Hating our jobs

Did you see that recent survey about work that revealed more than 60% of us either hate our jobs or couldn’t care less?
You’d think that maybe bosses and managers might be a keener, but even they weren’t bubbling over with enthusiasm. Nearly 20% of them said they hated their jobs, 48% were neutral and only 28% said they loved what they did.
What sort of way is that to live our lives? Bored, dissatisfied, resentful – whatever mood we’re in, it ain’t no way to be passing the best years of our lives.
What’s gone wrong in the work world? Do we fail to get an education that gives us good choices, or do we just stumble into positions that give us no joy at all and then get stuck there because the bills need paying.
If things are going to get better in the world, wouldn’t it help for us to actually love what we do? Imagine how things would whizz along if more of us couldn’t wait to get out of bed in the morning.
This idea that work is generally miserable is what has led to the tedious cliché about our need for better work/life balance.
What does that even mean – that because life is good then its opposite, work, represents death? The survey is saying that trudging to work does represent a sort of death for most people. What a sad thing that is. Of course work is about money - the stuff we need to get on in life - but it should also feed our talents and satisfy the soul. Work should be a good part of life. Evidently, it’s not.
And the work/life balance idea has to change. Instead, let’s call for better work/leisure balance. Now that’s an idea I can believe in.

Who will the media pick on next?

What a relief it is that this week we’re not all talking about Ken Ring and his earthquake forecasts. Probably nobody’s more pleased about that than Ken. I know him slightly - he seems a nice guy. And I did buy one of his weather almanacs once. I didn't find it hugely accurate, but you can say the same thing about traditional forecasting – whether it’s about weather or finances.
For instance, just as New York’s huge money crisis was looming a few years ago, a TV host called Larry Kudlow (above right) kept on crowing to his audience, "there is no recession out there!' He was completely wrong. Guess what. He’s still one of the top news guys on Wall Street and still has his highly paid job.
What the controversy Ken Ring was really all about was potent combination of public fear, which was understandable, wound up by media hysteria and deepened by our own scientific ignorance. Really, it was the media that flogged the story to a frenzy. Hardly a day went by when they weren’t raving about things Ken had written many months before. They all loved to hate the 'Moon Man' – as they decided to label him.
It’s all one more sign that the news business is becoming ever more feverish and tabloid... like the front page headline in a recent Herald On Sunday that said ‘Wills and Kate Torn Apart – surely it won’t end this way’.
What? Was the world’s most famous couple splitting up?
Nah… the paper was talking about some perforated postage stamps from Nuie featuring him on one side – her on the other. Total tosh.
So…with Ken Ring comprehensively done over by the media, who’s next? Better be careful out there, people. These days, anyone, and anything, is fair game.

Teetering on high heels

Have you noticed how people are re-evaluating things lately? One of my favorite bloggers is Moata Tamaira, a Christchurch librarian who writes really amusing articles for stuff.co.nz
Well, they were amusing back in the times when things were normal, and even now, when things feel not at all normal, she still manages to put a funny spin on life.
Last week, she was on about the changes in her wardrobe – how she’s chucked away her favorite high heels because they’re not just useless on uneven ground but actually feel unsafe. She also talks about how she now walks alongside walls in a state of constant calculation…as in, how sound is that wall? How far would she have to run if it began to topple?
I even find myself doing it here in non-quaky Auckland. I went to a play in the old Mercury Theatre last week, and as I walked up the street I took a long look at its huge rear wall of century-old bricks. I wonder how well that would do in an earthquake, I was thinking.
And then, after Japan, I stood on a hill above a beach and watched the sea do strange things, surging up a creek and pouring back out in a cascade of foam to form a big spiral in the bay - nothing like the huge whirlpool we saw on our TV screens after the big quake and tsunami, but echoing its shape. Nearly 9000 kilometres from Japan, we are, but there was the evidence of trouble far away.
2011 is turning out to be a very weird year, but it’s also making us think about what’s really important…which is people, of course. Always has been. But we seem to need a few shocks every now and again to remind us of that.

We're all heart

Haven’t we come up shining as a community since the earthquake on Feb 22? I saw an interview with Phil Keoghan, the host of top-rating show The Amazing Race, who said the way Kiwis are responding was nothing short of amazing.
All over the country people are desperate to find a way to help. If we can’t be there on the ground, at least we can raise cash – and it’s been happening at schools and shopping centres and in offices and clubs. The money has been pouring in - so much so that you have to feel a bit sorry for anyone who's trying to raise funds for anything else.
Someone from the Red Cross knocked on our door the other night. She was, just coincidentally, taking part in their annual collection. "We have given already," I said, as my husband went to find more cash for her. I felt I needed to explain why I wasn't stuffing wads of bills into her official plastic bag.
"People are so wonderful," she told us. "I'm hearing that at every house I go to, but they'e still giving more when I say it's all going to Christchurch."
Something else I'm noticing: Have you noticed the big surge of the ‘kia kaha’ expression? Everyone’s saying it, from former PM Helen Clark to thousands of wellwishers on Facebook and Twitter.
Most of us know it means ‘stand strong’, but a friend of mine, Makuini Ruth Tai, specialises in deep analysis of the Maori language and she says it really means ‘be strengthened by lighting the breath’.
I like that. In the sports context we all know that you must have deep, explosive breath to sprint, or lift or achieve something mighty. And women know you need breath to give birth, too. So, all the more reason for us to keep saying it… kia kaha!

