Its not that bad

I really should write something about the economic situation. The problem is, however, that there really isn't really much to say which hasn't already been said in various news columns, blogs, and chats around the water cooler. Much of this relatively well informed literature probably has it more or less correct. Well, at least as far as anyone can be correct with hindsight and a bit of self assurance with a pat on the back.

So, its time for another ill informed post about something to do with the real world while not actually reflecting it. Actually, that doesn't actually do anything to justify this post or anything else I've ever written. But oh well, its the Internet.

Just as a side note. I'll be referring to bankers and cosmetic surgeons a lot. In this context they're more or less synonymous with rich people.

So lets see what this 'recession' has actually done. This wiki page gives a nice overview about the (likely) events that might come from this 'economic crisis'. It rekons that 20 million jobs might be lost because of the crisis. 20 million is not a small number by any means. But that is 20 million worldwide. We've got 6 billion people worldwide. Thats 0.3% of the total population. In Australia, people don't make too big of an issue about 0.3% of the population.

Granted, I'm overgeneralising a bit. A lot of those 20 million people are centered in a few select places, and if we take 20 million people out of the working population, then that figure gets a bit higher, but still... this 0.3% isn't the group which requires a lot of help.

Lets look at the people who lose their jobs first. That is, the people who are working for those big banks who lost all that money trading what a lot of people are now calling 'junk bonds'. These people, in a good year, make the same as about a gazillion Mexicans making Nike shoes or begging for extra Pesos only a few thousand miles away. If they lose their jobs, they might also lose the ability to get their daily botox injections or that Audi R8. *dribble* Needless to say, they'll survive, even if it means that they can only eat out once a week, and have to skip on the appetiser.

Then of course we got on to all the effects of bankers like these not having botox injections. Less botox injections means less cosmetic surgeons. Less cosmetic surgeons means less medial secretaries. Less medial secretaries means less secretaries and cosmetic surgeons' wives going shopping for Gucci bags on their lunch break. The Gucci salesperson therefore probably loses that extra bonus they might get to buy that box of chocolate cookies at the supermarket. If this happens to a large degree, some cookie cutters at the factory might lose their jobs too. But we all have cookies once in a while. How many bankers and cosmetic surgeons are there anyway? Well, I can't actually find a good link on short notice, but here's what I've got instead. At number 2 on the top 5 list of cosmetic surgeries performed in the US is breast implants. 364,610 breast implants performed in the US in one year. So out of a population of about 300 million, 0.1% of the population gets breast implants every year. At number one on the list was liposuction. 455,489 procedures performed in a year. About another 0.1%... Then we go onto things like eyelid surgery, so that Asians can have less squinty eyes, nose reshaping, so that Italians can look like they haven't been lying their whole life, and Botox injections so that people don't have to try and smile, they're stuck with that expression all the time.

These are all things, I'm fairly sure, we could do without. Instead of lipo, run around the bloody park. I don't care if you can't get out of the room without help. You got in without help right? You can use all the energy you gained in the room trying to get out, losing weight at the same time and thereby saving everyone else a whole heap of trouble. I know I can't talk. I'm a lazy bastard who doesn't do enough exersise and is quite fat.

As for breast implants - Sure, I appreciate a nice rack, but I'm not all that shallow. A nice pair doesn't make up for the fact that your brain probably needs an implant as well. Probably explains why you didn't ask for the 2-for-1 deal. Me? I probably need breast removal.

For Asians who want double eyelids - put on some weight, your eyelids will sag over soon enough. Italians - stop lying to everyone about how its lunchtime and its time for the shops to close. The rest of the world take staggered lunch breaks. We can all do without.

These are the same sorts of luxury industries that grow because bankers have too much money to burn. We don't NEED them. In fact, if someone like a cosmetic surgeon spent his time doing more socially beneficial work, like say, fixing up psychos, that'd be nice too. Though one could argue that the same people who are a bit psychotic are also the ones who get the Botox. Apparently theres no shortage of psychos.

