Social commentator speaks out
Weekend Australian Columns
Call Centre Blues
Dec 24th
Call Centres are driving us all crazy
I WAS dealing with a call centre recently, trying to get something I had organised to be cancelled. The process was exhausting. Every time I called I had to stay on the line for at least a half hour because of the pre-Christmas backup.
And each time I called for a progress report I had to tell the story all over again to operators who pretended they were from the institution I was dealing with but quickly revealed their ignorance about some of the simplest questions I was asking.
“I’ll just ask my supervisor,” they would say while I waited another 15 minutes. Most were from overseas call centres and had no idea about the local situation I kept referring to. This is so common nowadays that most of us are used to it.
No longer do we have a bank manager, or insurance broker, or favourite customer service person at major companies – we’re put through to impersonal voices far, far away and can’t even ask for the same person for a follow-up. More >
Why and how we get scammed
Dec 17th
How and why do we get conned? According to Paul J. Zak neuro-economist, and columnist for Psychology Today it’s about brain chemicals
A COLLEAGUE of mine got caught in a Nigerian money scam before much was known about them. And he lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. He was bright, head of a leading company, and savvy. None of his friends understood how he could have been roped in. More >
Don’t sweat the small stuff
Dec 9th
We fret our daily pains without remembering how trivial much of it is
IT’S been a hell of a week for me. Many things have gone wrong, with one drama snowballing into another. The only thing that’s kept me above water was hanging out for an amazing trip we had planned for Christmas. Even though I’m a travelling gal, it was to be the trip of a lifetime, trekking across the Sahara to a festival called Festival in the Desert, in Timbuktu, Mali.
Being a great lover of African music, in particular music from Senegal and Mali, it was powerfully exciting to imagine being amid the indigenous peoples of the region who come each year for the festival — from north and south on camels and by foot in their traditional costumes, carrying instruments. And then to sleep under the stars surrounded by crackling fires and song.
Warnings on government websites of al-Qa’ida activity in the region did not deter us, so strong was our passion for the music, the dance. Then at the end of my nasty week, the news. Six foreigners were kidnapped from or near Timbuktu — one executed. More >
Depression at Work
Dec 2nd
Depression at work is becoming an epidemic around the world.
IT’s interesting that while people who haven’t got jobs or have been recently laid off tend to despair, actually having a job doesn’t ensure happiness.
A global study reported in The Wall Street Journal claims that almost a quarter of the global workforce is depressed. Apparently, 92 per cent of people surveyed linked the state of their mental health to job performance and only 12 per cent claimed to be optimistic on the work front. The respondents came from a variety of industries, but mainly in the financial and professional areas.
Sex surrogacy
Nov 25th
We should respect those who help with sexual problems not condemn them.
I’VE known several sex surrogates and have admired them all, which is why I was so surprised recently to hear that a Melbourne sex therapist had called them glorified prostitutes and called for an end to the practice.
Surrogates are women or men who get paid to provide what crooner Marvin Gaye pined for — ‘‘sexual healing’’. The practice is sex therapy with a touch more, as advocated by sexuality pioneers Masters and Johnson in the 1960s. It’s used in conjunction with traditional therapies to provide help for erectile dysfunctions such as impotence and premature ejaculation, intimacy issues and marriage problems.
Sex surrogacy has a reported 95 per cent success rate in Australia, according to a study presented to the World Congress on Sexual Health in 2007. More >
Bullying with a smile
Nov 19th
Even smiling at the wrong time can be considered workplace bullying.
IT was another interesting example of political correctness gone crazy. My friend, a senior manager, was asked to attend a retraining course on workplace bullying in the light of tough new laws. As someone who has had her fair share of bullying rising up the ranks in media, I welcome any and all legislation that protects employees from this often subtle and insidious form of cruelty.
However, my friend was told that even cocking an eyebrow at the wrong time, with a smirk on one’s face or a sarcastic quip, can now be considered an act of bullying. I have to say that, well, frankly, the new laws are making me feel bullied.
