Business Traveller

About 7 1/2 years ago, I made a big change in my life, and left the cozy comfort of things that I knew well in sunny South Africa, to go and join the civilised world of Europe.

I think that one of the things that I relished most about working in Europe was getting away from the bizarre concept that, somehow people in south Africa thought that the way to fix a past discrimination was to create a new form of discrimination to replace the old one. That, and to give it a name with better PR. So racism was replaced with ‘Affirmative Action’. I don’t remember what sexism was replaced by, but it was probably something along the lines of ‘equal opportunities’ or something like that. Bottom line is that the basic problem remained. One lot of people got screwed so that another lot of people could get ahead, without any consideration being given to their competence, capability or value to the business.

Fast forward nearly 8 years, and here I am in England. I’ve had black bosses, and been the boss of some black people. I’ve had woman bosses, and managed some women. All going well then? No. Turns out that one of the women who works for me has been invited to join our company’s ‘women’s advancement forum’. A forum of women from every level of our company that meets once per month to provide a platform for women to get promoted quickly to senior positions.

Now, before everybody gets up in arms, I have no problem with women in senior positions. I work with senior women every day, and for the most part, I have nothing but respect for them, same as my male colleagues.

The thing that gets my goat is the fact that there is this secretive forum purely focused on promoting women through the company. In a truly ‘equal opportunities’ company, this sort of forum would be looking at people across the business, and promoting them – regardless of black, white, woman or man. Until then, there is no equality, and never will be.

In a desperate attempt to hang onto the last vestiges of youth, I went out and did what all men my age seem to do (either go out and buy a Porsche or a motorcycle – I could afford the motorcycle).

She’s shiny, and black, and red – a Yamaha R6, and she is awesome!

Wow, how bikes have changed since I last owned one in the early 1990’s. The balance of the bike is just unbelievable! Also, the power.

Puts a grin on my face every morning when I head into work!

This morning I arrived at the corporate HQ, and immediately noticed that each door into the buildings on the campus had security staff positioned at it, looking like nightclub bouncers, complete with secret service ear-pieces.

I wasn’t the only one who noticed, and we started a little office pool as to what the reason was.

I won. This afternoon the company announced that 450 people in the HQ are being made redundant.

Please let it be me!

Sometime between when I left South Africa, and when I went there for a Christmas Holiday at the end of 2007, something special has happened.

No, the rainbow nation hasn’t finally decided to stop killing each other.

People haven’t suddenly come across all tolerant.

The government hasn’t stopped dipping their fingers in the country’s tills…

No, somebody started Mozart Ice Cream. If you live in South Africa, or are planning a visit, do yourself a favour. Click on this link. It will take you to their web site. Then click on the store locator link at the bottom, and find a store nearby for you to visit. The only time you’ll ever regret it is when you’re next standing on that damned bathroom scale – or stuck in Europe with no real hope of getting your hands on your next fix!

Personal favourites for me were the Peppermint Chock Chip, and Caramel Chock Chip flavours. This requires a little more explanation though…

Back when I was a little boy, growing up in South Africa, we had a technique for making the best damned caramel in the world. It involved taking a can of Carnation Condensed Milk, and boiling it for 45 minutes (kids don’t try this at home – every now and then, a can explodes when you do this, and you’ll spend days trying to clean up the sticky mess!). Later on, Carnation cottoned on to this, and started selling this ambrosia under the brand name ‘Carnation Treat’ – which was awesome, because you didn’t need to wait, and there was no risk of exploding cans in your kitchen…

Somehow – Mozart have managed to capture the essence of this taste – without the nauseating richness of the pure caramel. It’s a miracle!

Mozart, if you’re listening – please, please, please open a store in London!

There is this older lady who works in my company’s HR department on the same floor as my desk.

She has her hair piled up on her head in a grey beehive onyop of her head, and wears old-fashioned glasses. There was alot of debate about who she looked at, and the one of my colleagues nailed it when he said she looked just like Tweety and Sylvester’s owner.

Today she started talking to me about something, and for the life of me, I have no idea what she said. I spent the entire time desperately trying to stop myself from saying ‘I taught I taw a puddy tat!’.

I don’t want to be churlish. Actually, that’s not entirely true. I may want to be just a little bit churlish…

First the history – when the rugby world cup tickets were first released for sale, I really wasn’t at all sure how well South Africa would do – so rather than buy tickets for the semis or the finals, I tried to buy tickets for the pool match against England. Except that they sold out in record time, so I couldn’t get any.

