All my ten years of work in the UK was in the Square Mile in London, where I was treated like an individual and my talents nutured and developed and not as a number like here. Hence the different attitude, which took me years to attain. I can probably count on less than two hands the amount of sickies I took in my ten years in London.




I'm still slightly peeved it took me so long to wake up to the difference in the workplace here and the amount of Sickies I left with the Gas and Fuel when they were sold off and we were left to our own devices. I will admit though work at the Gas and fuel was a true lurk... But at least the money stayed in the economy. The profits now go to Singapore rather than the workforce and the Public to the pro rata tune of of 1 millions dollars (back in 1996) per day making it Victorias most profitable public company.


Believe it or not we do work fairly hard at the Post Office, I know I wont convince anyone of that.... But most of us leave with long term developed personal injuries. I've got one in my shoulder as do at least 60 pct of my workmates with different conditions arising from the repetitive and constantly timed work.

As for the 5 days of uncertificated sick leave, well it's little wonder that it's treated like our 6th unofficial week off work by a substantial proportion of the work force. 95 pct of people would take 3 days off anyway. Public Hospital workers do for the same for reasons related to stress.


BTW I dont get the dishonesty angle, as when we phone in it's "I'm taking a sick day off today"..... No reason needed, no one questions the reason. Totally different system to the UK, hard to accept I know, It just is. Even with certificated leave, there is no reason given in most cases. It's "Medical condition" Sick leave really is treated differently here.

I don't think you realize how easy you have it. I could go on about the complaints of my job, repetitive strain syndrome is just part of it. Long flights, most of which the return journey is on a red eye, on a Friday night, in economy, after spending all week living out of a suitcase away from the family. All this after the stress of performance in making a number which is a fair component of my salary. Then I pay tax so you and your mates can take dishonest long weekends.

You've just proven you dont know what your talking about.

The deadliest jobs in Australia revealed | The New Daily

That's just the Darwinian effect kicking in

Actually you don't know what you are talking about.

My job is number 1 on the stressful list buddy. And that's only part of my job.

Most stressful jobs in Australia | The New Daily

Anyway its not about me, I just get on with it so back on topic, why don't you just leave the post if its that bad rather than taking advantage of others?

Oh its nice to see the self entitlement of public servants isn't restricted to Australia.

The menace of memes: how pictures can paint a thousand lies » Spectator Blogs

In the company you work for (in the private sector) there will be people who take sickies when they aren't sick, take extra long toilet breaks, probably steal the toilet roll and will most definitely turn up late and leave early. That's money wasted that affects your yearly salary review. Well done to you for being the lifter that this country needs.

In all honesty Beoz corporations not paying their proper tax is probably hurting the tax payer far more than Aus workers endemic system of pulling a sickie.

As for Post... Too old to change now, 60 years old in March and waiting the tap on the shoulder in the next few years for the inevitable redundancy pay out. (3-4 years would be perfect for me ) Plus in the next 18 months Post will start to become a liability as "Ahmed" (Thats exactly how he signs his name) has split the very profitable Parcels section from the "now" money losing and shrinking mail system. With a view of selling the profitable part off to his mates in the overseas corporate world. Wonder how much commission he'll cop on top of his 3 Million dollar plus salary for ripping of the tax payers with that one.

Why cant people see this oh so transparent movement of the many profitable government business into a few international holders hands. Boy the tax payer will really cop it over that one. Especially as uptil this year Aus Post has been paying the federal government tax at quite a substantial rate. Gas and Fuel mark 2.... There goes the money.

...... and guess what, if people cheat the private sector, the private sector fires them. Try doing that to someone in the public sector. But nice try for the left.

I'm sure there are many rorts out there and other things hurting the taxpayer - negative gearing for one, but completely legal. You did announce you rort and at the same time announced most of your colleagues do it too. Well I'll give you one thing. At least you are honest.

It's been a bit of a rollercoster ride for us regarding the East West Link, as you know Ozzie we moved here to Melbourne specifically so my husband could work on it.
The last couple of days the husband and myself have been trying to find out any new news that might give us some hope of it still going ahead. From all the info we have gathered so far its not looking like its going to happen. for us that leaves us in an unfortunate situation, So we have two choices now as there isn't any other tunnle work currently going on in Melbourne, we either move to Sydney or the surroundings and he applies for a job on the Northconnex (I think its called) Or we go back to the UK where he still has a job on Cross Rail.

Onwards and upwards MC All will be fine. BTW. Happy birthday.

There's the rail tunnel under parkville and the university precinct to come under labours plans but thats probably not for at least 4 years now. Plus the East West link isn't dead in the water yet. Thing is they should be building the North East part of the Western ring road to connect with East Link first, which would complete a ring road around Melbourne. ... A plan thats been shelved time and time again. It's a case of vote buying by either side affecting swinging electorates unfortunately for you.

I was very surprised about the size of the swing actually and was worrying about another hung parliment, which is where all this misunderstanding and lack of true direction has come from in the first place.

The East West link isnt completely dead yet, but with the Greens in with some power in the upper house it's not looking good. Labour would probably secretly like to build it solely on the jobs aspect.

.

How do you know it's not more frequent in the private sector? People do it, people get caught and they may or may not get fired. But others do it after them. But your issue is that someone is actually taking money from your tax and using it to have a day at the beach. You've also taken the opportunity to appraise their work performance (see post 43). That's quite arrogant as you have no idea how hard these people work or how efficient they are. Efficiency over time works far better than the other way around.

And referring to me as 'the left' is a bit silly from someone who has a strong dislike for name calling.

Cheers B!





Yeah I agree that Labour would secretly like to build it, but if they don't stick to their word of scrapping it I'm sure they will be an uproar, from the Greens especially.

However I think it's complete madness that so much preparation has been allowed to go ahead for the EWL. People have had to move out of their homes to make way for the construction for example, I can't believe they got to that stage only to stop. There is now a section of Melbourne with empty houses, Labour have offered to sell the homes back to the people but most don't want to move back now as they have settled elsewhere. The testing of the soil has been done ready to start dropping the shafts. Job applications have been submitted for engineers, miners, etc....and Lend Lease, along with Acciona the company's who were contracted to do the job were more than confident it was happening.

There's definitely something underhand gone on, as Labour are keen to release the business case, contract and all other documents on the project to the general public. Actually we are still waiting for that to happen. It was supposed to happen on Monday.

Anyway, that's politics and politicians for you I guess. As long as they get what they want, sod the common people......
Same old same old.