How to deal with suffering
Nov 12th
I
t’s hard to stomach world suffering
IT’S been a horrible few weeks in the world, and a hard time for sensitive people. The daily news has been so distressing and appalling that if I were not a journalist, I wouldn’t turn on or read the news.
As it is, I can’t read the papers over breakfast, or watch television news over dinner, as what I see often makes my stomach turn and I can’t digest my food.
Last week there were two or three stories that had me feeling ill and powerless, but I soldiered on, feeling dreadful: children hit by cars, abused, murdered, starving; the massacring of animals; revelations of torture. But something snapped one morning after one particular story: I was in the bathroom putting on make-up, then I was suddenly crouched on the floor, crying. My partner tried to comfort me but I said this to him, and I am saying it now.
Kids and music
Nov 5th
With iPod earphones strapped to their ears, kids today are missing out on musical riches of days gone by.
I GREW up surrounded by music. Tchaikovsky and Beethoven were playing for much of my early childhood. My father’s family came from Europe and brought with them an old record player and loads of classical records.
My house was filled with the sound of great operas and symphonies. I don’t think in those early years that I liked any of it, although I was fond of Rachmaninoff.
As I grew older the music became familiar to me, and familiarity burgeoned into love. Now I feel deeply satisfied that I was given the opportunity to appreciate the genius and beauty of many classical masterpieces and much more. My father was musical and sampled every type of sound imaginable.
I think of this often as I try to expose my daughter to many forms of music: classical, folk and world music, each coming with its own rich history.
Teenagers and Party Drugs
Oct 28th
Agonising over ecstasy: What do we tell our kids about party drugs in the era of the backyard mix?
IT was a horrible story — every parent’s nightmare. A number of years ago the daughter of an acquaintance died. She was only 18 and had just finished her Higher School Certificate. She was a lovely, normal girl. It was her first trip abroad. She landed in Europe. And went to a club. Of course no one ever knows the details of these things, but her parents were rung in the middle of the night to say their daughter had died on the dance floor.
The autopsy showed ecstasy in her system. She’d been offered party drugs from what’s known in the industry as ‘‘a bad batch’’. The story, and those like it, are more prevalent than anyone could imagine.
Which brings to light a controversial issue. I’ve been battling with friends over my views regarding teenagers and drugs. More >
Holiday Clues not Blues
Dec 26th
Posted by Ruth Ostrow in All Posts
3 comments
Hi readers,
I’m off on holidays for a few weeks, but here are snipets from three of my up’n'coming columns in The Australian which will run while I’m away including how to avoid holiday blues. You can leave comments on this site for any of these by clicking on the “comments” button top right or below. But please be aware that my SPAM filter eats a lot of legitimate blogs and I won’t be able to monitor it from Africa. But I will log in and accept what has escaped the SPAM monster if and when I can. Stories will be put up here in full when I return meanwhile check them out each Saturday at The Weekend Australian on-line.
1. How to avoid becoming an +++hole. We emulate the people around us and emotions are contagious. Anxiety, joy, cynicism, irritability, happiness rub off. So if we are surrounded by unpleasantness at work – or home – we’ll eventually catch it. How can we avoid the nasties especially this time of year?
2. How to survive the holiday period without breaking up with your partner. Great tips from well-respected sex and relationships therapist Jo-Anne Baker
3. When is kindness a disease. Two books were released this past year with very scary titles “Cold Blooded Kindness”; and the more recent book “Pathological Altruism”. In the books different writers take some heroic acts like donating a kidney to a total stranger and examine when such selfless behaviours become too extreme. Is it possible to literally kill someone with kindness?
Remember, these stories will be put up here when I return from my break. Meanwhile read them in The Weekend Australian newspaper
Thanks for your readership during the year and your enlivening letters and debate.
Ruth Ostrow