Job Therapy

I read Job Therapy (West, 2024) as a six hour audiobook, which begins with an assessment to find out what 'type' of worker we are: whether we are having a crisis of identity; whether we are in a relationship that has drifted apart; whether we are stretched too thin; whether we are continually the runner-up; or whether we are the underappreciated star (West, 2024). As the book's intro was by a British narrator, I was expecting a British narrator.  So hearing an American accent - Kirsten Potter - was both unexpected and jarring. However, my ear is not the author's fault! 

The book seemed to detail five areas where people who were successful in their work differed from those who were less successful. They were: being clear what personal privacy is; what their career dilemmas are and how roles evolve over time; how to network; and how to prepare for interviews (West, 2024). 

Lets look at those five areas covered in slightly greater detail:

1. Digital Privacy: we cannot assume that those who collect and share our personal data have sound measures to protect our identity and information. We need to check that those we send our information to have robust privacy protection measures to ensure data security. Awareness and proactive strategies are essential (West, 2024).
   
   
2. Career Dilemmas: we have the choice between fulfilling work at start-ups versus stability in established companies. Dilemmas arise when we have to choose between pursuing our passions or in seeking stable employment. Balancing a decision between working for a start-up that aligns with our beliefs versus a well-established firm that offers job security but without excitement will come down to us understanding ourselves as well as understanding our commitments. It is assumed in the book that career practitioners will come down on the side of security over passion (not my experience as a career practitioner!). This is the one of the key areas where I feel West shows her lack of understanding of the expertise of career practitioners (West, 2024).
   
   
3. Job Role Evolution: we all know we live in a VUCA world (Bennett & Lemoine, 2014), and we have to adapt to evolving roles, requiring regular upskilling. This evolution of our job leads to professional challenges and opportunities as sectors transform. While in a role, we will continuously adapt to new responsibilities and the changing world of work itself, increasing our ability to be flexible and building our skills through on-going training. All this change can lead to overwhelm, especially when combined with increasing workloads alongside expectations. Embracing change and developing new skills are essential amidst the complexities: but. West forgets to mention that as workers we also have rights, and need to remember to look after ourselves. It shouldn't all go the employers' way (West, 2024).
   
   
4. Networking Strategies: networking helps us to understand our industry - including the jargon we need for effective communication. Our ability to network is critical for our continued professional growth and advancement, enabling us to build industry connections. As much as it is a bit of a faff, attending events, using appropriate digital media platforms, and making new contacts will build our profile. We need to be active listeners, communicate clearly, and establish rapport with those who may be the next person to hire us. We need to invest a little time in expanding our networks, in creating profile, in order to create opportunities for collaboration, mentorship and future positions (West, 2024).
   
   
5. Interview Preparation: for career advancement we need to be asking insightful questions and understanding workplace dynamics. Like all skills, fitness via practice - common interview questions and preparing insightful queries - will aid interview success, where we have rehearsed enough to present ourselves confidently, and cogently. We need to understand the employer's and company's goals, so we can tailor our responses and show genuine interest. Practicing can help candidates engage with interviewers meaningfully. Additionally, understanding workplace dynamics and aligning personal experiences with the job requirements can significantly enhance performance, leaving a lasting impression on potential employers (West, 2024).

This book was sound in some areas: less so in others. But in my opinion this is not something that needs to be on a career practitioners' bookshelf.

Sam

References:

Bennett, N. & Lemoine, G. J. (2014b). What VUCA Really Means for You. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2014/01/what-vuca-really-means-for-you

West, T. (2024). Job Therapy: Finding Work That Works for You. Portfolio/Penguin Random House LLC.

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Adobe pdf file keeps opening print dialogue

I had an interesting problem recently. I was sent an 'official' file which, each time opened the file, would also open the printer dialogue box. In order to read the file, I would have to dismiss the dialogue box (which - while minor - was still rather irritating).

After repeatedly closing the dialogue box each time I opened the file, I decided that I should track down what the problem was and solve it. The first solution was to disable javascript. So I went to the Edit menu, selected Preferences, and navigated to the Javascript item in the list in the lefthand pane. In that sub-menu, I unticked "Enable Acrobat Javascript" (Kit, 2011). Then each time I opened the file I now got an error message asking me if I knew that I had disabled javascript. Sigh: from one annoying popup to another.

On the hunt again, I found a solution for a different problem, which inadvertently solved mine. This user's problem was "When opening some PDF files stored on Onedrive, Adobe Reader (latest version) switches to the Print dialog. The PDF is not opened. If I print and save a new PDF at that point, the new PDF opens. How can this be fixed?" (Jan28787298lb6s, 2023), with one of the suggested solutions to that problem being as follows:

1. Open the pdf
2. Go to the Tools options and scroll right down to the end, and click on "Javascript". 
3. A toolbar will appear in the normal toolbar position, where we then select "Document Javascript" button. That will pop up the "Document Javascript" dialogue box.
4. Here we click on edit, which opens the "Javascript Editor" dialogue. 
5. Once open, we click into the "Create and Edit JavaScripts" field, and replace "this.print()" with two forward slashes (i.e. "//" but without the speech marks).
6. Now we click OK. 
7. And save. And close.

The next time we open our file, hopefully we will find that dratted print screen dialogue box will no longer be with us (Jan28787298lb6s, 2023).

At least, that is what happened for me :-)

Sam

References:

Kit. (2011, March 29). Opening a PDF brings up the Print dialog. SuperUser. https://superuser.com/questions/263842/opening-a-pdf-brings-up-the-print-dialog

Jan28787298lb6s. (2023, March 9). Adobe Acrobat Reader opens print dialog when PDFS are opened. Adobe Community. https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat-reader-discussions/adobe-acrobat-reader-opens-print-dialog-when-pdfs-are-opened/td-p/13637207

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Career practitioners are invisible

Career development in Aotearoa is an “inchoate occupation”: in other words, we lack clarity as a ‘profession’ (Douglas, 2009, 2010, p. 25; Furbish, 2012; O’Reilly, 2018). That is a bit of an ouchy comment. I wonder if this is because career development practice here has been - and continues to be - diversely defined by very diverse practitioners with a huge range of specialisations including, according to the specialisation competencies defined by the Career Development Association of New Zealand:

1. Career education in secondary and tertiary environments
2. career counselling;
3. working with those with disabilities;
4. career development programme design and delivery;
5. research;
6. policy development;
7. professional supervision; and
8. Organisational career development (CDANZ, 2018).

