The Mares icon dive computer is a piece of rubbish. You are overcharged for a second-rate dive computer with a fancy screen offering little else. I owned the first series, the one before the gas transmitter was included and I regret purchasing it.

Ok, sure, I am annoyed that this expensive dive computer failed to live up to marketing hype. Well before the premature failure of my high priced dive computer that failed to deliver, I wasn’t happy with it. The fact was, it was an awful dive computer with a fancy screen and Mares wasn’t interested in offering warranty – they just wanted to sell me a new computer. 

The algorithm unduly penalises a diver who is diving less than an ultra-conservative profile, you have to be safe, we all understand that, you have to be realistic though. You purchase a dive computer and you start diving side-by-side with a diver until the decompression burden is too great so you ascend and miss a great portion of the dive – yeah right. The guy you are diving with maintains his depth, see some amazing sights while you are off-gassing in shallow waters – loser. I wont be replacing this useless wrist weight with another icon computer, I will not be purchasing another Mares dive computer ever again.

I first came across illy coffee in the late 90s while living in Turkey. The German clientele of the dive shop where I was employed would bring some tins out for the Turkish owner who had spent some time living in Berlin. He no doubt picked up the love of illy coffee whilst living in Germany, it was a good introduction for me, he was famous for not sharing though.

When I first tried to purchase illy coffee in Australia, I nearly passed out after what the importer was charging, naturally the retailers tried to pass the costs on to the consumer. I contacted the Australian distributor for information on retailers in my area that hopefully don’t gouge consumers – they never even bothered replying, such was their attitude of nonchalance.

Most cafes in Perth do not stock illy coffee, this is a shame as I am seeing plenty of illy coffee houses in South East Asia to support my coffee addiction. I love nothing more than to grab an espresso on the run of this flavoursome coffee blend.

These days I can purchase tins of illy at my local Woolworths and Coles supermarkets. Whilst double the price of other coffee brands, it is still the best option around and half the price of what David Jones was retailing illy for. 

We have been constantly lectured on the virtues of multi-tasking, but is it really effective? So what is multi-tasking? Walking and chewing gum? Walking and farting? Taking a leak in the shower or putting on make-up or shaving in the car on the way to work? To my way of thinking, this is a time management issue – instead, why not get out of bed 15 minutes earlier? Then there is always driving and texting, should we really be promoting activities that cause series injury or death?

In management circles, multi-tasking is being increasingly viewed as an ineffectual strategy as the potential to end up with a bunch of half completed and shoddy tasks ultimately results. We came onto a nightshift in an underground mine and there was broken down machines parked in front of the workshop, in the workshop and alongside the workshop – this was a huge hit to productivity. The leading-hand ordered the mechanics to repair individual machines and despite my protests, we all set off to work.

After three hours of hard labour and all machines still parked up, the leading-hand feeling the pressure was open to suggestions. We worked out which machine could be back and running first and hit the job with man-power, we split into two teams and concentrated the work effort. When the repairs were complete, that machine rolled back into production and the team moved onto the next task, when that machine was back working the team hit the next job. Machines now rolled out of the workshop at regular intervals and the production management was reasonably happy. A concentrated effort was the best strategy in this situation and just about every situation.

Learning organisations are the current management solution gaining traction solving complex training and development issues; learning organisations generate environments open to creative thought and innovation embracing solutions to ongoing problems through team interaction. The learning organisation acquires knowledge innovating at a pace to not only survive but to thrive in a rapidly changing environment to gain a sustainable competitive advantage.

Learning organisations create a culture encouraging and supporting continuous employee learning, applying critical thinking to problems encouraging risk taking to generate innovation. The learning organisation operates in a blame free environment accepting mistakes valuing employee contributions. The learning organisation encourages experimental learning gained through team experiences; finally, the learning organisation disseminates the knowledge throughout the whole organisation incorporating daily activities.

What I like about the American psyche is their ability to engage in business enterprise with their entrepreneurial spirit. The United States now has a service based economy; you exclaim, that’s not exactly true. Unfortunately the majority of their manufacturing base has been eroded and transferred overseas by business executives who have received large bonus payments to sell shareholders and workers out.

Design is still undertaken onshore, technology and innovation still rank highly but intellectual property and not manufacturing capability dominates the economy now. Currently, the US market is structured around consumption with retailing, after sales service, logistics and distribution the primary economic strength. Manufacturing in the US is pretty much redundant these days, although not entirely the case, technology and manufacturing capability technology continues to be exported overseas.

