Magic of Melbourne
One unexpected magical discovery in Melbourne was on our final evening.
We went to the Spaghetti Tree restaurant, one of a number of Italian places along that street. After a very fine meal of Veal in white wine for Av, Hoi Sin Duck risotto for me, along with a rather excellent Tasmanian wine, Tamar Ridge Pinot we moved on to pudding.
The restaurant had <drum roll>
A mars bar cake.
Yup – no kidding, turn a cake into a delicious chocolaty goodness Mars bar tasting cake. So unlike the Scottish who take a Mars bar and turn it into deep fried Mars bar (ukh!), the chef here has magicked together all the right ingredients to make a gorgeous pudding.
Perfect.
Six figure jobs
The Seek job search website has (finally) followed TradeMe’s lead and now have a ‘jobs paying over $100k‘ category . This is said to be in response to the large increase in the number of positions attracting those salaries, although all the numbers I can find quoted are only percentages, so it can be a bit tricky checking the real picture.
The largest slice of the currently advertised positions are in their IT category {148/3152}, followed by Engineering {359/3152} in quite a distant second, with accounting (285/3152) also placing. In comparison TradeMe are currently listing 554 IT jobs, out of 1332 in total with a $100k+ salary.
Now, the real picture is a bit smaller than this. We’ve mentioned before about potential overlap in advertising for ‘the job I’m leaving and the job I’m going to’ distorting the apparent figures. Also, some positions have multiple different advertising slants. The difference between a consultant, architect or IT specialist can sometimes be nothing beyond the advertised job title. So agencies try different headlines hoping to catch your eye. So don’t be surprised to find the same job description for a wide variety of different job titles.
Plus numerous positions are being advertised with multiple agencies, so it can pay to dig around and pick which agency to apply through if you fancy one of these positions. Often you will find that the actual recruiting company is also advertising the same role via Seek or TradeMe.
While the agencies will of course tell you that you stand a much better chance applying through them, experience shows few agents actually add value (there’s a shock!). The ones that will are normally the agents who have worked with you previously – perhaps in placing you in your current role. When it comes to interviews, the recruiting agencies should be able to help you out with the nuances of who is interviewing you, company values etc. more than a simple perusal of the companies website. Set against that, good personal networks should be able to give you better information.
At the end of the day if you apply directly, it can mean that the hiring company saves $20k+ in ‘recruitment’ costs. Money that would otherwise be paid to the agency as a success fee. There’s certainly a few decisions, which while they’ve not only rested on that factor, have certainly swung in the direction of a direct applicant rather than a recruitment agency referral because it saves that $20k.
(Don’t expect of course that you will be seeing the $20k!)
Crappy service from the Post Office at Reading Cinemas today
There are days when I just wonder whether front desk staff actually understand the meaning of either of the words ‘Customer Service’.
Yesterday I went to the post office at the Reading Cinema building, easy enough you’d think, to try and post a package back to the UK. On reaching the counter I ask for the price of posting to the UK, put the package on the scales and politely wait.
Post Office lady – “that’ll cost you $4 extra for stamps”
I give a puzzled look
“our printing machine that prints the ‘postage paid’ labels is broken, so you have to buy stamps. Which will cost $4 extra”
“err, if your machine is broken then that’s your problem. I just want to post this to the UK, if you can only do that with normal stamps I don’t expect to pay more”
“the printer is broken, it’ll cost $4 more”
Like I’m stupid and didn’t understand the English language in the first place
“Yes and it’s not my issue that you’ve got something broken, I don’t expect to pay extra just because you have to use stamps”
“Well you wont have to pay any postage. You either buy the stamps or we don’t post it “
Putting on her best I’m not negotiating face, take it or leave it.
So I left it.
And trudged off to the next nearest post office to try them. Shame it’s a monopoly really otherwise I’d be able to really take my custom elsewhere.
So at the other post office, the printer was working, the chappie smiled, asked me for $14.81 and checked that I’d put the right customs sticker on it.
Done. Sorted. Without ‘extra’ charging.