Something Val O’Reilly said in her PhD thesis struck me forcibly: that as a New Zealand teacher and career educator “there was no equivalent professional pathway [for her role], and [she found her] career work was peripheral to the core curriculum” within the school (2018, p. 3) and I am sure that many of us would resonate with that. How could she become a professional when there was not a clear pathway?

Well, education, obviously: we have Capable at Otago Polytechnic, and the under-grad NMIT Career Development programme. Except there are some problems with that.

Firstly, we don't come to career development as a first career. We arrive as a second, third or fourth career, with our Kiwi career practitioners being older people, averaging 51 years (Young, 2025). We already have an under-grad degree. If we want to upskill, we are likely to want to build on our undergrad base and look for post-graduate qualifications.

Secondly, career development practitioners are spread across a number of different organisations. There is CATE (CATE Careers and Transition Education Association NZ Inc) with a membership of just over 1000. CDANZ has around 400 members; some of which are also members of CATE. NZAC – the New Zealand Association of Counsellors – has 2500 members (of whom perhaps 250 might be in the career space). Then there are case managers and rehab professionals, both of whom have their own membership organisations. I think we can safely assume that there will be few double ups, and, …if we add in those who work with MSD, other charitable organisations, and schools where practitioners are not CATE members, perhaps collectively we may have 5000 people working in the career field in New Zealand. And - at a very rough back of the envelope calculation – 60% of career practitioners are probably NOT members of a professional organisation. Which actually means that most of us are invisible.

And what I mean by invisible is that there are roughly 78,000 nurses registered with the Nursing Council in New Zealand, and tertiary institutes provide 18 post-graduate qualifications ranging from level 8 to 10 on the NZQA framework (NCNZ, 2025). If we think about social workers, there are 7520 registered with the NZ Social Workers Registration Board (SWRB, 2025), and a massive 3,000 enrolled in higher education (Bartley et al., 2025). It is easy to see in those two professions, because they belong to one governing body, just what the demand for higher education might be. The number of registered professionals in a field needs to provide enough volume to warrant an investment in Higher Education. It costs.

With only 5000 career practitioners, and fewer than 2000 of us ‘officially’ exist in maybe four or five main membership organisations, across eight specialities, we must come at our field sideways under a social work or an education umbrella or go offshore for HE. Not ideal for our career development.

But is it any wonder that we do not have a taught post-graduate career development in our country? Because, if we are invisible and fragmented, we have not created an incentive for an agency to invest in education to upskill us.

Something to think about.

Sam

References:

Bartley, A., Beddoe, L., Hashemi, L., Rahimi, M.,  & de Fossard, S. (2025). Social work students in Aotearoa New Zealand: the impacts of financial hardship on mental and social wellbeing. Social Work Education, 44(3), 485-505, https://doi.org/10.1080/02615479.2024.2326540

CDANZ. (2018). Career Development Association of New Zealand Competency Framework. Career Development Association of New Zealand. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1p4je3cbcuCk659W116_YlQxWIKQmkJ4v/view

Douglas, F. (2009). Anyone Can Do Guidance...: Losing and finding professional identity in a complex chain of services. In IAEVG International Conference 2013. https://jyx.jyu.fi/bitstream/handle/123456789/22908/Douglas.pdf?sequence=1

Douglas, F. (2010). Sustaining the Self: Implications for the Development of Career Practitioners' Professional Identity. Australian Journal of Career Development, 19(3), 24-32. https://doi.org/10.1177/103841621001900305

Furbish, D. S. (2012). An Overview of New Zealand Career Development Services. Australian Journal of Career Development, 21(2), 14-24. https://doi.org/10.1177/103841621202100203

Laurenson-Elder, R. C. (2022). What Works at Work? A comparative study of counselling and coaching in the workplace [Unpublished Doctoral Thesis, University of Auckland].

NCNZ. (2025). Programmes accredited by the Nursing Council as pathways leading to registration as a Nurse Practitioner or Registered Nurse designated prescriber. Nursing Council of New Zealand | Te Kaunihere Tapuhi o Aotearoa.  https://www.nursingcouncil.org.nz/common/Uploaded%20files/Accredited%20programmes%20leading%20to%20registration%20as%20a%20NP%20or%20RN%20designated%20prescriber%202024-08-07.pdf

O'Reilly, V. N. (2018). Professional standards and professional identity: Perspectives of career development practitioners in Australia and New Zealand [Doctoral thesis: University of Queensland]. https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/data/UQ_4c26854/s42789538_final_thesis.pdf?

SWRB. (2025). Home. Social Workers Registration Board New Zealand. https://swrb.govt.nz

Young, S. (2025). A snapshot of Aotearoa NZ career practitioners [Manuscript submitted for publication]. Social Sciences, NMIT.

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Why are MLMs still around?

I cannot believe that multi-level marketing companies like Amway is still around: but an article in Spinoff last year made me realise that they are still very much out there, predating on those of us who live on hope (Gosavi, 2025). 

MLMs can be described as "a direct sales channel where independent contractors, regularly referred to as distributors, retail products and services directly to consumers, typically friends and family members" (Groß & Keep, 2025, p. 1). Basically, if we are recruited to an MLM, we buy wholesale products to sell. But where the real money is made is by the person who recruits us: as they take a margin on all that we sell, and a margin on all their other recruits. It is the "promise of earning passive income through recruitment" that drives MLM structures like Amway (p. 1). Become a diamond seller? Sure, recruit, recruit, recruit. Ah, that call of hope.

I have been approached several times over the years, and have noticed that Amway has a distinctive odour in the way that their acolytes don't answer direct questions. Why should a legitimate business need to be so evasive? Additionally, it surprises me that MLMs remain legal, largely because of their lack of disclosure, and the very, very likely lack of profitability (Groß & Keep, 2025; Luke, 2024; O'Donnell, 2011). Like payday loan companies, imho they are unethical, parasitic black holes (to mix a few metaphors). 

