Huge rejection of the new broom brought in at Virgin from Rio Tinto — despite the biggest doom and gloom ever to colour EBA negotiations when employees in all sectors are justifiably fearful of job security and general confidence in the economy, you would think that most companies would be able to exploit such fears and get vote up to change work practices and conditions. Not so Virgin Blue – results just in Monday PM — 77% against the proposed EBA — that, in this environment, is quite an achievement. More like a feather duster than a new broom.

Is the print Yellow Pages to be no more? I recently took part in a market survey that asked questions about how relevant it is, whether I ever used it, whether I saw it as an environmental problem and so forth. I got the impression that not only will people be able to opt out of receiving the Yellow Pages, the next edition will be provided only upon request.

Until very recently I was an employee at Ventracor. For some background on the company and our problems, see here. Administrators have worked hard to gag staff and recently they asked the staff to send any questions about the situation and the next day sacked all five who asked critical questions. No entitlements. No notice.

From Cadbury’s website:

Real chocolate is made from cocoa and its ingredients include cocoa butter, an expensive part of the cocoa bean. Compound chocolate is made, instead, with vegetable oils and doesn’t have the same fine qualities.

So, is their new recipe which includes vegetable oils as well as cocoa butter a compound chocolate rather than milk chocolate? Or maybe they’ve invented a whole new variety!

Are there any experts out there in Crikeyland who can shed some light on this?

Yesterday I rang Citylink to register a 2nd car on my Citylink account and to obtain a 2nd e-TAG for my 2nd car. I asked Citylink how long it would take to receive the 2nd e-TAG? They said it would take five to seven business days. I asked, “now that I have registered the 2nd car on the account, can I drive the car during the five to seven business days while a wait for the e-TAG on Citylink?” I was informed that I can but would be charged an additional 0.75 cents for each trip as an untagged car on top of the normal fare. I can’t believe I have to pay for the privilege of Citylink’s inefficient practices.

I do the right thing and register a 2nd vehicle and I pay for the privilege of their incompetence of organising an e-TAG to be mailed to me even though the vehicle is registered with Citylink — now that is a good business if you can get it.