this was a day families would be attending luncheons at the resort and an empty flight awaited me. I imagined flying on Christmas day to be a fairly quiet flight based on previous experiences.

I recall a Garuda flight on Christmas day from Bali to Perth to be almost empty except for half a dozen people on board, this was a decade ago. This was a midday flight and I guess everyone was busy having Christmas lunch in their Balinese resort. After a long lunch at a resort, I was taking a later flight, this was a 18:20 flight and I was expecting similar circumstances. In the boarding lounge much to my surprise, there were more people than I expected, but still, this wasn’t looking like a full flight and I was pretty happy.

I was feeling pretty relaxed during boarding, then the chaos started. A whole bunch of people with unruly children arrived late, I was already seated, still feeling good at this stage and thought they were ready to close the door. That’s when the horrible screaming, crying and poorly disciplined children and the mayhem erupted. I quickly reached for my tablet and headphones and cranked the volume up in an attempt to drown out the noise – this was to no avail.

The whole duration of the flight had screaming children running up and down the aisles, children climbing over everything, kicking seats, pushing the flight attendant button, yelling, turning the overhead reading lights on and off, constant crying and of course the all too frequent scream. This group of parents just let these kids run riot for the whole flight, this was a flight that had descended into chaos.

I’m not a parent so maybe I’m a little intolerant to parent’s issues but I also know bad parenting too. We had certain standards of behaviour as kids growing up in the 70s, we knew what we were allowed to do and what we weren’t and we knew the consequences of not behaving. Christmas day is for the kids and today they certainly did as they wished.

I was recently discussing company values with a friend as she is employed for less than an ethical company. She lamented the owner’s lack of regard for worker rights; ultimately she was true and correct.

I responded with my analysis of the organisation that fulfilled the obligations of a capitalist business inherited by the owner paying scant regard to ethical values, the triple bottom line, sustainability and corporate social responsibility her company met none of this criteria.

The business is there solely to make the owner richer; he pays the minimum rates of pay to stop people seeking employment elsewhere – that’s about it. He has created a culture of blame that lacks innovation, accountability and motivation. No need to discuss modern management practices and the role of stakeholders in decision making – he just isn’t interested.

Whilst economist Milton Friedman claimed the sole role of the organisation is purely to make a profit in the late 1960s; I feel the era of stakeholder involvement and corporate social responsibility has advanced to such a degree since he made his remarks that businesses now ranked on their sustainability programs now compete on their green credentials.

Diving is overpriced in Bali, there is no doubt about that. I really haven’t done enough diving around Amed and that needs to change. There is plenty of good dive sites midway up the island, all to often, my trips involve diving after a few days relaxing in the south and I should spend more time staying in Amed as I really like they area and I get out of Kuta.

What I really need to organise is a long weekend away dedicated to diving during the cold and rainy Perth winter. I often threaten to take a long weekend diving up around Amed but never seem to get it organised, maybe 2017 is the year I actually get this short dive weekend organised. Tulumben is the best known area in Bali for diving owing to the Liberty wreck but just down the road is the small village of Amed, this is a pretty good and underestimated area of Bali diving. 

There was the planking craze that had everybody mimicking the trend. The ice bucket challenge was pretty popular too – everybody had to get in on this craze. To be fair, the ice bucket challenge was a great idea devised to raise awareness for motor neuron disease and raise money for this worthwhile charity. What I hope doesn’t take off is roofing – this is seriously dangerous. There was no skill involved in either the planking or ice bucket challenge but everyone had fun, this is not the case with roofing. This is not an activity to be copied – there wouldn’t be too many second chances here.

Russian Instagram sensation Angela Nikolau is probably one of the more famous exponents of roofing. Whilst this is no doubt linked to her stunning good looks, balance, poise and athleticism; this modern day adventurer doesn’t appear to have any fears. I have to admit, when I scroll through some of her photographs, I feel more than a few pangs of anxiety.

Check out her Instagram feed at https://www.instagram.com/angela_nikolau/?hl=en

True leaders don’t want yes men; that is all great in theory but most of us have managers that are surrounded by hand picked yes men who will do anything to undermine high quality employees to bolster their position. 

How many of us work with true leaders instead of petty managers using their position to manipulate workers for their own means? Generally, such managers are weak leaders too frightened to employ top notch candidates who would be considered a threat to their shaky abilities. Instead, they surround themselves people of limited ability who remain loyal to that manager as they know they will not be likely to pick up a similar position in another company. 

You need to play these guys as hard as you can, they believe that you are weak and will not confront them directly. In military terms, a frontal attack is a poor choice, instead flanking and penetration tactics straight out of the German WWII military manual stand the test of time. You identify weak points and attack the weakness, they try to reinforce the weakness and then expose another flank, you move again as they try to defend that position. 