People who join "are incentivised to build a ‘downline’ network to earn commissions not only from their personal sales but also from the purchases, retail sales, and further recruitment efforts" (Groß & Keep, 2025, p. 1), "creating a multi-tiered compensation structure" (p. 2). Two people I know who joined Amway both ended up with spare rooms full of Amway product in an effort to keep up with the required order level, until they each pulled out. They both then slowly used the product themselves over time. Luckily neither ended up in financial difficulty, but some have, buying ridiculous amounts of product in order to meet set sales targets (Newton, 2021; O'Donnell, 2011). 

Some become product bores, boring for Africa on all the benefits of the crap that is sold at extortionate prices for what are pretty ordinary products. I remember the sales schtick of "because we sell direct there are no advertising costs, so there is a saving". So why are the products were more expensive than ordinary ones, then? Particularly as today there are few advertising costs anyway (Luke, 2024). The products are long on talk, but short on performance (Luke, 2024; Newton, 2021). 

Amway (short for American Way, btw) has contract-pack arrangements in the USA, in India and in China (Profound-Information, 2019). Then argument that "we save on the distribution because we don't go through distributors" is spurious. Unless we own the entire process from raw materials through to delivery, all products move via distributors: distribution is how we get product from factory to market. Logistics or supply chain are terms that we all might be more familiar with today. Consider the following simple product logistics stages for global export following manufacture: products are warehoused, ordered, bonded, shipped, received, examined and taxed, before being sent to the local distributor. Each stage is one step in the distribution/logistics chain. 

And then there are the conferences, where attendees must pay to go, then are expected to buy loads of books, videos and geeing up materials. Many MLMs make pots of money from that act of networking: they are "infamous for their cult-like organisational cultures that discourage critical thinking, perpetuates financial losses and harms both participants and their social" circle (Groß & Keep, 2025, p. 4; Luke, 2024). Ouch. 

Anyway. Avoid MLMs. If someone can't show you clear profitability without clipping the ticket on your recruits, then avoid, avoid, avoid.

Sam

References:

Gosavi, J. (2025, October 14). Inside Legacy: The MLM that thrives in secrecy. The Spinoff. https://thespinoff.co.nz/business/14-10-2025/inside-legacy-the-mlm-that-thrives-in-secrecy

Groß, C., & Keep, W. W. (2025). The law and consumer harm in multi-level marketing: a review. Journal of Marketing Management. Advance online publication, 1-48. https://doi.org/10.1080/0267257X.2025.2578617

Luke, B. (2024). Multi-Level Marketing as a Sustainable Long-Term Business Model: A Case Study (Doctoral dissertation, Northcentral University). https://www.proquest.com/pqdtglobal1/dissertations-theses/multi-level-marketing-as-sustainable-long-term/docview/3073874025/sem-2?accountid=8440

Newton, L. (2021). In Pursuit of the Impossible Dream: An analysis of multi-level marking (MLM) schemes and the consumer harm caused by selling a lie. University of New South Wales Law Journal Student Series 10, 1-22. https://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/UNSWLawJlStuS/2021/10.pdf

O'Donnell, J. (2011, February 10). Multilevel marketing or 'pyramid?' Sales people find it hard to earn much. USA Today. https://web.archive.org/web/20110213043508/http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/retail/2011-02-07-multilevelmarketing03_cv_n.htm

Profound-Information. (2019, December 31). Where are Amway products manufactured?. https://profound-information.com/where-are-amway-products-manufactured/

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It's the putting right that counts

Until 2004 (Hannis, 2006) here in New Zealand there was a housewares retailer called L. V. Martin and Son, based in the Ngauranga Gorge in Wellington (Chetwin, 2017; Lawrence, 2017). Older Kiwis will no doubt remember the company's advertising strapline, as a "straight sell retailer" (Bulmer, 2001, p. 33), where Mr Martin senior, Alan Martin, would say to camera "If it's not right, we'll put it right. And it's the putting right that counts" (Chetwin, 2017; Dunne, 2022; Lawrence, 2017).

Many marketers thought this was a daft way of selling: the retailer was suggesting that something might go wrong with the product. It was thought that "as a marketing claim [it] initially seemed like a negative but, of course, in the context of their company, it’s was a real positive. Not selling their own brands, the family business was taking responsibility for the quality of the products it sold, championing the rights of their customers" (Jones, 2020). And this was the 1970s and 80s: stuff went wrong ALL THE TIME. And the L V Martin team would indeed put it right.

My father bought a water purifier from L V Martin. It went wrong. He called them: they arranged to pick up the faulty one and deliver a new one. A couple of years later, it went wrong again. They did the same thing: a pick up, and replacement, all at no cost to my Dad. Then five years on, despite the fact that the product was now well outside warranty, he contacted them about another fault. Again, a timely pick up and a seamless replacement. My father constantly told the stories about L V Martin being as good as their word. They were indeed as good as their advertising promise: if it was not right, they put it right.

And it was the putting right that counted. Their word was their bond.

That bought them reputation until the business was sold to Smiths City in 2004. Priceless.

Sam

References:

Bulmer, S. L. (2001). Consumer Interpretation of Metaphors in Complex Television Advertising: An Extension Study (Master's thesis, University of Auckland). https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sandy-Bulmer/publication/35147154_Consumer_interpretation_of_metaphors_in_complex_television_advertising_an_extension_study/links/546a573f0cf2f5eb18077adb/Consumer-interpretation-of-metaphors-in-complex-television-advertising-an-extension-study.pdf

Chetwin, S. (2017, February 25). As the man said, it's the putting right that counts. The Post. https://www.pressreader.com/new-zealand/the-post-1022/20170225/282114931348034

Dunne, P. (2022, August 31). The Legendary Wellington Retailer Alan Martin. Dunne's Weekly: An Occasional look at Politics in general from a liberal perspective. https://honpfd.blogspot.com/2022/08/thelegendary-wellington-retailer-alan.html

Hannis, G. (2006). Visual communication in consumer journalism: The case of Consumer magazine in New Zealand. Prism Journal, 4(3), 1-11. https://www.prismjournal.org/uploads/1/2/5/6/125661607/v4-no3-a4.pdf

Jones, H. (2020). It's the putting right that counts. Waikato Business News. https://wbn.co.nz/2020/02/05/its-the-putting-right-that-counts/

Kepes, B. (2020, July 6). It’s the putting right that counts... . Diversity Limited. https://www.diversity.net.nz/its-the-putting-right-that-counts/2020/07/06/

Lawrence, H. (2017, November 1). It's the putting right that counts. https://www.hughlawrence.org/post/2017/11/01/its-the-putting-right-that-counts

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What powers New Zealand?

