Posted: 12:41pm Fri 19 Jul, 2013

Life, work and chicken doodoo

Brian Rogers
Rogers Rabbits
www.sunlive.co.nz

Welfare reforms kicked in this week and there are some well overdue requirements for those out of work, to actively seek it – and some expectations for sole parents and
their children.
It's easy to say, when you're in a good job and making a comfortable living, that those relying on your taxes should pull up their socks.
This was pointed out to me recently by a fired-up reader, with the opinion everyone in business was 'lucky” and enjoyed perks handed to them on a silver platter. Then she rolled another smoke and staggered back into the TAB.
I pursued the conversation, on the basis that most businesspeople haven't achieved through luck or inherited good fortune.
Risking it
Most I know have taken many calculated risks and worked long hours, often at the profit of others, to gain the experience and skills to forge their own way.
When we read about ‘jobseekers' who are drug reliant and unable to even show up on time (see letters pages this week) you realise how out of touch many have become with what it takes to hold down a job.
My mates and I spent a painful proportion of several summers working in some pretty shite jobs to get ahead, including weeding orchards, shovelling dirt and bagging chicken manure.
Believe me, it wasn't easy running around behind those chickens with a bag, waiting for them to take a dump.
The money wasn't good, the delivery hardly economic, and Piggy Muldoon or whichever visionary ran the country, wouldn't let us deliver on our carless days.
The real reward of the job was the intangible lessons learned: realising it was worth studying and qualifying to get a decent job.
Anyway, the point somewhere here is that most of the time, people have to start at the bottom and work up.
That includes doing jobs that maybe aren't so pleasant, and possibly moving town to achieve it. Not that I didn't enjoy a stint in Hawera, but it wasn't high on my list of coastal living paradise options.
Working harder and taking calculated risks can usually get you further, faster. Being prepared to work anywhere, and build up a CV is part of working your way into a better career.
As for getting into business, many of us who worked hard for a house, then put it on the line to launch into business. It could have gone horribly wrong. If it had, I'd have started again, probably in Hawera.
Fluoride bubbling up
The fluoride debate is rising up like a giant deja vu moment.
At the risk of sounding like an old fart, I remember when, as editor of the good old Bay Sun back in the eighties, the ‘fluoride in our water' bunfight raged.
It has smouldered away in the background and never been snuffed out.
It's a great concept. The supposed downsides, not proven, are outweighed by enormous advantages – especially for those least capable of making good choices for their offspring.
Yet I feel a little uneasy with the idea of mass medication.
Here's an idea: install optional fluoride-additive water fountains at pre-schools and primary schools so children, the main targets of this concept, can opt for either fluoride-enhanced water, or rotten teeth.
High standards
One of the useless pieces of information sent from my darling wife's web meanderings, was this headline: 'Snake hiding in toilet bites man's penis.”
How exactly my beloved thought this would make any item of interest in this column is beyond me. We have standards here at RR.
There are two specific words that, for the sake of decency and class, we avoid at all costs: ‘snake' and ‘bites'.
I know you thought ‘toilet' and ‘penis' would be a problem. But obviously, in the case of a snake hiding in a toilet and biting a penis, those words are perfectly acceptable.
Not funny
Snakes are the only things worse than the alternative, the Act Party. Sorry, just a joke, you know we meant the Greens (or was that the Pakeha Party?)
We normally also avoid all toilet humour and also anything involving a penis. In fact I think this is the first time in 13 years this column has used the P-word.
I could be wrong, to the best of our knowledge penis has never arisen, so to speak, in this column.
Parting thought
There's been a lot of discussion about the pending arrival of the royal baby and speculation about the sex.
We can reveal here today, in a world first, the answer: Yes, it was definitely the result of sex.

Welfare reforms kicked in this week and there are some well overdue requirements for those out of work, to actively seek it – and some expectations for sole parents and their children.

It's easy to say, when you're in a good job and making a comfortable living, that those relying on your taxes should pull up their socks.

This was pointed out to me recently by a fired-up reader, with the opinion everyone in business was 'lucky” and enjoyed perks handed to them on a silver platter. Then she rolled another smoke and staggered back into the TAB.

I pursued the conversation, on the basis that most businesspeople haven't achieved through luck or inherited good fortune.

Risking it
Most I know have taken many calculated risks and worked long hours, often at the profit of others, to gain the experience and skills to forge their own way.

When we read about ‘jobseekers' who are drug reliant and unable to even show up on time (see letters pages this week) you realise how out of touch many have become with what it takes to hold down a job.

My mates and I spent a painful proportion of several summers working in some pretty shite jobs to get ahead, including weeding orchards, shovelling dirt and bagging chicken manure.

Believe me, it wasn't easy running around behind those chickens with a bag, waiting for them to take a dump.

The money wasn't good, the delivery hardly economic, and Piggy Muldoon or whichever visionary ran the country, wouldn't let us deliver on our carless days.

The real reward of the job was the intangible lessons learned: realising it was worth studying and qualifying to get a decent job.

Anyway, the point somewhere here is that most of the time, people have to start at the bottom and work up.

That includes doing jobs that maybe aren't so pleasant, and possibly moving town to achieve it. Not that I didn't enjoy a stint in Hawera, but it wasn't high on my list of coastal living paradise options.

Working harder and taking calculated risks can usually get you further, faster. Being prepared to work anywhere, and build up a CV is part of working your way into a better career.

As for getting into business, many of us who worked hard for a house, then put it on the line to launch into business. It could have gone horribly wrong. If it had, I'd have started again, probably in Hawera.

Fluoride bubbling up
The fluoride debate is rising up like a giant deja vu moment.

At the risk of sounding like an old fart, I remember when, as editor of the good old Bay Sun back in the eighties, the ‘fluoride in our water' bunfight raged.

It has smouldered away in the background and never been snuffed out.

It's a great concept. The supposed downsides, not proven, are outweighed by enormous advantages – especially for those least capable of making good choices for their offspring.

Yet I feel a little uneasy with the idea of mass medication.

Here's an idea: install optional fluoride-additive water fountains at pre-schools and primary schools so children, the main targets of this concept, can opt for either fluoride-enhanced water, or rotten teeth.

High standards
One of the useless pieces of information sent from my darling wife's web meanderings, was this headline: 'Snake hiding in toilet bites man's penis.”

How exactly my beloved thought this would make any item of interest in this column is beyond me. We have standards here at RR.

There are two specific words that, for the sake of decency and class, we avoid at all costs: ‘snake' and ‘bites'.

I know you thought ‘toilet' and ‘penis' would be a problem. But obviously, in the case of a snake hiding in a toilet and biting a penis, those words are perfectly acceptable.

Not funny
Snakes are the only things worse than the alternative, the Act Party. Sorry, just a joke, you know we meant the Greens (or was that the Pakeha Party?)

We normally also avoid all toilet humour and also anything involving a penis. In fact I think this is the first time in 13 years this column has used the P-word.

I could be wrong, to the best of our knowledge penis has never arisen, so to speak, in this column.

Parting thought
There's been a lot of discussion about the pending arrival of the royal baby and speculation about the sex.

We can reveal here today, in a world first, the answer: Yes, it was definitely the result of sex.

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