Seeing REDgroup – Part 1 – Dumb & Dumber

8 03 2011

Dumb & Dumber

“Dear Myer, thanks for prompting me to find that expensive moisturiser online for 40% less than you, with free delivery to my door.”

While numerous Australians were worrying if their $15M worth of Angus & Robertson, or Borders gift certificates would be honoured by the chains’ new undertakers, that’s what I tweeted this afternoon, inbetween worrying whether my No.1 client will be (a) able to pay me money owed & (b) be allowed by the new administrators of REDgroup Retail (owners of Borders AU & NZ & Singapore, Angus & Robertson, Whitcoulls (NZ), & my client Calendar Club AU & NZ who are the only profitable business in REDgroup) to continue using my services.

But I’m getting ahead of myself – we’ll come back to REDgroup…

I’m referring to the mindless smoke-screen kicked up last January by Gerry Harvey & his whiny band of helpless billionaire retailers bemoaning that the world is changing and GST-avoiding online offshore retailers are slowly killing them and somehow it’s up to us, or the government, or someone, ANYONE ELSE BUT THEMSELVES, to save them.

I dunno why it’s taken me seven years, but when I noticed my Biotherm Homme moisturiser running low recently it occurred to me that maybe I could find this stuff online for a helluvalot less than Myer charge for it. Sure enough, I let my google do the walking and spent ten minutes getting a rough idea of who’s who in the online cosmetics retail scene, and placed an order for the same thing for 40+% less than Myer.  A week later it was delivered to my door – free (i.e. no additional charge).

No longer must I wade through that excruciating cacophony of smells, and fight off the obsequiously friendly staff who insist on offering me “package deals” of shit I don’t want or asking to sign me up to some loyalty program every freakin time I walk in there that’ll invariably add more crap to my letterbox/inbox, and have to pay above-RRP for this so-called ‘premium shopping experience’.  Now I’m paying at least 15% less than I was for the same product seven years ago.  I’m still loyal to the brand and product – but not the retailer.

And before you get angry at me for buying expensive moisturiser when supposedly “the cheap stuff is just as good”, I beg to differ. ’nuff said.

I routinely buy lots of stuff online: gadgets / tech / software, sneakers / clothes, books / music / tv / movies (almost all digital now, not physical), and sporadic other stuff for myself or gifts.  But it’d never occurred to me to buy such an obvious fit for online retailing – cosmetics – until now (dumb), thanks to Gerry Harvey’s bleating (dumber).






To Suit Up, or Not to Suit Up?

25 05 2010

as i described in my last post, i’m giving serious consideration to income sources, with a view to making them transportable to, and hopefully independent of, the Northern Rivers area of NSW.

coincidentally, an entrepreneurial friend in Sydney has described one of his new endeavours, which tweaks my energy-efficiency & sustainability buttons, in this case in business IT, with a view to me being involved at my local implementation level.  it has legs, and in principle at least, it excites me to be able to blend my IT skills with something that “matters” in these global-warming times.

that catch is, the kind of clients they’re going for would likely require me to wear a suit, or at least collar-n-tie etc, and work amongst “corporate IT” types, and in much more complex IT environments, over which i’d have little control.  i flinch severely at that idea.  i’ve always considered standard business attire to be utterly absurd samian reductionism & never wanted anything to do with it.  i worked in & dressed for exactly this situation (thankfully only in those times while on-site with a client) for 4 years in Sydney before moving down here.

i’ve been a 1-man-band in small-business IT consulting for the last 10 years in Melbourne, serving the IT needs of a rarely-changing set of clients.  jeans, tshirt & sneakers are my uniform.  for the most part, so do my clients  (apparently last week a new employee at one of my clients who didn’t know my name referred to me as “that skaterboy”!)  i don’t have a string of MSCE creds to my name – i’ve rarely needed such to meet my client’s needs.  my “office” is a 2nd bedroom, so i don’t have the raft of bricks-n-mortar expenses that bigger fish have.  as such, i don’t charge anything like $180/hour that suit-wearers in this genre typically do.  it works well for us both.