If you adapt such tactics for business, this ensures you counter-attack from a defensive position and not leave yourself exposed. The German military were not stupid enough to attack France by going over the Maginot Line; instead, they swung around through the poorly defended Belgium and attacked the flank at their weakest point in a Blitzkrieg maneuver. Well, you need to adapt the same tactics and use maneuver to your advantage. 

You need to build alliances to counter their unethical tactics and use game theory to determine your desired outcome and work backwards to counter their every move. That way you will have insights into the way they play the game and be ready to counter their now poorly and hastily planned defensive moves stifling any further offensive moves. Then you have them.

Flying Jetstar is a bit of a lottery, a short flight to Bali is usually uneventful even though flights can be delayed, I don’t mind as that it is a budget flight. As the trip is a short three and half hours, how uncomfortable can it be? You have to be careful, these budget carriers can be more expensive after all charges are considered so you need to take baggage and inflight food costs into account.

You don’t need a meal for such a short flight; no need for complimentary drinks, there are plenty of opportunities for that in Bali and you can load your own in-flight entertainment onto a tablet. For the return trip, I couldn’t believe my luck, apparently Jetstar had a number of maintenance issues and had to seconder Qantas aircraft. 

So I could view their in-flight entertainment and enjoy a glass of wine with my very basic meal; Jetstar was in a little trouble and it was Qantas to the rescue. I was told by friends that Jetstar tried to charge them for extra services; get your maintenance schedule right and you don’t have to provide upgraded services for no extra cost.

Fairfax Media is on a downward spiral, decreased revenue and journalists fired and moved on – this old style media empire is not adjusting well to the information age. The internet has taken most of the revenue that classified advertising earned through newspaper sales. Now unable to finance quality journalism; this is what we end up with – an inferior product.

What is now churned out of Fairfax could barely be described as journalism at times, unfortunately the journalists all left when they were given their marching orders and one presumes with decent redundancy packages. Along with The Guardian, Fairfax media has a strong left leaning, that in itself isn’t a problem as we require balanced reporting in an open press even if it is somewhat skewed and one dimensional. 

Otherwise, what we end up with is a biased press that is concentrated in the hands of a small number of proprietors with extensive influence. Unfortunately the fact is Fairfax’s clientele doesn’t wish to subscribe for articles and Google and Facebook is picking up the former revenue that the Fairfax group once collected – the fate of Fairfax is heading to game over.     

I can’t recall the number of discussions I’ve heard about teaching dive computers as opposed to teaching dive tables. I believe in teaching dive computer use to post entry-level divers; I don’t believe in overloading entry-level divers with knowledge development and motor skill exercises too early. The objective is to build knowledge, skills and attitudes known in the training field as KSAs in staged and carefully sequenced events to reinforce learning.

Firstly, I despise the term advanced diver for a person who has just completed their first four certification dives under instruction and then a further five dives under supervision for a total of nine dives to call themselves an advanced diver. What I do advocate is teaching dive computer use to level-two divers, this includes general computer operation, algorithms, basic decompression theory, multilevel dive planning, ascent rates, extended safety stops (including deep stops), gas usage and what to do if you end up in decompression.

You work hard to earn a living, you save your money and you become proficient in a specific activity only to be dudded when you go on holiday by lazy resort staff. It’s not right when you fly 12 hours with a further 4 hour combined bus trip, jeepney and trike ride to end up at your dive destination to be rewarded with a divemaster who sees this private charter as an opportunity to take it easy.

When you have a boat to yourself, albeit a small banca, you are paying for the boat crew and dive guide and none of the costs are shared. Needless to say, this really grates on me as a longtime client of the business. So where does this lead me? I three choices – I can complain, I can accept this and do nothing or I can never return to this business – I am currently contemplating the third option. I did complain and told my dive guide that I didn’t come all this way for 40 minute dives so he still ended up sitting in the boat after 40 minutes and I dived the final third of the dive by myself – outstanding.

I am a reasonably frequent international traveler who flies economy and not business class. What really irks me about economy is the inability of the airlines to police carry-on baggage limits. I arrive at my seat and all the overhead lockers are stuffed full of hand baggage, the fight for space slows down both boarding and exiting the aircraft.

Everybody knows the hand baggage limits and a large majority wantonly abuse the limits inconveniencing fellow flyers. Fortunately, my carry-on luggage is below the 7kg weight limit and well under-sized so I can stow under the foot rest of the seat in front of me. Really, it is up to the airlines to enforce these rules to ensure self-centred and arrogant passengers do not ruin the flight experience of fellow passengers who actually do the right thing. The airlines need to get together, this is currently being abused by way too many people.