Americans are traditionally very strong at marketing and sales, this once again harps back to retail and services, the United States is very much a consumer driven economy. Financial services has been the growth industry, this has however been their undoing in many respects, this was the downfall of American manufacturing manufacturing. The purpose of finance is to raise capital to fund business activities and enterprise, by sending manufacturing and the respective technology offshore, economic capability is inadvertently lost.

The flow of international funds into a relatively stable US economy tends to mask the underlying issues and their causes – they just don’t produce anything of substance anymore. As Wall Street is increasingly under pressure as the financial hub of the world; European, Asian and Middle Eastern financial centres are threatening the dominance of American finance and the viability of the United States as a superpower. 

If the Singaporean MRT isn’t the best underground rail system in the world, then I would like to see what is. With the British influences in Singapore, I’m guessing their MRT is modeled on the London underground.

The rail system is new unlike the London underground or Berlin U-Bahn, the carriages are all interconnected and the system is driverless. As a passenger, you are able to wander up to the leading carriage and watch your progression through the tunnels. During the non-peak times, you are able to glance down the carriages to view the train powering along through the tunnels also – it is kind of fun.

The platforms are shielded preventing anybody from falling down on the tracks, that rules out suicides too. The train comes to a halt with the carriage doors opening before the main doors, the floors are marked to position commuters so all inbound passengers wait to the side causing no congestion to departing passengers, free WiFi runs throughout the MRT system – everything about the Singaporean MRT is great.

What I love about Dilbert is how close it represents not only my workplace; I am guessing this pretty mush represents everyone’s workplace to some degree. Written by Scott Adams, the comic is written loosely based on the Peter principle, that is people are promoted to their level of incompetence and no longer promoted to move them out of the workflow. 

The Dilbert principle is people who were never competent are promoted to management to limit the damage they can do –  that’s the government process.  What I have viewed in so many workplaces is the high performers use this experience to move on to a better position usually in a better business. The mediocre performers hold on to their positions at all costs creating roadblocks, lowering productivity, not sharing important information and building discontent to achieve their goals of destroying workplace culture – he pretty much nailed it here.

A Sunday afternoon and we are sitting around deciding what we should do; it isn’t a difficult decision to make, we are off wine tasting. For me, a short 30 minute drive has us in the Swan Valley wine region. Whilst this isn’t the premier wine district in Western Australia, some pretty reasonable wines are produced on old growth vines.

There are plenty of choices of wineries for lunch, this is a pretty popular weekend activity and places are sometimes hard to find. I prefer to limit myself to wine tasting; in summer, I’ll start on whites and move onto reds. On a cold and rainy winter’s day, it will just be reds. My choice of red is cabernet sauvignon; plenty of wineries offer shiraz which are normally pretty good and I do like a petit verdot.

There are art galleries, a couple of chocolate factories, a reasonable selection of coffee and then there are the restaurants attached to the wineries. A Sunday spent up in the valley with a trip to a gallery, some wines and lunch is a pretty good Sunday – happy to be alive.

What I thought was normal is BYO in restaurants, that is bring your own drinks to the restaurant. When I have had European, Canadian and American friends over, I grab a bottle of wine to take to a restaurant – they were in disbelief. 

I had never thought much about it until I saw their reactions and realised this is not the norm overseas. The advantage is you have the ability to choose a bottle of wine you have in your cellar for the specific evening such as an aged cabernet sauvignon or shiraz. 
Western Australia has strict liquor laws, a business has to apply to the government for a licence to serve alcohol, these licences are expensive and normally not granted to all but the largest restaurants. 

Even licensed restaurants allow BYO although they may charge corkage, that is a fee per bottle to open the said bottle, some restaurants charge per person for corkage but this can be open to negotiation. I have never returned to restaurants that have charged corkage per person after discussion have failed – even if they were a non drinking patron. A restaurateur has to ask themselves, what is this customer worth to me? For $1.50 per person, is this worth damaging a relationship that will result in no repeat business? I think not.

It’s unbelievable, I was employed in a government department and I, along with some notable others worked long and hard to create a positive workplace culture. It took just one promotion and some empire building to destroy all the work we had done.

Now we have a fragmented workplace full of mistrust and backstabbing, the empire builder sought to push his own agenda at the expense of everyone in the workplace. This will all change, the corruption enquiry brought the less than ethical practices to a head. A new manager has been appointed, the former manager will be moved sideways without any further thought of promotion. What I love the most is the sulky actions of those involved, the changes that have been made and the reasons why. They might have escaped the corruption enquiry but the damming investigation took them down, their time is up and change is coming.