there is a undetermined (& as yet undiscussed) chance i could continue meeting their needs via various remote access technologies from afar, using the services of a low-level hardware jockey for the relatively fewer times when hands-on-site is needed.  or maybe not.

and i’m investigating or considering other options, non-IT-consulting options.  all transportable, work-from-home up-north options.

but there’s also this debt to pay off, which will take at least a few years at status quo, or sooner if i engage other income sources – like this opportunity.  it’d be nice, but not essential, to move up north debt-free.

but the time & headspace to fit this in would likely leave little time to foster the transportable-income alternatives that i need to facilitate life up north!

is this something i should seriously consider, & put aside my disdain for The Suit (and everything that comes along with it), for an option that would further tie me to Melbourne & probably delay a northerly move, but be ‘expedient’?  or is this a diversion from who i am, and where i want to be in 1-3 years time?





everything and nothing

19 12 2009

i’ve held off making this post, because although alot’s happened, it hasn’t been much of individual blogworthy significance.  so i’ll let it all hang out in one go.

as i suspected, Copenhagen was largely a failure, as all those going into it knew before they even arrived.  Naomi Klein had it right when interviewed at the start of Copenhagen – all this “Hopenhagen” bullshit is (almost) useless, childish, and naive.  why “hope” for something that isn’t even up for discussion?  the Copenhagen talks have been little more than a stepping stone to where we needed to to be YEARS AGO, with years more yet to go.  i guess the problem will need to get a lot worse before our elected leaders cut the crap and do what’s necessary.  particularly Australia – thanks Liberal/National Coalition Opposition fuckheads, whose new leader is more concerned that school children learn about the bible… fuck me.  how many more things need to go wrong, how many more dead species, how many more collapsed dying ecosystems, how many more felled forrests, how much more desert, how much higher sea levels, how many more major destructive weather events, how many more people displaced, how much more devastation will be needed before we pull our heads out of our arses?

oh, and on the topic of Australian politics, Rudd’s henchman Conroy is still trying to protect the children, by implementing futile compulsory ISP-level filtering.  fuck me… (again).  we concerned citizens will need to get smart in our collaboration to turn the tide on this shit.

work is mad busy, exacerbated in part by my appalling time management, particularly in the mornings – just can’t seem to get into it.  Dell have fucked me/client over bigtime, 6+ weeks late delivering a new server that should’ve taken about 2 weeks, which has created a crunch over xmas/new-year, and they’ve been belligerent in their non-communication at every step.  i’ll probably blog that one separately once the dust settles.  & i’ve dropped the ball with a (small, minor) client who’s decided/realised that for this specific job at least, someone else will have to fill the gap of my lax attention to their needs. *sigh*  perhaps, in yanking back on the joystick controlling my life that was in freefall only a few months ago, i’ve scraped the undercarriage a bit…  hopefully the landing gear is still intact.

psychologically speaking, i’ve been fairly consistently boyant, overall.  no one-day plummets like i mentioned a few weeks ago, thank $deity!  a couple of my psych sessions have been very thought-provoking.  i’ll probably go into more detail – with my psych, and here – in the new year when our sessions resume, but i’m beginning to think that a significant part of the last 5 years dysthymia has been about my unresolved issues/questions that brought me to Melbourne in the first place: my life’s purpose.  10 years ago i felt itchy, unhappy, unsettled, and made a decision to leave Sydney and move to either Melbourne and start a new life vaguely of the kind i’ve been leading; or to Byron Bay / Northern Rivers and lead probably an entirely different lifestyle.  i was convinced to do the former, and ultimately fell into a new situation, and particularly a new self-employed career, without barely lifting a finger, let alone making any conscious choices about exactly what i wanted to do.  and i think that kinda worked for several years, but essentially only as a distraction; a distraction that became undermined and peeling around the edges as i became unable to ignore broader issues going on in the world, and realise that i wasn’t – and still aren’t – doing much of anything about them.  perhaps it’s time to face up to the fact that i’m coasting, not doing something that i’m passionate about anymore, and find a way to move into something else that is/does.  the two burning questions are: 1) what? and 2) what, that can also support my financial needs to pay off this small mountain of debt i’ve created for myself?  not saying i’m about to retire to Byron Bay & become a hippy, but i think something needs to change.

