jbwan: WordPress’ed for time…

No such thing as any lunch? November 22, 2006

We’ve all heard that there was no such thing as a free lunch but it is starting to look like there will soon be no such thing as lunch. A recent study has shown that the Irish lunch hour has been whittled away to a mere 38 minutes on average. The British are even guiltier suffering a mere 28 minutes of dining freedom. We have to stop and ask ourselves a few questions here.

In Ireland, satisfaction with life is dropping rapidly due to increasing stress levels, property prices, trying to get a job outside of Dublin and many other factors. In response we recognise that we are one of the most efficient workforces in Europe and now we are disposing of our lunch hour for reasons that one can only attribute to increased workload. However, in conflict to this, our country is hemorrhaging jobs in many sectors, supposedly pricing ourselves out of the market. Could this price problem be linked to the unrealistic hours that people are expected to work and the demands made of them outside of 9 to 5? Will Irish employers see that enforcing shorter lunch breaks, longer working hours and shorter weekends, is actually detremental to the compos mentis of their workers? I fear not. As usual too many employers have their heads firmly rooted in the base of their digestive systems, always thinking that the workforce is dispensible. Well, here’s an interesting thought: They took the same attitude in lots of American companies many years ago and soon thereafter the expression “went postal” was born. Nobody wants to see an Irish version of that phrase. Wake up Ireland! Don’t get back to work, get back to life! source: Irish Times

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ESB Hike to be Reviewed November 18, 2006

The 19% increase granted to the ESB by the energy deregulator earlier this year is set to be reviewed due to a dramatic fall in the price of oil since the grant. However, early words are only indicating that a couple of percentage points will be dropped from the increase rather than abolishing the increase altogether. Sickening really, we may as well not even have a regulator in this country… source: The Irish Times

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Take my breath away November 12, 2006

Last night while driving home I was subjected to my first random breath test. While it was comforting to see Gardaí at midnight on a Saturday, while all hell is probably breaking loose in the city centre, out checking tax and insurance and random breath testing in the suburbs it’s not that nice. Don’t get me wrong now, I’m all for random breath testing, it’s a great idea and if it saves a life or two along the way then it’s worth any effort expended. However, I have a slight doubt about the randomness of my breath test. By the way I should also point out that my last drink previous to the test was over 24 hours ago with dinner that evening, obviously I never had any doubts about passing although I would still have liked to see the reading given the context. Anyway, a stream of four cars were stopped just after a junction so I managed to get a look at them all: One taxi, two female drivers (one small car, one saloon) and me. The taxi was waved on, the first female driver was waved on, the second who actually stalled her car at the checkpoint (no L plates either) was waved on and then there was me, a relatively young male driver. “Excuse me sir, random breath test”. Not so random me thinks…