I do like statistics, because they can tell quite a powerful story, quite quickly. Stats are shorthand, if we will. So a look at the graphic accompanying this post might make us think that New Zealand was caning it for green power, as 85% of our electricity needs are met by renewables, leaving NZ in 31st place on the global leader board (The Most, 2025, 8:48).

Except. That lovely statistic doesn't take into account that everything is flown or shipped here. And that uses fossil fuelled transport, which we cannot completely account for. We can't/don't account for it as it is the national data of the exporting nations. 

Our fossil fuel consumption adds up to around 67% of our total energy consumption, including coal, fuel and gas (Massey University, 2026); with our great 85% renewables stat meeting only 26% of our total energy needs. That's not to shiny, is it!

We all drive our own cars as public transport doesn't work that well, because our country is long, skinny, and very spread out. In fact 73% of us commute in our own cars (Massey University, 2020, NB: 2019 statistics)... and our fleet of vehicles is one of the oldest in the world (Massey University, 2026) averaging 15 years. Each year, New Zealanders travel 54,000 million kilometres over 5,800 million trips, taking 1,600 million hours of our collective time (Massey University, 2025). We drive 56% of the time, and 81% of that is "as a driver or passenger in a light vehicle (i.e. a van or car; Massey University, 2025). Only 6.5% of us can take public transport to work (Massey University, 2025), and Wellington is probably one of the best organised cities for public transport. The hills and the long corridors into the city probably make it one of the more commuter-friendly places in the country.

Added to that, very little of anything can be effectively recycled in New Zealand, due to how little manufacturing goes on here, and how far away from the big markets we are. It just becomes too expensive for us to ship things for reprocessing. Yes, theoretically Nespresso pods can be recycled, but as we have no aluminium resmelter in New Zealand, all the pods would all have to be collected up and put in a container and shipped to Aussie. That is WAY to expensive, so we pile it up in the hope it will be worth something, someday: and when the pile gets too high, we landfill it. We have one steel resmelter in the North Island, but none in the South Island. All South Island steel waste is likely to be landfilled... especially when the Cook Strait is one of the most expensive pieces of water to cross in the world. 

As a result, we Kiwis are amongst the most wasteful "in the OECD and the majority of [our] waste is landfilled" (Perrot & Subiantoro, 2018, p. 2). So yep, we might look like we are doing well because we have hydro power. But we are not doing so well in other the other fields we are largely ignoring. 

No pats on the back are due right now!

Sam

References:

Hedley, N. (2025, March 18). New Zealand inches closer to 100% renewable electricity. The Progress Playbook. https://theprogressplaybook.com/2025/03/18/new-zealand-inches-closer-to-100-renewable-electricity/

Massey University. (2026). Average age of motor vehicles [Environmental Health Intelligence New Zealand (EHINZ)]. https://www.ehinz.ac.nz/assets/Surveillance-reports/Released_2025/AgeOfVehicles-2505.pdf

Massey University. (2025). Energy use in New Zealand [Environmental Health Intelligence New Zealand (EHINZ)]. https://www.ehinz.ac.nz/assets/Surveillance-reports/Released_2025/EnergyUse2025_final.pdf

Massey University. (2020). Commuting time by mode of transport [Environmental Health Intelligence New Zealand (EHINZ)]. https://ehinz.ac.nz/assets/Surveillance-reports/Released_2020/Commuting-Time-by-Mode-of-Transport.pdf

Perrot, J. F., & Subiantoro, A. (2018). Municipal waste management strategy review and waste-to-energy potentials in New Zealand. Sustainability, 10(9), 3114, 1-12. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10093114

THE MOST. (2025, November 17). What Share of Electricity Is Renewable? [video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/UlK1wiOfcnE

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The hemline index

Many years ago I remember reading a sci fi book where the author talked about the intersection between the price of gold, hemlines and men's beards (Heinlein, 1982), specifically:

The main character has been asked about "the relationships between men's beards, women's skirts, and the price of gold. I had ceased to wonder at silly questions; around Boss anything can happen. But this one seemed super-silly. Why should there be any relationship? [...] But I had learned not to ignore questions merely because they were obvious nonsense; I tackled this one by calling up all the data I could, including punching out some most unlikely association chains. I then told the machine to tabulate all retrieved data by categories.

"Durned if I didn't begin to find connections!

"As more data accumulated I found that the only way I could see all of it was to tell the computer to plot and display a three-dimensional graph. And that looked so promising that I told it to convert to holographic in color. Beautiful! I did not know why these three variables fitted together but they did" (Heinlein, 1982, p. 224).

I remember at the time of reading that this sounded suspiciously like a spurious correlation to me, but I was reminded about this recently via a YouTube video thumbnail (while still thinking it sounded like crap). So I turned to GoogleScholar, searching for a connection between skirt length, gold and facial hair. I found nothing.

However, I did find a 1926 "hemline" index theory, or HIT, proposed by a US economist, George Taylor (Kim & Kim, 2012; Škrinjarić, 2020) where fashionistas apparently suggest skirts shorten during economic contractions, due to "designers and retailers [needing to] create and display unique styles of clothing in order to attract consumers’ attention" (Kim & Kim, 2012, p. 1).

While that sounds plausible, there is apparently no evidence to support it: "there is no statistical evidence that economic state can predict the future changes in skirt length" (Škrinjarić, 2020, p. 6) and "After completing several regression analyses which revealed no statistical significance, and a thorough observation of graphed movements between hem lengths, overall stock returns, and fashion companies’ stock returns, it is clear that there is no causal relationship indicated between these variables" (Humes, 2010, p. 59).

