Out of IT, at last

A couple of weeks ago, I've resigned my job at my IT company. Altogether I was in the company for 5 years. I started off as a software engineer (i.e. programmer) and ended up as a QA engineer (a nice word for tester of software). As I've mentioned in Enrolled in a course, I see that there's no future in IT for Australia. Therefore, I've already accept employment of a new job that is no longer in the IT industry- I'll be working in a specialised research organisation in the area of finance and investments. That is good because: (1) testing is an extremely boring job that I feel even a monkey can do. My old job only stimulates me 10 per cent!!! (2) the pay for my new job is much more reasonable given my skills, talents and abilities. (3) my new job is much more suitable for me, given my skills, abilities and talents- it involves analysis and writing!

I have been wanting to change job for 3 to 4 years already and finally, the day has come! In that time, I had amassed vast amount of knowledge and skills in investments, economics and finance (see my other blog site: Contrarian Investors' Journal).

In other words, I have joined the exodus away from IT!!

In fact, this is part of a bigger underlying trend: Transference of wealth from West to East. I would dare to say that in time to come, Australia will suffer such an acute shortage of IT skills that it will severely affect its international competitiveness. There will be 2 possible response to that problem: outsourcing (which is happening right now) and loose migration policies based on IT skills. This problem occurred because of utter incompetency and lack of leadership and foresight in the IT industry, tetiary educational system and government (don't know exactly where to point the finger at). The most convenient excuse that they will use is to put the blame on the 'cheap' IT labour from India. I believe the problem is not that India's IT labour is 'cheaper'- rather the problem is because of the systemic failures in the IT industry, resulting in very high costs for IT skills, which makes outsourcing a more convenient 'solution'. In other words, outsourcing is the effect of the IT skills 'shortage' problem, not cause.

Well, in future, if you ever see increasing intensity by the media decrying the IT skills shortage problems and its effects on Australian competitiveness, you will know that this problem is foreseen long time ago in this humble little blog. I am sure I am not the only one who can foresee that- it is an obvious problem, I believe. By the way, Australia will one day 'thank' the Howard government for its complete lack of leadership, vision, foresight and investments.

'Good' service when you are usable for money-making

This is something that I observe...

In the job recruitment industry, the job agent will take a cut for every successful candidate that they refer to a employer. I heard
from somewhere that the lower the salary is, the greater the margin the job agent will receive.

Recently, I applied for a job at Seek.com.au that was advertised by a recruitment agent. Surprisingly, the job agent called me
quickly the next day and was very 'helpful.' Very quickly, he arranged for my CV to be sent to the employer and even replied to my
emails. If his reply is late, he will apologize. Obviously, I am someone whom the job agent see as a potential successful candidate.
This means I will be very useful to him in helping him make money through commissions.

A week later, I sent him an email to follow up. He replied, telling me that there's no news yet and that the feedback from the
employer will come the next day. I never hear from him again until I took the trouble to send him another email later in the week.
This time, he replied instantly with the bad news that the employer does not see me as a best fit for the job. I then asked him
whether the employer has given any reasons for this.

There was no reply.

I called him and left a message for him.

Again, he never bothered to call back.

There's this saying I read somewhere: A good person loves people and uses things. A bad person loves things and uses people.

Train meltdown

Yesterday was another train meltdown, just 10 days to the State Election. What a great timing! The people of NSW are fed up with putting up with all these nonsense from the NSW State government for years already. Yesterday was just a symbolic confirmation and reminder of their incompetence. The NSW Labor government should be booted out of power on next Saturday's election. Problem is, the next best alternative, the NSW Liberals is hardly any better. Who to vote?

Inspiriting.com blocked in China

Today, I just found out (through greatfirewallofchina.org) that Inspiriting.com is blocked in China. I believe the Contrarian
Investors' <http://inspiriting.com/ContrarianInvestorsJournal/> Journal, which contains some form of criticism on what's happening
in China is the excuse for blocking the entire web site.

Living in a free country, we sometimes take for granted the freedom that we have, including the freedom to believe, worship and
criticise our national leaders and government. It is incredible to see for myself such amazingly low tolerance on even the mildest
semblance of 'challenge' against authority even if it is meant to be constructive criticism.

