Sitting on the flight waiting for the doors to close, cross-checks performed and push-back to occur is one of the many times I gain ideas, I am ready to write as I busily tap away on the screen of my tablet.

There are plenty of typing and grammatical mistakes but I don’t mind, the purpose is to get as much of the story laid on the screen before my mind begins to tire. Besides, a touch screen is going to cause you problems, but the editing phase can iron out those faults later. I once had to undertake a creative writing session during a professional development day. I was looking forward to that session but it turned out to be a session to write about anything that came into our mind. I was hoping for creative writing strategies, now I will need to seek other methods to gain this knowledge.

However, this is far from my mind at the moment, the cabin is hot, really hot and the Captain has come over the intercom to explain why this is so. Despite wearing a thin long sleeved shirt, I am sweating and concentration is difficult, let’s get this aircraft cranked up and this show on the road as we are all feeling uncomfortable. The Captain informs the tail turbine running the electrics and air-conditioning failed just as the aircraft touched down in Perth at midday, it is now close to midnight and the problem is not yet resolved, I call bullshit, this wouldn’t have just happened.

This is not the fault of the maintenance crews in Perth, we all know South African Airways is poorly managed and on the brink of insolvency so no work order would have been released. Seven CEOs in four years is pretty indicative of a structural failure of the SAA organisation, it is clear that maintenance is being neglected in order to cut costs – I have seen this all before.

A term that really annoys me is the Japanese military term of Comfort Women, utter bullshit. This is a sanitised term to describe forced prostitution and sexual slavery. Comfort for who? Not them – that’s for sure.

The Japanese military was complicit in organising murder, that is a proven fact under war crimes trial proceedings. By the very nature of their actions, Japanese soldiers were not only given free reign to rape and pillage, they were encouraged to do so by their leaders. The key military leadership going all the way to the emperor was responsible for the acts of atrocity committed by the Japanese military of the second world war. Japanese women in occupied Japan in the immediate aftermath of WWII were relatively free of rape and harassment. Yes, rapes did occur by the occupation forces from time to time; however, in a marked difference of leadership, the perpetrators were charged with crimes and punished accordingly by the various commands of the occupying forces.

I am living in an idiotic society, people are no longer resilient, they are self-centred and not community minded. This has been so evident with the stockpiling of toilet paper in Australia – have these people gone mad? Fights are breaking out in department stores over rolls of toilet paper, the police are called and people arrested. There was one case of a woman with a whole trolley full of toilet paper who was unwilling to give up just one packet to a woman who needed it.

In one instance, the police were called, the guy was rolling around on the ground with the police officer and went for his pistol. He was tasered and taken away in handcuffs to be processed. Have these people lost their minds? We are talking about toilet paper here, not life saving drugs. What is laughable is toilet paper is produced in Australia, they have ramped up production 24/7, this is not an imported good, so we can supply internally. We know we are going to be quarantined, that is inevitable, the answer is when. This is based on the best assessment of the government and their medical advisors.

Perth once had a ferry service of sorts connecting the riverside suburbs of Perth to the CBD, that’s the central business district or downtown to the Americans. With the waterway, we should be operating a fulltime ferry service for short trips around the city and surrounding suburbs. We have a number of jetties so the infrastructure is already there and the Barrack Street Jetty that now forms part of the Elizabeth Quay development. Currently there is a short ferry service run by Transperth, the state government operated rail and bus service.

The Transperth ferry connects Barrack Street Jetty to the Mends Street Jetty in South Perth. It is then just a short walk to Perth Zoo, this short service has run for as long as I can recall. A short shuttle around the Perth foreshore from Elizabeth Quay to On the Point and then onto Claisebrook Cove is undertaken by a private ferry service. As the Americans say, a ferry service from the train station at Elizabeth Quay to the new Perth Stadium is a no-brainer.

I am looking more at connecting the riverside suburbs of Perth to the CBD, the Rottnest Island ferries operate from the Barrack Street Jetty and have done so for a long time. The Applecross Jetty, the Coode Street Jetty and JoJo’s Cafe could run a reasonable service much like Sydney’s Manly Ferry to Circular Quay. Possible even the East Street Jetty in Fremantle could be connected to a service that feeds into Perth’s northere suburbs.

I had had worked so long in a toxic work environment that I almost forgot what it was like to work in a high performance team environment. I can honestly say, I didn’t want to work there another day. First you have to create an inclusive working environment, people must be free to offer opinions without ridicule or negativity. You have to support your team-mates and you need to have confidence that they will support you.

In private enterprise we share a common goal, we support each other to achieve that goal. In the public sector the culture is vastly different, people will use whatever underhand methods they can to take credit for other people’s work. Now I work in a positive culture I want to go to work, I want to perform so I can add value to the team. A positive culture creates opportunities, it makes people want to perform and we want to support each other and our successes are team successes.

Doors closed, arm all doors and cross-check; the seatbelt light is activated and the cabin crew take their places. After an uncomfortable delay we may actually be moving, everyone is relieved – I certainly am.

