Nicholas Perkins

We interrupt your scheduled programming to bring a breaking news story.

This year I’ve decided to enter the 2009 Bridge to Brisbane. I’ll be walking 10km on August 31 30 (thanks, Natalie!) with a team of people to get some fresh air and exercise. I’m really looking forward to it.

I’ve decided that to make it something extra special, I’m going to try and raise some money for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. My wife, Natalie, is a Type 1 diabetic and I see each and every day how this affects her. It’s the time it takes to monitor her sugar levels, the sugar lows and highs (both can be dangerous) and anything I can do to help raise funding to assist in the fight against this I will do. Almost anything. If you are serious and have enough cash, ask – you never know.

If you visit this fundraising page you not will be helping me, you’ll be helping my wife and others like her. So if any of my blog posts have ever spoken to you, or if you just want to help a good cause and feel warm and fuzzy for a moment, please give whatever you can.

I have decided to aim for Target 1000 – $1000.00 from you, me and others will help the foundation fund research into cures and treatments for this disease. I’ll be bringing you regular updates on my training progress between now and August 30, with regular reminders of the fundraising drive. I’ll also bring you how we are progressing towards Target 1000.

We now return to your regular programming.

I work for the Queensland Public Service. It isn’t something I would normally bring up on my blog — I don’t like to bring attention to career as a public servant. My views on this blog are mine and have very little to do with my job, other than everything in my life shaping my opinions.

That all changed when it was reported today in the Courier-Mail that Anna Bligh is looking to break another of her promises and cap public sector pay increases to 2.5%. It won’t affect many Queenslanders, but it affects me. I’m not all that pleased either.

Many of the fine folk who work in the Queensland public sector could be earning a lot more money working in the private sector. A big mix of skills and experience that these people have allows the public service to provide services to Queensland that no private company could. Many departments can’t be profit making – would you expect child safety officers to try and turn a profit? Can you imagine a business surviving long on that business model?

The government pays well and has good employment conditions, but there is a cost as well. Public sector staff work many long hours, and at upper levels with no overtime entitlements. Costs are kept to a minimum at every opportunity in order to provide front line services.

“But you get hours and hours of paid flex time?” I hear people scream. Flex time, or ADOs as they are often called, are hours that you have to work before you can take them off. So you might be required to work a 37.25 hour week, but you work 42 hours. That adds up and eventually you might be lucky to get a day off.

Then again, you might not. Many can’t take a day off as there would be no one else to do their job. Don’t think that flex time just accrues forever either. There is almost always a limit where you lose your hours if you don’t take them. And many workers either feel a duty to not take them or just can’t find the time/get the approval to do so.

This is just in the ‘regular’ public service where you aren’t dealing with front line services. Think about all the child safety officers, housing officers, nurses, teachers and police officers who work long hours for less than they could earn elsewhere.

There will always be those in any workforce who use and abuse systems and entitlements. But don’t let that fool you into thinking that the public sector isn’t full of lazy workers who do little more than drink from the golden goblet and head off at 3pm each day.

Giving workers 2.5% increases in pay each year is an insult. This is LESS than inflation. Add in the expected increases in fuel, electricity and other life essentials and it’s clear to see that it isn’t fair. It’s tough at the moment to keep good workers and this step is going to be another reason for those who are dedicated and stay for the betterment of the state or the clients they serve to pack up and get a better paying job in the private sector.

(Disclaimer: I am a Queensland public servant, but these are my views and not those of my employer, or of my pet llama.)

Girls who are attending private school dances are being required to wear bike pants, tights, leggings, etc with short skirts or dresses as part of a new dress code. The Courier-Mail’s headline cries “School Dance Dress Shock“. Clicking through gives you an even better headline for the article.

Bike pants dress code for school dances to ward off sex

I can only assume they are very unflattering bike pants then.

The article reports that this decision has been made amid concerns that inappropriate touching by boys will lead to criminal charges, and that this rule has been brought in to “ reduce the risk of being sexually assaulted”.  The report goes on to explain that the girl’s schools had asked for the rules to be changed, as previously this type of apparel wasn’t allowed. Perhaps this was a leftover of the late 80s push to consign leggings to the past forever.

It seems sensible to allow leggings, tights. This has become the fashion over recent times and it fits into the appropriate dress code for a school dance. Mini skirts and bare legs really don’t need to be the realm of 14 and 15 year old girls. This way they can wear the current short skirt/dress fashions but with appropriate covering that a private school requires. Win-win I would have thought.

The claims that this would reduce incidents of sexual assault seems strange. Sexual assault is not accidentally touching a girl inappropriately because there was nothing in the way, like bike pants. Sexual assault is the act of touching a person inappropriately (or other such things) and whether bike pants are in the way or not, it’s still assault. Perhaps the  idea is that the boys are not going to be ‘provoked’ by the bare flesh temptation brought about by the short skirts. I don’t think that would stop randy boys from thinking about sex, but randy boys doesn’t mean sexual assault either.

Adolescent boys and girls have always had the hideously difficult task of growing through from innocence to sexual maturity. It’s not always pleasant and can be very awkward. Having been a randy teenage boy at one stage, I know what it was like for me. I was never interested in sexually assaulting someone though.

If a guy is going to sexually assault a girl, it’s because he is a pig and can’t control himself (or chooses to not control himself). No amount of Lycra will stop them.

Good on the schools for having and updating their dress code, but lets not turn it into a panacea for sexual assault at school dances. Education and modelling of correct and appropriate behaviour from older men is one way that we can get the next generation to treat all women with respect and not do the wrong thing. Report anything that you see immediately. If you are attacked, don’t be afraid to speak up. We need to support the victims of sexual assault to help them get the justice they deserve.

A dress code – good idea, but not the end to sexual assault.

A bunch of people at BTUB

As always for the first Friday in the month, it was the regular BTUB meet-up at the Ship Inn. It seems that the group is getting too big for the venue now (over 80 people attended) so it will be interesting to see where we end up next month. It’s great to see so many twits in attendance and there are so many networking opportunities – it’s more than likely you will find someone with similar interests to connect with. The problem I often have with BTUB is working out who to talk to next!

What can be difficult in situations where you have a large group of people together is when you get a few people who decide to have a few too many drinks. Thankfully it seems that most at BTUB drink responsibly and don’t become a nuisance. So if you have been concerned by reports of unsavoury activities at ‘net geek’ meet-ups I think you can relax.

Another side of BTUB has shown me that I’m getting old. I can live with that. So many people that I met last night (and at other BTUBs) were considerably younger than me. The main group of people who organise these events are younglings (well to me) so it’s a credit to their organisational abilities. Perhaps some of these people who whinge about Generation Y should come along and see all the business and social networking connections being made.

We love Mustache Necklace Fun at BTUB

• A sleazy, drunken pick-up event;
• A bunch of teenagers/early twenties getting boozed up and running amok;
• A bitch-fest about all those people on Twitter you want to stab behind the back.

But BTUB is:

• A great way to meet people with similar interests;
• A chance to be social with people you talk to on Twitter;
• A networking opportunity, giving you access to skills and knowledge you could never find elsewhere;
• Awesome fun.

Come along next month, and follow the #btub hashtag on Twitter.

Thanks to a find for mine for pointing me to this Google Maps link. It’s a custom map showing details of the current Swine Flu outbreak.

It is amazing the information that is now available to us. Ten years ago something like this would be hard for ordinary people to imagine. Just think what the world will be like in another 10 or 20 years time.