John Howard's double standards

As you may have known, Kevin Rudd is a rising federal opposition leader in Australian politics. The latest Newspoll gives the Labor party (Rudd's party) a crushing two-party-preferred lead over the Coalition (Howard's party) of 57 per cent to 43.

Recently, John Howard is using Brain Burke, a disgraced Western Australia premier, as an excuse to step up his personal attacks on Rudd. Burke is a convicted felon and politically, anyone meeting him becomes 'tainted.' Rudd was indirectly invited by Burke over a public dinner a couple of years ago. John Howard, seizing upon this opportunity, accuse Rudd of being morally 'compromised' by meeting Burke. As he stepped up his attacks on Rudd, it was revealed that one of his senior minister, Mr Campbell, met up with Burke before too. As a result, in order to maintain the moral 'highground,' John Howard forced Mr Campbell to resign. John Howard accused Rudd of lying and alleged that Rudd was using that public dinner meeting to solicit political support from Burke to replace Kim Beazley in order to fulfill Rudd's political ambition.

Clearly, John Howard is going too far in his attacks as he finally had to concede that some of his other minister could have met Burke (or Gill, who is Burke's associate). But guess what John Howard used as an excuse? In this article, it was reported,

Mr Howard confirmed the West Australian Liberal MP Geoff Prosser had paid Mr Burke for lobbying services. "So what?" he said. "He's not a minister. There is a difference between somebody who wants to be the prime minister of Australia and somebody on the backbench. Mr Rudd wants to have the most important and most powerful position in the country and therefore he must expect this level of scrutiny."

Well done, John Howard! On one hand, you are accusing Kevin Rudd of moral complicity. Now, you are saying that there are 2 different moral standards-one for aspiring Prime Ministers one for others. I suppose John Howard has a 3rd moral standard- one separate standard for himself.

Well done, John Howard!

Where have I been?

As you can see, I have not been updating my blog for a very long time. Have I stopped blogging and writing? No, on the contrary, I had been writing non-stop for the past several months. It's just that I have not been updating this blog- I'm busy writing my investment blog, which is also one of my passion. As you can see, I've inserted my investment blog's banner at the top of this blog.

Aggressive dealing with companies- got my refund from those scammers

Today, I got my money back from the ringtone scammers. It involved a lot of phone calls:

- First, I called Vodafone and asked for a refund. I was told that there's nothing they can do because they aren't the ones charging me the money and that there is a "process" to follow. I was advised me to call Unlimited Tones (the scammers) to ask for refund.

- Conincidentally, the ACCC (the Aussie consumer protection government body) called me at that time. They logged my complaints and advised me to call the media authority (Tel: 1300850115) or the TIO- telecommunication ombudsman- (Tel: 1800 062058).

- I called Unlimited Tones . They have a procedure to refund my money, but that involved giving them my bank account details for them to credit the money back to me. These scammers are untrustworthy in the first place. Why should I tell them my bank account details? So I hung up.

- I called the media authority who advised me to call the TIO.

- I called the TIO and they gave me a reference number and gave me Vodafone's number (1300 365506) to call. They told me that this number connects me to the 'more senior' level at Vodafone.

- I called Vodafone. They took my details and promised to call me. Since there's a huge backlog of complaints over the Christmas, they told me that they will contact me latest by Monday.

- A few minutes later, Vodafone called me. They promptly refunded me the money that was cheated from me by Unlimited Tones. Vodafone told me that they would then pursue Unlimited Tones.

Yes!!!! I got my money back!

I learnt one thing. If you believe you're being unfairly or unethically treated by those big companies, you have to aggressively pursue them to demand your rights. If necessary, escalate the issue up to higher management until where it hurts.

I did the same to GE Money with their Go Mastercard where I was slapped with surprise interest charges. After aggressive pursuing them, I was able to demand for a refund of substantial dollars worth of interest charges.

If every consumer have zero tolerance for any dodgy behaviour among companies, it will force them to think twice from contemplating in engaging in any unethical business practices. Now that we have the Internet, it is extremely easy for companies to have their reputation damaged through dodgy behaviour.

For Vodafone and GE Money, I must at least credit them for doing the right thing (after much prodding).