So I’m left wondering – was the staff member at the first post office just being obstructive, or were they trying fraud? After all, postage rates are postage rates, they’re standard. It doesn’t matter if you buy stamps in advance, buy them at the time, or print your own stamps. Same cost.
Where would the extra $4 have gone? Someone’s pocket?
Time to find the Post Office’s complaints form and fill one in.
Website admin & links
Now that life has slowed down enough for us to organise a couple of holiday breaks, we’re also doing some website admin this week, which means that you might see a few changes.
We’re also going to fix up the broken links where we can. Not everyone keeps their pages static, so apologies if you read something that suggests there is a link and you can’t find one. Just drop us a line if you want to know where the link went and we’ll set the lolcatz searching again.
We’ve got a full website testing suite setup and running. i.e. I check stuff on Opera, Firefox, Chrome & IE8 plus Safari & Opera on my iPhone, to make sure it all looks proper. However, if we miss something and you find stuff just doesn’t show up as you expect, please let us know.
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Do you want Fry buys with your combine harvester?
It was the Wairarapa wine festival this weekend. Not the main Martinborough one, the smaller one on a single site. On the plus side this means more drinking time and less walking involved. The site is actually just the other side of the river from us, however without a boat this involves a 20 minute drive to get there. So a designated driver is still required.
For various reasons we missed the event this year, however Avalon’s parents did go. There were many tempting treats like ice cream, wine and a brand new combine harvester. A bargain at only $250k.
But wait! There’s more. . . .
You can get fly buys with your new combine harvester pruchase.
A whopping 5,000 of them.
For that, we could get a ‘free’ coffee machine, just like the one we bought the other year. But not enough for a Play Station 3 – you need 5250 points for that.
(un)Fortunately they didn’t have a spare $250k in their pockets, otherwise they could have walked away with said coffee machine.
I think at that price, I’d want the coffee machine plumbed into the cab of the harvester.
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Bit of jolt
So there we were just chillin’ with friends this evening having stopped talking about how bad things are down in Christchurch.
Shudder, jolt, wobble, jolt, wobble, wobble, weebles wobble
Yep – we had a small quake in Wellington, 4.5, and the building kept wobbling. The full info is on Geonet now here. Geonet takes about ten minutes to update, which at the moment is just a bit too long for our nerves. So I was looking at the shake drums, which give an almost real time view of quakes around the country.
This is the screen shot showing the last 24 hours – each horizontal line is a thirty minute period, working back 24 hours to the top of the picture;
And this is where it was, green arrow marks the spot at a depth of 40km;
While we’re feeling nervous with that, this is what Christchurch has felt in the same 24 hour period;
This is what the people of Christchurch are having to live with every day, and we freaked out with just one jolt.
And in the time it took to write this, Christchurch had another shake which was 4.6 at a depth of only 5km;
The one centered on Wellington is now in the background shaded in red, obscured by their latest jolt.
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Everything you need to know about elections in Australia
I was browsing through some articles on the Australian election, and found this amusing picture on Sky news website. It’s sunny, it’s a beach, best not let mandatory voting get in the way of enjoying the day.
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Immigration Advisers Licencing Act: Update 3 Responce from the opposition
At the same time I sent my second letter to the Immigration Minister, I also sent copies of everything to Lianne Dalziel, the Labour MP who first introduced the bill to licence Immigration agents. As she was helping the owners of the Move2NZ forum, and they dont appear to be concerned about anyone else, I thought she might need to know that other people were being affected by this law. Which was a good idea, as she seemed completely unaware that it was affected anyone else.
She had passed on my letters to Pete Hodgson, the opposition spokesmand for immigration who replied:
Hon Lianne Dalziel has passed your letter of November 26th to me for a response, and she and I have discussed the situation you find yourself in.
In short we are both of the view that a law change in not necessary. Rather we are both of the view that Hon Coleman’s reply to oyu of 20th october is far too restrictive and prescriptive, especially toward the end where he offers you the choice of displaying publicly available information, or acquiring a provisional license or of getting a licensed (or exempt) person to contribute.