Why? Well, what we wear tends to be influenced by many "economic, social, cultural, social and environmental effects. Today, fashion is not just a statement of someone’s economic status" (Škrinjarić, 2020, p. 7). A good point. And even more likely: in a downturn at present, we buy nothing as we already have so much.

All claims need to pass the sniff test.

Sam

References:

Kim, J. E., & Kim, J. (2012). Skirt length theory: The impact of perceived financial status on skirt length preference. Asia-Pacific Advances in Consumer Research, 10, 23-25. http://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/ap10/apacr_vol10_1011042.pdf

Škrinjarić, T. (2020). Hemline Index Theory: empirical analysis with Google data. International Journal of Fashion Design, Technology and Education, 13(3), 325-333. https://doi.org/10.1080/17543266.2020.1799079

Heinlein, R. A. H. (1982). Friday. Ballantine Books.

Humes, G. M. (2021). Hemline Theory: Testing the Relationship Between Fashion Trends and the Stock Market [Honours thesis, Kent State University]. https://etd.ohiolink.edu/acprod/odb_etd/ws/send_file/send?accession=ksuhonors1620591215357509&disposition=inline

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Some Heinlein quotes part 2

As previously mentioned (here), I have been searching for a Robert Heinlein (RAH) quote around the idea ‘make it idiot-proof and the world/universe will build a better idiot’. Through that search I have been noting other quotes by the same author that I have rediscovered in the process. Having already posted one set of favourite quotes (here), this is part 2.

To begin, I have found a few more Heinlein phrases that I find notable and quotable:

• He foresaw the internet: "Electrons don’t care. Once data of any sort go into the net, time is frozen. All that is necessary is to remember that all the endless riches of the past are available any time you punch for them" (Heinlein, 1982, p. 213). And "People are so used to the computer net today that it is easy to forget what a window to the world it can be—and I include myself. One can grow so canalized in using a terminal only in certain ways—paying bills, making telephonic calls, listening to news bulletins—that one can neglect its richer uses. If a subscriber is willing to pay for the service, almost anything can be done at a terminal that can be done out of bed" (Heinlein, 1982, p. 212)
  
  
• "One might almost define intelligence as the level at which an aware organism demands, 'What's in it for me?'" (Heinlein, 1982, p. 91). There's nothing like a WIIFM!
  
  
• He had a nice view towards phones: "'It took you long enough to answer your phone.' 'It’s my phone, Mr. Secretary. Sometimes I don’t answer it at all'" (Heinlein, 1968, p. 173)
  
  
• "It sounded logical—but I could not forget Kettering’s Law: 'Logic is an organized way of going wrong with confidence'" (Heinlein, 1980, p. 106; 2020, p. p. 98)
  
  
• "a thousand reasoned opinions are never equal to one case of diving in and finding out" (Heinlein, 1981, p. 29)
  
  
• "Vengeance is mine, saith the lord, [...] then Mine only if Gwen leaves me any" (Heinlein, 1986, p. 58)
  
  
• About the 'luck' that comes from being organised: "Why were you on that frequency? Because you were wearing a space suit. Why were you wearing it? Because you were determined to space. When a space ship called, you answered. If that is luck, then it is luck every time a batter hits a ball. Kip, ‘good luck’ follows careful preparation" (Heinlein, 1977, p. 250)

Lastly, we have a couple of author stories about RAH:

• Heinlein was the master of in-cueing the reader, as was ably noted by Harlon Ellison. "Heinlein has always managed to indicate the greater strangeness of a culture with the most casually dropped-in reference: the first time in a novel, I believe it was in 'Beyond This Horizon', that a character came through a door that...dilated. And no discussion. Just: 'The door dilated.' I read across it, and was two lines down before I realized that the image had been that the words had urged forth. A dilating door. It didn't open, it irised! Dear God, how I knew I was in a future world" (Ellison, 1968, p. 8; Westfahl, G., & Clarke, 2005, p. 361)
  
  
• "You don't pay back, you pay forward". The story of this goes as follows: "Mr. Heinlein was enormously helpful. Years later, when I [, SciFi writer Jerry Pournelle,] was an established writer, I asked him how I could pay him back. 'You can’t,' he said. 'You don’t pay back, you pay forward.' I never forgot that, just as I never forgot the wonderful things his ‘juvenile’ stories did for me" (Pournelle, 1999, p. 10)
  
  

Thanks for sharing this walk down memory lane: I hope you have enjoyed it as much as I have :-)

Sam

References:

Ellison, H. (1968, September). A Voice from the Styx. Psychotic, 23, 5-11. https://fanac.org/fanzines/SF_Review/SF_Review327.pdf

Heinlein, R. A. (1953). Gulf [1949]. In Assignment in Eternity (pp. 7-67). The New American Library.

Heinlein, R. A. (1968). Stranger in a Strange Land (first edition 1961). Berkley Books.

Heinlein, R. A. (1977). Have Space Suit - Will Travel (first printing 1958). The Ballantine Publishing Group.

Heinlein, R. A. (1980). The Number of the Beast. NEL (New English Library) Paperback.

Heinlein, R. A. (1982). Friday. Holt Rinehart & Winston.

Heinlein, R. A. (1986). The Cat Who Walks Through Walls: A comedy of manners. Hodder & Stoughton (UK).

Heinlein, R. A. (2020). The Pursuit of the Pankera: A Parallel Novel About Parallel Universes. Caezik SF and Fantasy.

Pournelle, J. (1999). Starswarm: A Jupiter novel. Tor Books.

Westfahl, G., & Clarke, A. C. (2005). Science Fiction Quotations: From the inner mind to the outer limits. Yale University Press.

read more "Some Heinlein quotes part 2"

Tertiary education's death by a thousand cuts

At the end of last year, a couple of opinion pieces crossed my desk about the function that universities are  supposed to perform in society (The Australia Institute, 2025; White, 2025). Richard Denniss, a plain-English speaking economist and co-CEO of The Australia Institute, explained that "at the moment [universities]'re in the worst of both worlds [...as] they're all quite poorly regulated" (0.25). Australia's universities are "not companies and they don't have directors and they don't report to the share market" "but they're also not government departments and they're not showing up at [select] committees and [...] having ministers and opposition and crossbenches grilling them" (0.58), which is also true of New Zealand universities.