Sitting in a bar in Dusseldorf with some kiwi colleagues, they asked me if I’d bought tickets, and I told them about the pool game tickets being sold out. With massive grins on their faces, they proudly told me that the only game they had bought tickets for was the final. That’s it. That’s how certain they were that they’d be there. At the time, I joked with them that the kiwis are chokers, and would almost certainly lose this world cup too, but the arrogance of the kiwis had me secretly wishing that they get knocked out before the final.

Then this weekend, all my Christmases came early. Now the most difficult thing I have to try and achieve is to smile knowingly without being a smug bastard – just in case South Africa are next…

The UK is all in a flutter about bullies again, and the bleeding hearts are wringing their hands and saying how terrible it all is. Just to be clear. I was bullied. Allot. There was a time in my life where I was beaten up every day at school. I had the sort of strict christian upbringing where it was drummed into me that I must always turn the other cheek, or risk going to hell. I turned the other cheek, and this was obviously fun for those who wanted to prove their toughness without any risk of getting hurt. So I know all about being bullied. I know how terrible it feels, and I know how it can affect you. That’s why I think that these bleeding hearts are doing so much harm at the moment. I’m older now, and understand what happened to me in school allot better now. And if these idiots could stop telling the poor bullied kids how awful it all is, getting them to feel even sorrier for themselves, then they could start to fix the problem. Not bullying. I don’t think that there is any way to stop that. The real problem is that these kids think that they are being bullied because people hate them. That’s what does the real damage. The sooner the bullied kids understand that it’s nothing to do with them, and that it’s the cowards that are bullying them that have a problem, the more we can minimise the psychological impact of bullying. Also, changing the mindset of those being bullied from ‘Everybody hates me’, and cringing away from people contact (which in itself invites bullying) to ‘I’m alright, and those cowards won’t get me down’ will dramatically reduce the incidence of bullying anyway!

I’ve finally managed to get my hands on an iPhone to fool around with for a bit.

What’s cool about the iPhone

They’ve definitely gotten the user interface right. that is seriously cool. for those of you that haven’t seen one up close yet, it’s about the size of an iPod, but the entire front is taken up by a screen. The screen itself uses a new technology to allow multiple points of touch and move. The coolest way of experiencing this is – while browsing the web, you pinch your fingers together to zoom out, or spread your fingers to zoom in. you can also twist and manipulate things on the screen using this mechanism. Very cool.

Another cool thing is they way that, in certain modes (mainly when browsing the web, or looking at photos), when you turn the phone sideways, it recognises this, and moves what you’re looking at into a landscape view. Turn it back up, and it goes back into portrait mode.

So in essence, what they’ve made is a seriously sleek and cool web tablet with some apple applications on it, and similar storage to an iPod nano. And it’s also a very usable phone. Very cool.

What’s not cool about the iPhone

Once the initial ‘wow that’s very cool’ wears off, there are some things that are not so cool. It’s very obviously been created in america because creating a text message takes allot of work on the touch screen, although I reckon that – with a little bit of practice – you could get used to that. Worse than this is the fact that there is no 3G. If this had been made by Nokia, it would not only be 3G, it would probably be HSDPA, and you’d get serious download speeds out of it.

Other niggles that I can see coming up are the fact that the battery is (like the iPod) sealed into the unit, so any problems with the battery become a problem with the phone. Speaking of battery, the battery life is really poor, and the more you use that fantastic screen, the faster it runs flat. Not cool.

One last area of concern is that Apple have become the first mobile phone manufacturer ever to demand a percentage of the revenue from all calls made with the phone by their customers. Some mobile networks have accepted this, but the extra cost will most likely be passed onto consumers – that means that, if you have an iPhone, everybody else will probably end up paying less for their calls than you do.

My home PC went on the fritz the other day, so while passing through Heathrow Duty Free, I decided to take a look at what was on offer.

I was seduuced by the new MacBook Pro in shiny silver. People like Rich…! have been trying to convince me to try a mac for ever, and the adverts were really clever, so I thought I’d give it a go.

the verdict is still out, but lets just say that the ‘fun’ aspects of a mac aren’t exactly out of the box. It’s exactly like windows – in that – to do anything at all,  you have to buy software. The thing is that I know PC Software. I know my Coreldraw, animation packages, web-site tools etc. I don’t know anything about what’s good in the mac space, and there doesn’t even seem to be much in the OpenSource world for me to play with…

Any recommendations?

Need a laugh?

Hate the Penelope Cruz lashes advert?

This is for you!

http://pareshute.blogspot.com/2007/07/lushous-lashes-l-advert.html