Job rant

I keep hearing about how Australia has a “skills shortage”. I think this means that there aren’t enough people ready-trained in jobs. I have heard that despite this shortage there is less money going into TAFEs. I’ve also noticed that schools are getting seriously lazy in teaching people to think. Students wrote learn so many things and they’re even introducing graphics calculators into mathematics, this means that students won’t even need to learn how to solve quadratic equations (one of my favourite parts of 2 unit maths) they can just whack it in the calculator. They won’t need to understand functions, they won’t need to think, just to know how to put things into a machine. Not many of us actually use those math things, I don’t anyway, but I value them because it’s part of the problem solving experience.

My uncle, who has power-of-attorney of my grandmother’s things, has moved all the bank accounts (with the rest of the family’s permission, I believe) because the bank has moved it’s call centre to India. It’s good to provide jobs in less well-off countries but these Indian call centres are seriously a pain in the butt. Most of the time they are not from your trusty ISP or phone company or bank, they are random people who took your listed number and are trying to sell you things. The connections are bad, they can’t hear you properly, you can’t hear them, whether it be because of a bad connection or their accent is too thick. I just don’t pick up the phone any more if it says “overseas” on the caller ID. If it’s someone that knows me they can leave a message.

Now I’m hearing about Qantas sending 340 IT jobs to India! WTH? We have a skills shortage but to save money one of our leading and most respected companies are sacking their own employees to move those jobs, and more, overseas. So people actually already trained in IT in Australia have 340 fewer jobs to choose from. “Spirit of Australia” my arse.