He went on to say that universities are "not getting investor scrutiny. They're not getting parliamentary scrutiny. They are getting a lot of public money" through government fee funding arrangements and now they are also "paying their vice chancellors up to $1.5 million a year" (The Australia Institute, 2025, 1:08). So we begin with poor governance, and a potential lack of accountability. Then we add in the complication of overpriced executives who ARE NOT WORTH TWENTY TIMES A LECTURER SALARY, let alone three times a PM's salary; particularly when claiming unjustifiable financial hardship within the sector. Ah, those wealthy universities which lock away "multibillion dollar accumulated surpluses" (1:16), and still "cry poor" and use financial pressure as an excuse to sack staff and cut popular courses. In New Zealand it is the same: tertiary institutes are continuously cutting jobs, closing courses and departments, often requiring a government 'lifelines' simply to stay afloat (White, 2025). 

Hmm. What is wrong with this picture? How do we manage to get glory projects like flash new buildings and flights of fancy when no one is watching, and why do the people in charge start to think like they are gods? And why do the people on the ground get less and less to do more and more?

But wait, there's more. We also have got our priorities out of whack: our universities have become obsessed with chasing revenue - being business-like and chasing international student full fees - at the expense of their core mission: education. Our tertiary institutes are supposed to deliver good quality undergraduate education and, in the process of that, those two teach also deliver ground-breaking research (The Australia Institute, 2025). Education is a social good, lifting the skills and critical thinking abilities of the national population. It is not primarily for businesses to make money: that may happen as a multiplier of education.

Here in New Zealand, we are worse off than our Aussie cousins: we have truly neglected research: two good quality government reviews by Sir Peter Gluckman have been ignored, and crucial research funding - such as the Marsden Fund being withdrawn from humanities and social sciences, despite a vital need to address societal challenges - has been axed (White, 2025).

So we have no oversight; super high pay for twats; chasing money, not education; reducing research; and then the last twist: less public money to pay for education. Government funding is not keeping pace with the rising cost of living, so effectively over time, universities are forced to seek alternative revenue to keep the lights on, and once we get into that way of thinking, we start to see how we got to the super high pay for twats situation (The Australia Institute, 2025; White, 2025). 

And even worse in New Zealand, our current government has ACTUALLY cut funding, despite significant operational cost increases. So we really do have less to do with less. And less. 

Can't think why this is a problem... can you? 

Sam

References:

The Australia Institute. (2025, November 9). Decades of neoliberalism have broken our universities [Ebony Bennett interviews Richard Denniss; video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/dSbKSqD-JR0

White, L. (2025, November 10). We’ve forgotten what universities are for. The Spinoff. https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/10-11-2025/weve-forgotten-what-universities-are-for

read more "Tertiary education's death by a thousand cuts"

Service organisation decline, part 1

I have been a member of a few not for profit, or NFP, organisations: interest, sport, professional, and community groups. But I am not currently a member of any service organisations. 

Service organisations are those which were - theoretically - set up to do good in the community. Rotary was founded as a pot-luck lunch club in Chicago where a lawyer, "a tailor, an engineer, and a coal supplier" which moved each week to another member's house (Tamayo, 2018, p. xiii) "hence the name 'Rotary'". The model was set, way back in 1905, with every member being in a different trade, so Rotarians could network across communities. Rotary started in New Zealand in the 1920s (New Zealand History, 2026). Another American service organisation, Lions, was another Chicago-born idea of the early 20th century, establishing clubs in New Zealand later, in the 1950s (Lions Clubs, 2026; Tamayo, 2018). The Masonic Lodge is the eldest: 1717 marked the founding of the first 'grand lodge' in the UK (Freemasons New Zealand, 2026), with the first New Zealand branch being officially established in 1890.

In Aotearoa, to the best of my knowledge, there are no homegrown service organisations. We have imported these from elsewhere: largely the USA with Rotary and Lions; and the UK with the Masonic Lodge. Menz Sheds arrived here from Aussie (but I feel this is more of an interest group, rather than a service organisation; Te Ara, 2026). I became a member of Rotary some years ago because they said they wanted to make change, and were actively recruiting younger members and women. However, I left because I found the organisation - despite saying they sought change - too old-fashioned; fighting change every step of the way. I was unable to effect anything meaningful, so left. My mother was a member of the gendered arm of Lions, Lionesses: however, her local branch was forced into closure as it was literally dying out. I think my grandfather, a great-great grandfather and a great-great-great, were members of the Masonic Lodge. 

I have been idly noting for over twenty years the decline of service organisations, and recently I got to more actively wondering exactly what is driving the decline. I have a few vague thoughts based on my own experience: that (a) existing members want the organisations to stay in their current cultural shape, resisting modernisation; (b) that this shape is too rigid for a diffuse society; (c) the organisations' original networking purpose is outdated. However, I have not yet gone looking for any supporting evidence; now it is time to see what the experts have to say.

From my reading, it seems that part of that rigidity due to the shape of society at the time these organisations were created: they are a societal reflection. Service groups flourished at a time with a division of labour: women worked at home; men went out to work. Flanked by two world wars and a great depression, members could network over lunch, with organisational membership being "cosmopolitan [due to] their global reach" (Tamayo, 2018, p. xvi). A man - and it was a man - in provincial Maine could connect with a man in provincial New Zealand. Today 67% of all New Zealand women also work outside the home, alongside 75% of men (Ministry of Women, 2026).

And today we have the internet and digital media as a societal bridge. Perhaps Tim Berners-Lee's protocol has filled the service group-sized space. 

Even in the US where many service organisations originated, significant "social, cultural, and economic changes" are "contributing to a decline in volunteerism" (Conway, 2024, p. 11), so this is not only happening in New Zealand.  Along with increasing secularity, families today are smaller, both parents may work, or may parent alone without "the time, labor, or fiscal resources" to donate; and we tend to spend more "free time alone and at home", not necessarily wanting to network with people outside our families (p. 11). Do we have less 'free' time? Or is there more we want to put into our free time? 

There are interesting questions. I will continue to explore. 

