One of the first things I had heard about Co. Cork is the Cliquish nature of Cork. Everyone is always saying Cork is a small place, but when you are out in Cork, you are out forever. There are no open doors here, and no friendship extended. If I and my wife were not already rather private and reclusive, Cork would surely make us very lonely, and she grew up here. We have many times the friends online than we have in the whole of the Cork. Still it bugs me, but efforts to extend our circle have been proving fruitless and a waste of time as exampled in my last post.
Ireland
it@Cork are Elitist Snobs!
I just got rejected from a it@Cork meeting. Which reads;
Hello Rxxxxxxx,
Thank you for your interest in it@cork however only staff of member companies can attend the AGM.
Regards,
Alison
Axxxx Rxxxxx
Events and Marketing Executive
it@cork
Work days: Monday – Wednesday
Tel: +353 21 2307076 Fax: +353 21 2307046Web: www.itcork.ie
Email: xxxxx@itcork.ie
Blog: http://blog.itcork.ie
Unfortunately that’s not what it said when I registered to attend. As seen in the following Google Cache page;
Interesting how things have changed without an apology, (see below) The internet never forgets.
WoW! A positive step to restore trust.
The Gardaà raid offices of Anglo Irish Bank in Dublin in the first positive step in restoring confidence in the Irish Government. It’s a shame that that it took almost violent public outcry from the people to stir action from the lame corrupt ministers. It’s also a shame that any incriminating evidence has probably been destroyed and disposed of.
The truth that RTE does know.
RTÉ
… a Public Service Broadcaster, a non-profit making organisation owned by the Irish people.
RTÉ is a State owned and operated propaganda wing of Fianna Fáil! There is no other way to put it. In a free society, only a free and open press and broadcaster can be truly unbiased, anything else is a sham. All funding and support comes from the government, not the ‘Irish People’ truth is the last thing to be published. Bite the hand that feed’s it, you must be joking!
RTE should be cast out in the public domain, where a wealthy broadcast media giant can buy it … broadcast …. print … political propaganda … biased economic news….err….
Oh well! I’ll just have to turn off the telly and read more Blogs….
The Belief in Economic Recovery.
Economics is as much of a Belief system as it is matter of math and relative perceived value exchange. And as such is subject to Self-fulfilling prophecy . If the belief is strong enough the value or a rock could be zero, of worth vast sums of currency. So also when a people believe in their leadership, and believe that they will fix the underling issues in the economy, almost by magic, the economy will turn around. The reciprocal is also true, when a majority loose faith in the economic plans of a government, nothing that government will do will generate a reversal of economic decline.
This is why the U.S. will recover from the world recession quicker than the Irish. A faith in the Obama plan far exceeds the faith that the Irish have in Brian Cowen and Fianna Fáil. At this stage nothing that Brian will do, can have any impact on the downturn in the Irish economy. The Banks will not get their reputations back, credit will not be extended, recovery will not happen. The faith of the Irish people must be regained. This can only happen if Brian makes drastic actions against the criminal intent of the banks, developers and regulators. Or else the government must be replace with one that does regain the faith of the Irish people. Fianna Fáil is intimately linked with the white collar crimes, lack of enforcement, and general corruption that currently exist. It’s unlikely that the membership will change the the color of their balaclavas.
A revolution is in the wind, and the Irish are not unfamiliar with revolution.
What is Waterford Crystal without Waterford?
I have watched the management of Waterford Crystal over the past few years, and have been amazed at how clueless they are about their product. Like most bean counters, they have sought to reduce expenses by pushing production into Eastern Europe and any other place where they could drop the cost of production. They must be insane! It’s the only conclusion that makes sense. They have been behaving as if their product is a commodity item like an automobile, or a toaster.
Waterford Cystal and Wedgewood ARE the labors and works of Waterford Ireland and Wedgewood England! Anything else is a fake, even with a waterford/wedgewood label on it, they are FAKES! Waterford Crystal is a luxury item that speaks to Quality not quantity. It means workmanship that a slow and skilled workforce imparts on each and every cut of the crystal. If you want bulk fakes, go to China!