I only know of one person who has lost his job because of this financial crisis. He was a management jargon spewing project manager who was looking after a project that was doomed from the start. So doomed in fact that the project has now been canned. Not to say that it was his fault, (it was doomed before he got there) but I think he was excess management fat anyway and hired only to grow another person's empire. Sure, he's got kids to feed, but he'll get another job. It might not pay as much, but they'll survive.

A colleague of mine recently had a friend who was laid off by one of the big banks. She seemed devestated. From a high flying banker job to being unemployed in New York City is probably a fairly big deal from their point of view. However, the banker salary probably covered a relatively lavish lifestyle compared to what they get in Mexico. So they can't get cable and have an interior decorator anymore. Shucks. Sometimes people don't get enough to eat.

The very same colleague told me during one a lull at work, where we just bitch about how stupid some things are: "Its not that bad." You know, it really isn't.

Auditors

Its said that there are two things certain in life: death and taxes. The second implies something which seems almost as certain as itself: auditors. If you've sat down and done your tax return yourself, you're probably feeling pretty smug about how much you've managed to deduct from your assessable income. But what if you're being dodgy, and the $5000 you said you spent on reference books for work were actually spent at the pub after work? Who are the guys who are going to make sure that you've filled in your tax return properly?

Thats right: The Tax Office auditors. They're a necessary evil to keep those who might fudge their tax in line, and to try and catch those who do. For those of us who actually fill in the tax return with legitimate numbers, they're a plain nuisance.

Its not only the tax auditors who get on peoples' nerves. It seems that auditors of all types have to stick their hand in the pile of crap that is your life to make things harder for everyone. Not only that, the fact that the US decided to make things harder for their companies by legislating the dreaded Sarbanes-Oxley requirements have made it so that you can't seem to scratch your back in a corporate environment without getting drawn into the Red Hole of Bureaucracy (RHB). So not only do auditors have to look at the stuff they were always looking at 10 years ago, they're also looking at what you're doing to stay SOX compliant. This is great news for accounting and auditing graduates as theres now plenty of work compared to before the whole Enron scandle hit, and its hard not to find a job if you look hard enough. However, for the rest of us, it just makes life that much harder.

Now we have to deal with things such as Business Continuity Management (BCM), so that when the building you work in decides to fall over after some terrorists have decided that they'll turn into martyrs, you'll have somewhere to go. This is all very well and good. We'll have a plan so that we'll still have jobs if the building blows up. The problem is that if this happens while everyone is working at the building, its not going to help since everyone who knows about the management plan isn't going to be alive to put it into practice.

Theres also other things, like application handbooks which are written so that nobody actually understands what its talking about unless they actually know what its meant to be saying.

Fantastic.

After all thats done, they'll work to put as much red tape in front of your normal work so that after they're done, you won't be able to move unless you feel like untangling yourself from the red cocoon you'll undoubtedly find yourself trapped in. And those are just the external auditors.

As for the internal auditors, they'll make things just as hard, but they have a tougher job. They have the added problem of wading their way through the additional red tape the external auditors put in to slap on some more slightly more pink tape.

The other problem is that they will continue to work with the people they give tape to. External auditors can give 'recommendations' which turn out to be mandatory, and then go away for about a year before coming back for a few weeks to see if its all been done. Internal auditors will give someone a task to do, and have to sit around giving stuff to everyone else in the company while the first one fumes and bitches about the stuff they're given. By the time he gets back, the original person and everyone who he works with and sits next to will hate them. Grrr.

Yes, auditors, we know you're just doing your job, but we loathe you.

Things you don't want to hear after a job interview #262

I was walking around the city the other day on the way the bus stop, and this woman said "I just didn't feel like hiring her."

If these are the kinds of justifications for decisions about peoples' careers that are made on a regular basis, I think we're in trouble.

No wonder a lot of people can't find jobs. They must be the type that people just don't feel like hiring.