It is uncomfortably hot inside the cabin and everyone is feeling it. The Captain comes over the intercom and informs us the tail turbine running the air-conditioner and electrics has failed on the inbound flight earlier today. So we are without climate control and even though it is close to midnight in winter, it is uncomfortably hot. We are all in long sleeves and it is like a sauna in here, we are all dripping with sweat and just want to get moving.

Their plan is to crank up two inner turbines whilst the aircraft is at the terminal to get some air movement in the cabin, push back and crank the two outer turbines and then maneuver the aircraft into position – I think this is a smashing plan so let’s get it done. Storms over Perth, we still have wheels on the ground and we can feel it, some cross-wind and the aircraft is moving around. Wheels are off the ground, the aircraft lifts and drops, this isn’t a nasty take-off but you certainly know you are in inclement weather, but we are off and everyone is happy.

I worked on a dive charter boat in my late 20s and into my early 30s in the Mediterranean Sea, this was possibly the best job I ever had. I had become sick of working hard all my life away from home for extended periods of time, sure the money was good, but the lifestyle was horrible. So I decided to change industries and I don’t regret for a second the decisions I made.

I was also working in a dive shop in Perth, this was a pretty decent job even if it wasn’t as exotic as working in Turkey. Sure, you have to earn the right to work in a low paid job in the hospitality and tourism industry. In my mind, you need to be financially secure, without funds to support yourself you are fairly vulnerable, but I understand plenty don’t. But if you are out enjoying yourself and have the funds, I believe enjoying life because life really is fleeting and we only get one shot at it.

So I had a mid-life break from working in a high-paid job with low quality of life to enjoy myself in my late 20s to my mid 30s. The job was low-paid but rewarding and I really had the time of my life. I was young and fit enough to enjoy the travel and the budget accommodation before reentering the workforce again for full financial benefits. I have rebuilt my finances and planned for my retirement, now I need to see out the next decade before I can reset and do it again.

Hanging at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf in BGC, that’s Bonifacio Global City in Manila is an interesting time. Whilst Makati is the heart of the business district, there is plenty of business conducted in Manila’s business numerous districts.

Sitting upstairs, I can look around and look over the edge and watch business deals going down. Looking around on the upper level, I am listening to business jargon being loudly thrown around, spreadsheets scattered recklessly over tables and sales pitches. During the day, the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf is a hive of activity, coffee and sometimes cakes consumed and deals negotiated. I believe a cafe is a perfect location for business meetings, most amicable, some not so with tempers flaring and voices raised and I am enjoying being in the centre of it.

I had heard this song on the radio so many times, yet at the end of the song when they announced the artist and song title had always escaped me. I am talking about a number of years of this artist and title alluding me – I reckon about 5 or so years.

Then when I was working out at the Telfer gold mine, I guess around 1990 or 1991, I finally heard the details I had been seeking for years, the artist was Jackson Browne singing Running on Empty. I was overjoyed, on my next trip to Perth I was able to wander in a music store and purchase the album of the same name. This began my long association with the easy listening nature of Jackson Browne.

Over the years, I have purchased multiple Jackson Browne albums, I have seen him play live a number of times and it was great. One was an outdoor concert at King’s Park and I had to make a 1000 kilometer trip to get there – totally worth it. I really relate to the storytelling and Jackson Browne can do this with his melodies and songwriter skills. When I had the album for this single song, now I really enjoy the whole album and the narrative Jackson sells.

The best mining job I ever had was brutally cut short, I was recruited for a job that never eventuated although the role partially came through just as the whole structure was crumbling but not with the conditions promised.

What made the job was the team, I was surrounded by high quality individuals with a worldly knowledge that they brought to the organisation. Whilst I wasn’t overawed by the depth of the team knowledge, I certainly appreciated being surrounded by such a strong knowledge base and I felt I could hold my own.

I was technically a Coordinator but was working as a Superintendent, I attended all the Superintendent meetings, signed documents to Superintendent level, made decisions to Superintendent level and stood in Superintendent positions when the incumbent was out on break. As it turns out, after 8 months, the job was over and all western (white) expats were out with low-skilled and low-paid Chinese workers brought in to replace us. Non-western (non-white) expats were retained though, so only white people lost their jobs.

As the Chinese owned the company, I have no issue in answering to Chinese manager, I would hate to think I suffer from racist tendencies. I do have issues answering to incompetence and that is all I saw in the new management structure. They were genuine idiots parachuted in place by the socialist Chinese hierarchy that had taken control of the company without any thought about how the place will run. We knew we were gone, even though they lied directly to us – they lack values.

The imported Chinese workers were lazy, unmotivated, low-skilled and lacked the necessary leadership abilities to make the project successful. They were totally clueless with fancy titles with no substance. The national workforce were not fools, they saw the lack of commitment from the Chinese supervisors including their late starts, hour and a half lunch breaks and flagrant flouting of safety rules.

The Chinese technical knowledge was poor, the national engineering workforce was well aware that their knowledge and skills were at a higher level, so the nationals never respected their new Chinese supervisors. I maintain contact with my national friends at TFM, they keep me informed about how the place is going and their concerns are real.