Sam

References:

Conway, A. L. (2024). Serving the Nation: Volunteer Management from an Anthropological Perspective [Master's thesis, California State University]. https://scholarworks.calstate.edu/downloads/41687t01c

Freemasons New Zealand. (2026). History. https://freemasonsnz.org/history

Lions Clubs. (2026). History of Lions Clubs. https://www.lionsclubs.org.nz/about/history-lions-nz

Ministry of Women. (2026). Labour market participation. Manatū Wāhine. https://www.women.govt.nz/women-and-work/labour-market-participation

New Zealand History. (2026). First Rotary club in New Zealand founded: 7 June 1921. https://nzhistory.govt.nz/page/first-rotary-club-new-zealand-founded

Tamayo, D. (2018). Volunteers as a Community of Practice: Rotary and Lions Clubs, the Mexican Middle Classes, and the Post-Revolutionary State, 1920s-1960s [Doctoral thesis, University of California]. https://escholarship.org/content/qt6ds9m3b3/qt6ds9m3b3_noSplash_9fe8ce200da731f05c191571e8b1b082.pdf

Te Ara. (2026). Mental health community organisations: MENZSHED New Zealand. https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/29430/mental-health-community-organisations-menzshed-new-zealand

read more "Service organisation decline, part 1"

MS Excel can't insert new cells

If, on trying to insert a row or a column in Excel, we have ever had a really long error message, "Microsoft Excel can't insert new cells because it would push non-empty cells off the end of the worksheet. These non-empty cells might appear empty but have blank values, some formatting, or a formula. Delete enough rows or columns to make room for what you want to insert and then try again" it may be because of two tricksy little reasons. 

Firstly, we may unknowingly have a merged cell somewhere (Anonymous, 2019). 

Secondly, we may have a single, filled cell right at the end of the sheet that does not allow us to add one more row or column. 

To find out which, the process is simple, which I have covered before in a post here, detailed by Kader (2024): 

1.  Select the last active column in your spreadsheet Key Ctrl, Shift & the Right Arrow to highlight all the 'live' columns (or rows)
2. Key Ctrl & - (minus, and I used the number pad for this key) to delete cell contents 
3. Key Ctrl & S to save 
4. Close out. 

Reopen and try again to insert your cell or column. Hopefully that works for you, just as well as it worked for me :-)

Sam

References:

Anonymous. (2019, January 25). Excel can't insert new cells because it would push non-empty cells off the end of the spreadsheet. Microsoft Ignite. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/4991814/excel-cant-insert-new-cells-because-it-would-push

Anonymous. (2018, January 3). Can't insert new cells - what what?. Microsoft Ignite. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/4949199/cant-insert-new-cells-what-what?forum=msoffice-all&referrer=answers

Kader, E. (2024, February 12). [Solved!] CTRL+END Shortcut Key Goes Too Far in Excel (6 Fixes). Exceldemy. https://www.exceldemy.com/excel-ctrl-end-goes-too-far/

read more "MS Excel can't insert new cells"

The yeah nah of job growth

Way back in 2016, a pair of US researchers updated a working paper for showing that most of our gains in jobs, 94% our "net job growth" created between 2005 and 2015, in fact, came from what the researchers called "alternative work" (Katz & Krueger, 2016, p. 7).

Alternative work is where employees are "working or self-employed as an independent contractor, an independent consultant, or a freelance worker" (Katz & Krueger, 2016, p. 9); working for organisations such as Deliveroo, Uber, or similar; where power is wielded by the employer, and the 'independent' contractor is effectively a price-taker. This type of work appears to offer "workers the ‘freedom’ and ‘flexibility’ to work whenever and wherever they want, becoming a source of income while positively contributing to platform workers’ work–life balance" (Cano et al., 2021, p. 47). And yep, it sounds like a good deal for "governments focused on job creation, [but such roles] are also symbolic of precarious work, and hence of deteriorating working conditions and labour standards (p. 47).

Further, the reality is significantly different for the 'contractor' than the marketed ideal sounds. If contractors refuse a gig, the algorithm starts to discount them quite quickly, and they end up not making enough money to survive. There appear to be a growing class of precarious workers who cannot make ends meet, despite working far more than a full time role.

I found the Katz and Krueger (2016) findings interesting: there is evidence we were eroding our employee-base well before Covid-19, and after we have accounted for the number of new jobs we have created, less the number of jobs that have vanished, damn near all of them were contingent roles.

We are not creating safe, secure employment, but perilous, precarious work where we have to take the pay that is offered, because we have no bargaining power.

So: Yay! Job Growth. Oh no: it is contingent. I am sure this will all end really well.

Sam

References:

Cano, M. R., Espelt, R., & Morell, M. F. (2021). Flexibility and freedom for whom? Precarity, freedom and flexibility in on-demand food delivery. Work Organisation, Labour & Globalisation, 15(1), 46-68. https://doi.org/10.13169/workorgalaboglob.15.1.0046

Katz, L. F., & Krueger, A. B. (2016). The Rise and Nature of Alternative Work Arrangements in the United States, 1995-2015 [Working paper #22667]. National Bureau of Economic Research [NBER]. http://www.nber.org/papers/w22667

read more "The yeah nah of job growth"

Costing women's work

As Lucassen says, "women’s work is often overlooked compared to men’s" (2021, p. 1): I have written about this before (here), but an Australian researcher has just thrown a whole lot of skull sweat into actually costing it out (Risse, 2025). And it turns out that the proportion of overlooked, under-costed, and economically undervalued productivity in our societies is quite significant; for both men AND women. 

No surprises there. Men have almost another $500/week of unpaid work; women almost $800 (Risse, 2025). So we have clear evidence that women in our societies "contribute the bulk (61.5%) of total time spent on unpaid work and care" (Risse, 2025). Even better, this article provides a data entry field which allows us to enter and calculate out our own weekly unpaid hours. We can enter our estimated average weekly volunteer hours; the childcare hours we do; how many elder-care hours we deliver; and how many hours we spend on other domestic duties. Better still, if we are a woman, we can add a factor for our gendered pay, to have that corrected for, and to see just how many hours of work we are actually doing each week. Brilliant!

Check that tool out here, at the heading "Total value of labour", here.