We beg to differ. In our view the law does not precelude the publicaiton of generic comment, including adverse comment, or generic advice at all. That would, as you point out, be contrary to freedom of speech.
So our advice is to continue with your activities. You could if you wished add a routine disclaimer that your material does not represent immigration advice directed towards an individual.
In the event an official comes ‘knocking at your door’, please let me know and I will engage futher. Be aware however that a law change would inevitably take time, even if it were agreed to. I think what you are dealing with is a new law being bedded in by folk in immigration who are a little more conservative than they are legally entitled to be. I think it is that simple.
SO basically, as far as they are concerned the IAA are overstepping the mark, and abusing thier position: rather than policing Immigration agents, they are enabling them and victimising anyone who isnt a paid agent. As we have said before, this is hardly surprising given that every single member of the advisory board is an immigration agent.
I cant help but be a bit cynical about this though. It seems to me that rather than having the courage to admit openly that they made a mistake, and that the IAA are behaving in a way contrary to that expeceted – they are all going to sit back and wait till someone gets taken to court before they act. And if they think thats a grand idea – then they should be taking a moment to look at the bad publicicty government is getting becuase a Blogger is being forced into court for challenging Name Suppresion Laws.
I also cant help but think that if Labour were in Government, and National in opposition, then Pete Hodgson would be saying “Nothing wrong here!” :
And Jonathan Coleman as opposition leader would be decrying the behaviour of the IAA and be the one telling me to carry on with what I was doing in the first place: publising general advice based on my own experience.
Its kinda hard not to have a certain lack of respect for anyone involved in immigration here at this point.
So – the general concensus of anyone not in the pay of Immigration agents is that the IAA are behaving appallingly, and in a way which they have no right to do, and is against the legislation.
Oddly enough, thats legal advice given by people who are not qualified or licenced to give it.
Which says it all really!
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Morning bubbles
We went into Wellington this morning on the train. It’s an early start for me, so once we got in I had to go in search of a reviving coffee.
As we wandered through Borders, there as a woman behind the counter blowing bubbles .
What a cool way to start the morning!
So thank you, whoever you are- you brought a smile to may face and joy to the day.
$45 for a beer??? Are you kidding me???
We finally managed to get our upgrade to the club lounge at the intercontinental hotel in Sydney. It was an uphill struggle involving an email or two of epic snottiness to the parent company and rewards scheme but we got there in the end. So on Friday night we went for the free nibbles and drinks, and invited a colleague to join us. We knew we would likely have to pay for his drinks (we don’t In Wellington) but we were absolutely gobsmaked to be presented with a bill for a single bottle of beer which they expected $45!!! Ffs!
We flew off the handle a bit at this point. I don’t think the guy serving us knew what hit him. The lamentable excuse for this rampant scam is that this is what it costs to bring a guest up to the lounge for “twilight drinks”. We pointed out that our guest had a single bottle of beer -they hadn’t even brought him the pretentious and rather pointless tasting plate that passes for the nibbles! And to make matters worse the tasting plate only consisted of two mouthfuls of ridiculous food instead of the usual 4.
We made it quite clear that we were highly offended by all this and they could charge us for the single beer – and if they didn’t like it they could take it up with the managers office (who by this point possibly had us on speed dial). It was still a whopping $10.
We have had so many problems with this hotel. The cleaners keep removing our half drunk bottles of Pump water which we refill to use in the gym, so the hotel has to keep going out and buying us replacements. They also for some bizarre reason took our goggles from the room, and while they have found one pair they now have to stump up for the second pair.
What makes this worse is that everyone in that lounge bar us is paying about $180 MORE for access to the club lounge than we are and seem happy that a guest would cost them even more. The lounge is nice with nice views but it is not a relaxing place to be and it is just too stuck up for words.
Also on the high cost of living in Aussie- gold class cinmea tickets cost a silly $38 ($10 more than on a weekday). It’s $30 in Wellington whenever you go. And don’t think you will get an endless supply of free popcorn and soft drinks cos you won’t!
It’s a good job we are heading back to New Zealand tomorrow because I don’t think we can afford much more of Sydney.
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