and perhaps it’s just circumstances & back-drop, but we’ve also been looking back to my childhood, teens & early 20s, realising how a combination of a ‘mildly inhibited family culture’ (at least so far as self-expression is concerned), self-inhibition due to my confused/unresolved sexuality until i ‘woke up’ at 23yo, and $deity knows what else, lead to me being such a late bloomer.  maybe it still has significance, maybe not, time will tell.

speaking of my parents, i’ve decided, with some trepidation, to bring them up to speed to some extent with my depression of the last few years.  i’ve held back from bringing them into that drama, because from 750km away, there’s not much they can really do about it anyway, other than worry, and they find enough to worry about without me adding to it.  at least now i can honestly put a positive forward-looking spin on it.

things are still going well with J.  we’ve spent some good times together over the last few weeks. i continue to feel comfortable with him, always learning more about him, seemingly connecting on several different levels.  but i’ve been plagued with one major concern.  why the fuck is he doing this couples-counseling with his “ex” boyfriend?  i finally forced the issue last week, and he agreed i deserved to have some idea of what was going on, without needing/wanting to know details.  i can’t say the answer made me feel any, or at least much better, other than knowing a bit more of the history between he & his ex.  i still feel just as vulnerable.  my rational head hopes it will help him sort out his issues, which can only be a good thing in the long run, and my ego hopes he’ll come to his senses and realise that i’m prepared to – *gulp* – commit to him and give him the love and attention he deserves.  (i can’t believe i just said that, but there it is – raw expression of thought and feeling; damn scary).  but ultimately things are still pretty touch-n-go, i can see it in his language (verbal & non-verbal) that he’s holding back (as am i) until he comes to some resolution with his ex, and he knows it, and he knows i know it.  it’s torture.  i just hope my philosophy/observations of “windows of opportunity” is wrong this time…

and as if that admission wasn’t enough, how ’bout this parting thought:

i have NO IDEA why, but i’ve been preoccupied with internet/new-media/social-media MARKETING for a while now (moreso than usual), including reading a few of the overwhelmingly-many blogging/tweeting marketers out there.  this is a subset of human i’d previously looked down upon as cockroaches out to get me (or at least my money). WTF???





Are you on an Optus Mobile contract & want out?

14 08 2009

*edit* this post refers ONLY to a narrow window of opportunity to cancel your Optus Mobile contract without penalty back in August/September 2009, so it’s likely of no value to you now.

are you fed up with Optus (Mobile) & want out, but locked into a 24month contract with massive early cancellation penalty? well here’s your free chance out!

Optus have added clause 5.2A(personal)/5.3(business) to their SFOA – Standard Form Of Agreement – covering most pre- & post-paid mobile customers.  if, like many, you object to it, they have the obligation to allow you to end the contract without “early termination fees”.

you only pay for outstanding calls, and however many months worth of handset repayments you have left (if any – some people choose to pay up-front, or higher monthly without handset fees). for me that’s 12 or 13 months x ~$7 = $84, which is 10% of the early termination fee that would ALSO apply if YOU (or I) were in breach of contract. but in this case, it’s Optus who are.

the change they made (effective 12 August 09) is to block you from calling certain Optus mobile numbers – numbers that happen to be used by cheap international calling services, which is just plain anticompetitive. but the SFOA change is so vaguely worded it could be applied to ANY ph# they choose in future. even if you’ve never used such a service before, they are negatively materially impacting the terms of their contract with you for the remainder period of your contract, and you are at liberty to cancel it without early-cancellation-penalty.

