Shaggy Dog Comments...
Just a thought: Public liability insurance is shot to blazes in Australia - and the Lismore Lantern Festival struggled to find an insurer before coughing up $4500 for a couple of hours gentle pleasure. We watched the idiots in Pamplona, Spain last week, getting in the way of bulls with big horns as they charged down the street. We wonder if they have public liability insurance for the event.
Speaking of the Living Regional Treasures exhibition, you've got just a few days left to vote for your favourite work in the $1000 Echo People's Choice Award.
Echo editor Simon Thomsen will announce the winner next Thursday, July 25, following a forum on the nature of contemporary portraiture featuring some of the region's finest artists, including Michael Taylor, James Guppy and Ian Pearson. The discussion kicks off at 5.30pm. Entry is by gold coin donation.
Following on from last week's story on Telstra closing its Lismore call centre, claiming that less people are calling the number, we think we've found out why. A number of readers contacted us saying it's often difficult to get through. So we decided to test things ourselves from home around lunchtime. The first time we rang, it was engaged. The second time we rang, we were left on hold for around 10 minutes before being told the service was busy, could we please call back later, and were cut off. It was a case of third time lucky.
Two other things - if you've been sent the email telling you to call a different number to get free directory assistance, ignore it - it's rubbish. The reality is that using directory assistance is free from home (the Government forced Telstra to keep it free to home users when the charges were introduced). Business users pay whatever number you call. We can't help wondering if that's one of the reasons why free users have so much trouble getting through.
If you do pay for the calls, (and keep in mind that if the voice recognition computer fails, the operator has 18.2 seconds to deal with your enquiry), but are put through to the wrong number, you're entitled to call Telstra back and ask for a credit on the call.
Our String 'Em Up management award goes to Australia Post, another benevolent call centre operator, for sticking it to operator Cori Girondoudas, was penalised $3000 in wage rises and demoted for refusing to remove a photograph of her with two friends from her desk, which was already covered with posters of AFL footballers Jonathan Hay, Trent Croad, James Hird and movie star Heath Ledger. A manager, perhaps keen to improve on the battery hen nature of call centres, where computer monitoring puts Big Brother to shame, issued a decree that staff were only allowed three personal items on the desk. Cori had four. On Tuesday Cori's 100 colleagues pinned up personal photographs in defiance of a supervisor's instructions. An Aussie Post spin doctor said the three-picture limit was not company policy, as such, but a directive from the manager to make it fairer on those workers who had to share desks - even though Cori had her own desk.
Another from our fine collection to loony US lawsuits in the Whiplash Awards (courtesy of Michigan Lawsuit Abuse Watch - www.mlaw.org): University of Idaho freshman Hank Reinfeld lived in a dorm with windows overlooking the street. Glancing down one afternoon, he noticed a couple of friends passing by. To get their attention he decided to "moon" them and climbed onto a heater, pulled down his pants, leaned his bare butt against the plate glass... and fell right through. Reinfeld plummeted three floors before landing on the ground, ultimately suffering a broken vertebra, compression fractures, deep cuts, and bruises on his hands, legs, and buttocks. Reinfeld returned home to recuperate. While on the mend, the former freshman sued the university for not warning residents of the perilous nature of upper-story windows. Amused by the suit, residents of his dorm hung signs that read "Caution! Do not place buttocks against glass. Personal injury may result." Perhaps the greatest insult was delivered to Reinfeld via the Lewiston Morning Tribune, which ironically pointed out that Reinfeld "was not intoxicated" at the time of the incident. No doubt he wished he had been. The lack of gravity of Reinfeld's argument caused the state to deny the claim. No ifs - or butts.
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This wonderful, quirky portrait of manna man Darcy Goodwin is currently on show at Lismore Regional Art Gallery as part of the Living Regional Treasures exhibition. This Saturday you can join Darcy and the team from the Five Loaves Soup kitchen when they celebrate 11 years of serving hot meals in the village. A night of dinner and entertainment kicks off at 5pm at Nimbin Hall. Darcy would like you to bring a donation - $1 for every year of service (ie $11), to help keep up the soupie's good work.
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