Heartsick for the south

Each week on my TV show, Let's Talk, I have a minute or two to voice an opinion piece. I write it on Tuesday, record it on Wednesday and it gets aired on Friday. I can't even remember now what I was sitting down to write when I first heard the news about Christchurch. Something, I think, about how the media had so comprehensively ignored Auckland's lovely Chinese Lantern Festival.
The earthquake wiped all normal preoccupations from my mind. From everyone's minds. Those of us who don’t live in Canterbury could only gaze in shock at the TV, listen to the radio, and be so, so grateful that we were not ourselves involved.
The whole country came to a standstill as everyone struggled to absorb the scale of the destruction and injury and death that had struck so suddenly on an otherwise so- average Tuesday afternoon.
The human casualties were the worst but the symbolic toppling of the cathedral spire must have been like a knife in the heart for those who love that city.
But then something else happened. For good things do come out of times like this. Love rises. Compassion swells. Ordinary people discover what extraordinary strengths they possess. And everybody, just everybody, wants to help.
As New Zealanders we sometimes feel that we live in a little country where not much happens. Something really big happened last Tuesday. Lots of terrible things are happening on Planet Earth right now, but we don’t have time to pay much attention to anything else. For this is our country’s pain. Our country’s challenge. Our country’s current mountain of trouble.
When all we can hear are the voices of pain and loss, no one wants to hear about lessons learnt, but I guess there’s just one small one – the pictures we're seeing might at least prompt some more of us to finally take serious and sober notice of those television civil defence ads in case, sometime, it’s our turn.

Ignore the oval ball

I’ve recently met people who were planning big events towards the end of this year but are thinking they’ll pull the plug. Because, hurtling down the track is the all-consuming Rugby World Cup.
I know some of you can hardly wait. But me, come September, I’d rather be outta here. I know I’m not alone. Even Martin Snedden, the RWC chief executive, thinks about 40% of us are either indifferent to rugby or actively dislike it. But you’ll never know that in September when it will be severely unpatriotic to refuse to haul on an AB shirt and paint your face black.
I was therefore overjoyed to discover a Melbourne group that detests all the feverish hype surrounding Aussie Rules - run by the AFL, short for Australian Football League.
To poke fun at footy hysteria these rebels formed a different AFL, the Anti Football League.
It’s 41 years old and has 1000 members, 60% female.
I’ve been having a giggle reading their website.
It declares members are united by the common understanding that there is more to life than the ability to kick a pigskin between two white posts. They also hand out an annual medal to 'the person who does the least for football in a given year'.
It’s all done in good humour. They periodically destroy a football – by explosion, for instance, by fire or by burial at sea. They meet away from TV sets to enjoy alternative amusements on cup final days.
Members can even buy a badge, Madge, in the shape of a square, unkickable football. Stickers are available too – that’s how it looks (above). And, bless ‘em, they raise lots of funds for charity (despite which they get lots of hate mail).
Great idea, I reckon. We could sure do with an alternative world cup event. Not easy, though, to dream up a suitable name with the initials RWC. I’m working on it, but given the power of rugby I’ll probably find the boys have already slapped copyright on it.

Hungry for a good blog

How obsessed with food we’ve become. The telly is full of it. Nigella, Jamie, Rick, Annabel and Gordon (see, you don’t even need their surnames to know who they are) and all the reality-show wannabe chefs are everywhere. So it’s no wonder the web is also brimming with edibles.
In my mum’s day, neighbours used to swap recipes over the fence. Now the food universe is both enormous and local, all at the same time. Keen cooks are launching blogs, taking their own photos of their lovely dishes, and sharing their creations with the world. I love it.
Emma Galloway’s blog is a delight. It’s about “my family, food and recipes, my vege garden and how we cope living with food allergies”. Based in Raglan, but soon moving to Perth, Emma is a vegetarian (except for fish) and trained chef. She has a wide range of yummy-looking recipes that include lots of sweet treats, such as chocolate afghans free of dairy and gluten. And I can’t wait to try her grapefruit curd.
Emma’s work is included at Foodgawker, a San Francisco-online gallery jammed with thousands of treats cooked up and photographed by ardent foodies.
That’s one of Emma’s photos above – a platter of grilled courgette with parsley, olives & garlic crumbs Anyone can submit dishes; if you’re keen, look up the rules and have a go.
Of course, a big international site like Foodgawker doesn’t take account of topsy-turvy seasons and regional preferences – for that you need to look closer to home.
Example: Plum-kitchen, created by Auckland accountant Kristina Douglas. She loves it when people try her recipes and comment on them. “How cool is that,” she says.
UK-trained chef Allison Pirrie Mawer of Muriwai, where she runs the Gourmet Gannet cooking school, also has a beguiling blog. At her site, I found a link to Nigel Olsen’s blog.
He’s even made gorse useful by concocting a pale yellow gorseflower cocktail, made from equal parts vodka, dry vermouth and gorseflower cordial. That is derived from boiling handfuls of flowers in water, caster sugar, lemon juice and orange rind. How does it taste? Apparently, like "mangoes", "cut grass", "spring" and with "herby notes".
If tackling gorse sounds too hard, you may just need someone to point you to great places to shop. If so, MrsCake is a good port of call. Rosa Wakefield lives in Wellington but loves reporting on culinary explorations all over the place. Her Twitter account (also under the MrsCake name) says she is “working to explore the world one meal at a time”. Aren’t we all.