their obligations under the SFOA give you until Friday 4th September to object and cancel (without penalty) before they consider you to have agreed with the new terms.

if you cancel in this way, you’ll probably have the choice to revert to a month-to-month arrangement (as would happen automatically when a contract runs out) and consider your options, or cancel immediately & go elsewhere (probably needs a 1 month notice anyway?).

if you call and eventually convince them to cancel your contract without penalty, i urge you to call again a few days later, or at least a few days before your next billing period begins, and confirm that your account has in fact been marked for contract cancellation without penalty.  Optus use one of the oldest tricks – they say “yes, sir” on the phone, but do nothing at their keyboard.  when your next bill arrives you realise nothing’s been done, you’re still in contract, but now the deadline for objecting to the new terms has passed.  when i called a 2nd time, the CS rep knew nothing of what i was talking about, i was still in-contract with no indication i was cancelling – i had to explain again, be put on hold, then received a confirmation/reference number.

i was told each time that the early-cancellation penalty will still appear on my bill, but i have to call up to have it credited before paying it.  naturally i expect that CS rep to say “sorry sir, you’ve asked to cancel your contract, the early termination penalty applies” and have to explain it all again.  but hopefully that’ll be the final moment of victory.

after swearing i’d never go back to Telstra for anything (other than this barely-used land-line for ADSL), and i may yet go elsewhere, i never thought a Telstra competitor – Optus – could become so unpalateable that they made Telstra look appealing.  things must be getting tight on the Optus books…





Office Tigers vs. Dead Tired – SBS has a sense of irony!

17 06 2009

a few weeks ago, SBS broadcast the first episodes of two documentary series, ‘Office Tigers’, and ‘Dead Tired’.  Office Tigers is a 4 part series about the inner workings of an Indian business taking outsourced business from major USA corporations.  Dead Tired is a two part series about the consequences of westernised culture that habitually compromises sleep in favour of living ever faster and more complicated lives.

after watching the first episode of Office Tigers with very mixed feelings, i couldn’t help but laugh and cry at SBS’s sense of irony by following it immediately with Dead Tired.  having wrestled with my own “sleep hygiene” issues over the last several years, it’s obvious to me that the importation of western business (and social) culture into India – including less sleep – is likely to result in the same dramatic impact to health – but on an Indian population scale.

several years ago i read a book called ‘The Promise Of Sleep” (2000, William Demment & Christopher Vaughan).  Demment is a pioneering sleep researcher, investigating not only sleep, but the usually hidden consequences of not getting enough of it, over a period of almost 50 years, especially back when almost no one else was giving it a second thought.  Dead Tired is an insightful TV documentary covering similar ground, based on a broader body of more modern research, and which echos Demment’s concerning findings and warnings about our sleep-deprived culture.

in the offices of Office Tigers in Channai, the American co-CEO inculcates his Indian employees with what I view as the WORST aspects of modern western business culture.  he roams the office chastising employees for not wearing their ties; has his supervisors warn their employees that if they take a day off, it’d better be only for something serious like septisemia rather than the flu; and encourages working absurdly long hours (the office is open 24/7 running shifts – there’s no locks on the doors, just a few security guards).  this is all justified by claiming to be a meritocracy rewarding hard work.  yeah, right…

India’s burgeoning middle classes (which it never really had much of until relatively recent times) are understandably clamouring for the salary and lifestyle that comes from working in these new western companies.  but what are the consequences?  not only are a billion Indians (and more than a billion Chinese) rapidly developing societies with the same energy demands of the west, with all the global warming & finite resource consumption concerns that have been mulled over by east & west alike for many years now, but they’re following our footsteps into sleep-deprived western lifestyles!

what will it be like for such a huge populace to suffer (and fail to tackle) the hidden health problems that come from typical western sleep-deprived lifestyles?  just look around you:  lower productivity, horrible car accidents, sleep apnoea, high blood pressure, obesity, depression, and more.  yay…

and once again, SBS rocks with two fascinating documentary series, whose combination is deliciously ironic.








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