It turns out that women are doing just as many productive hours as men: they simply aren't calculated as part of our economic budgeting. The author closes with a quote from our own Marilyn Waring, who noted that "The laws of economics and those that govern the UNSNA [United Nations Systems of National Accounts] are creations of the male mind and do not reflect or encompass the reality of the female world. The conceptual models are limited to the world that the economist knows or observes, and housework is most certainly not part of that world" (Risse, 2025).

It is important stuff, doing the dishes, taking out the rubbish, and turning the lights off. No job is done until that stuff is done.

Sam

References:

Lucassen, J. (2021). The Story of Work: A New History of Humankind. Yale University Press.

Risse, L. (2025, November 3). Unpaid ‘women’s work’ is worth $427 billion, new research shows. See how much your unpaid labour is worth. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/unpaid-womens-work-is-worth-427-billion-new-research-shows-see-how-much-your-unpaid-labour-is-worth-267860

read more "Costing women's work"

A few interesting nuggets

In researching material for recent post (here) I found a few interesting nuggets (side-projects, if you will). The first tip I heard was a second recommendation for the Cory Doctorow book on internet 'enshittification' (McBain, 2025, commenter "hureharehure"; Skopic, 2025). This was noteworthy because I tend to use only three platforms regularly: following a number of makers on YouTube; posting to LinkedIn, and a very minor storefront on BlueSky. Twitter, FB, Insta etc all feel too skewed (Wylie, 2019) and full of that 'enshittification' which Cory Doctorow appears to explores in his book (Skopic, 2025). So that is a definite reading list inclusion, and I have put in a request for the title at the library.

Second, the enshittification of the interweb is making me think more seriously about reading Sarah Wynn-Williamson's book on Facebook. I was reluctant, because her time at FB is now quite dated, but I am now thinking that I should read it. Shaping forces, and all that. I have also put in a library request for this one as well (but there is a LONG waiting list!).

And third, commenter hureharehure also helpfully suggested that if readers were unable to "read some of those links directly [we...] will likely be able to find archived versions with a site like https://archive.ph/" (McBain, 2025). Wow! The Archive.Today site was one I had not previously heard of, so I have banked that very helpful suggestion... and already used it several times to great effect to read articles which are behind paywalls. 

I will do some book reviews once I have read and digested the books :-)

Sam

References:

Archive.Today. (2026). Webpage Capture and Article Finder. https://archive.ph/

McBain, S. (2025, October 18). Are we living in a golden age of stupidity?. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/oct/18/are-we-living-in-a-golden-age-of-stupidity-technology

Skopic, A. (2025, August 22). Why the Internet is Turning to Shit. Current Affairs. https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/why-the-internet-is-turning-to-shit

Wylie, C. (2019). Mindf* ck: Inside Cambridge Analytica’s plot to break the world. Profile Books.

Wynn-Williams, S. (2025). Careless People: A cautionary tale of power, greed, and lost idealism. Flatiron Books.

read more "A few interesting nuggets "

Practice models to move a client session forward

How do we determine our process with a new client: to assist them to meet the goals they set for themselves? It is an interesting question to pose, and those of us who are experienced in field will probably simply say we will talk together. In the course of exploring the client telling us about what they want to achieve, we will start to get an idea of how we might proceed together. What we are hearing will start to slot into place, we will feel echoes of previously experienced patterns and solutions in what the client is sharing with us, and, if we listen carefully, and ask enough questions, a range of options will begin to present themselves.

However, what happens if a way forward does NOT present itself? What if we meet a totally new experience, and are at a loss? This is where using a practice model as a frame may give us some ideas to progress. For example, we could use any one of the following:

1. The Calgary-Cambridge guide (Kurtz & Silverman, 1996) (here)
2. The Choose–Get–Keep Model (Anthony et al., 1984) (here)
3. The Fonofale model (Pulotu-Endemann, 2001) (here)
4. The Kakala framework (Fono, 2014) (here)
5. The ROPES model (Nemec, et al., 1992) (here)
6. The SOAP framework (Weed, 1970), also known in New Zealand as SOTAP (Evans et al., 2022) (here)
7. Te Whare Tapa Wha (Durie, 1985) (here)
8. The Zunker Model for integrating assessment results (Osborn & Zunker, 2016, p. 4) (here)

Getting familiar with these frameworks ahead of time, reflecting upon how they may have assisted when we were working with previous clients, mentally experimenting with the components, may assist us when we are feeling short of options. 

It is always good to have some alternatives to try. 

Sam

References:

Anthony, W. A., Howell, J., & Danley, K. S. (1984). Chapter 13: Vocational rehabilitation of the psychiatric disabled. In J. A. Talbott, M. Mirabi, L. Feldman (Eds.), The Chronically Mentally Ill: Research and services (pp. 215–237). Spectrum Publications, Inc.

Evans, M., Sykes, C., Hocking, C., Siegert, R., & Garratt, N. (2022). Inter-rater agreement when linking stroke interventions to the extended international classification of functioning, disability and health core set for stroke. Disability and Rehabilitation, 44(25), 8022-8028. https://doi.org/10.1080/09638288.2021.2008525

Durie, M. H. (1985). A Māori perspective of health. Social Science & Medicine, 20(5), 483-486. https://doi.org/10.1016/0277-9536(85)90363-6

Fono, T. L. (2014). Setting the scene: Working with pacific families [slide deck]. https://ana.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/mafi-tino-lelei.pdf

Nemec, P. B., McNamara, S., & Walsh, D. (1992). Direct Skills Teaching. Psychosocial Rehabilitation Journal, 16(1), 13–25. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0095731

Pulotu-Endemann, F. K. (2001). Fonofale: Model of Health. Pacific Models for Health Promotion Workshop at Massey University, Wellington Campus, 7 September 2009. https://www.nelsontasmankindergartens.com/uploads/1/4/4/2/14426744/fonofalemodelexplanation.pdf

Osborn, D. S., & Zunker, V. G. (2016). Using Assessment Results for Career Development (9th ed.). Cengage Learning.

Weed, L. (1970). Medical records, medical education and patient care: the problem-oriented record as a basic tool. Case Western Reserve University Press.

read more "Practice models to move a client session forward"