The marketing of Waterford should be on the Apple model, special, and elegant, Not like Microsoft where ‘good enough’ and high volume turnover is the measure.
Now that the bean counters have closed Waterford, THERE IS NO WATERFORD accept no substitutes!
Dell Blackout on Factory Closings
It looks like Dell is attempting to suppress all information as they slap blackout on news about Raheen factory closings. That could be good news, or not. It could be a sign that they are negotiating a deal with the Irish Government. It could also be very bad news, and they are holding off until they can extract all the executive ‘hostages’, just in case 😉
UPDATE: Dell ceases all production at limerick
UPDATE_2: Looks like a dirty deal in Poland motivated the move Probe into €50m sweetener behind Dell move
Government arrogance
Brian Lenihan, should be fired! Plain and simple, because he does NOT understand the terms or meaning of GOVERNMENT. Today in an interview he mentioned that the banks were not being bailed out by recapitalization using taxpayer money, that they were using other government funds from retirement accounts. Where does he get the idea that the government HAS ANY money that is not the property of the taxpayers? GOVERNMENT IS NOT A BUSINESS! I’ve said it many times before, the Irish Government only manages the finances of the people of Ireland, THE TAXPAYING PEOPLE OF IRELAND! The Irish Government does not, and never will have independent funds separate from Irish citizen taxpayer money.
North of the Border
Even the New York Times has recognized the shopping migration to the north in Northern Ireland Town Is a Shoppers’ Paradise That ought to stimulate some discussion in the Dáil Éireann today 😉
Irish Traitors on Lisbon
Well now that the Irish Traitors in the Government have sold out the Irish people by renouncing the validity of the Irish voters previous vote on Lisbon, we are now being required again (and again, ad infinitum ) until we vote for the ‘correct‘ answer to the Lisbon Referendum.
How long will the Irish Electorate tolerate such abuse of their trust? Not long, I hope, as they have guaranteed My NO! vote in the next Referendum.
Irish Meat Denial
- All the pork recalled before the farms using the contaminated feed are identified.
- Pork producers offering to refill the supplies without testing the pigs first
- Declaring that the irish beef is safe after they discovered contaminated cows and before testing all the cattle.
This is a prescription for Irish disaster, the lack of transparency , the denial and the coverup. Typical Fianna Fáil behavior.
Companies in the Throes of Death
When companies die, they take many forms from mergers to bankruptcies. But there are none more ugly than those who have arrived at this juncture due to a lack of vision and direction. Management grasps and draws on every resource, from redundancies, part time labor and outsourcing to zero footprint office virtualization. But the ugly bit is the rapid undirected reactionary behavior from which a lack of vision and leadership originally brought the company to the situation in the first place.
An inability to addressing the underlying problem continues to demoralize the remaining employees and creates an atmosphere of despair. The company dooms itself from the rot, which is almost never corrected, as the problem is not cured from the bottom up, but from the top down.
If this sounds like AerLingus, it does, I have predicted that it would be gone within 5 years of it’s privatization and it will happen. But this is also a personal issue, as I am getting a first hand view, again, into the collapse of another.
Branedy office
The view from the office.
Settling back into Cork
Sunday, and I’m not back on the road to Dublin, I am now configured to work half time for my employer in Dublin rather than a full redundancy. The concession is, I get to work from home, and while this is not the ideal, it should keep us in beer money through this recession. Besides I could use the rest. The job never did require my presence in the office, it’s was only a vast empire of personnel from the perspective of management. I never touched any of the hardware, nothing I did in the office couldn’t be accomplished from anywhere on the planet. I was just another gopher popping out of the cubicle to reinforce the illusion of power. Long live VPN and the internet 😉
Haiku of Fleeting Passions
In a culture where Metaphor and Allegory are lost in Rugby Passions, even while spoken bluntly, and perhaps crudely. When attentions spans are only extended through to the next match, change becomes the least motive action. Passions that flared misguided are now quelled in the pub, and the call for mob violence by others, regretted, the guilty remain unbridled. Nothing worthy of speech and action surmounts the desire for drink and play, and life, such that it has decayed, continues. This is Ireland!