Nostalgia

[willedoo]

1 hour ago, onetrack said:

I think the naphthalene flakes are long gone. The stuff is pretty potent, it's dangerous to humans as well as insects. 

 

https://apvma.gov.au/node/11781

Thanks for that info onetrack. No wonder I can't find it in the supermarkets; that article about removing it from sale is dated 2011. So the box of flakes in the cupboard has been there a while. It goes on to say that solid naphthalene blocks are still ok.

[willedoo]

I've never owned a Cat. Spent a lot of years as a Catskinner but they were always someone else's Cats.

[onetrack]

No, I'm not evil, and my Cat is not a pussy - and I'm not changing my username, any time soon!

My UN was chosen carefully to represent several features about me, the "track" part must be a giveaway, after having being involved with tracked machines for over five decades.

Then again, I'm also known for my doggedness and persistence, thus the alluding to, "one track". And I'm particularly independent and self-reliant, thus the "one" part.

[red750]

A ship engine failed and no one could fix it, so they brought in a guy with 40 years experience.

He inspected the engine very carefully, top to bottom.

After looking things over, the guy reached into his bag and pulled out a small hammer.

He gently tapped something. Instantly, the engine burst back into life.

The engine was fixed!

7 Days later the owners got his bill for $10,000.

"What?!" the owners said. "You hardly did anything. Send us an itemised bill."

The reply simply said:
Tapping with a hammer: $2
Knowing where to tap: $9,998

Don't ever underestimate experience.

[old man emu]

40 years' experience would make him at least 56 years old. In ten years he's going to retire and who will have the experience to take his place, YouTube?

[onetrack]

That is exactly the problem we're facing right now. The loss of skills as the baby-boomers retire or drop off the perch is inestimable. Many of the current generations have no interest in what the baby-boomers were trained in.

 

I read an article recently that explained how Toyota were bringing back retirees to show the young engineers and designers and assemblers, where they were going wrong, and what basic, sound principles they had ignored.

 

Toyota found that the mentoring of the younger generations by the retirees was leading to vastly improved outcomes, by way of less faulty new engineering and design ideas, and a much lower rate of warranty claims.

[willedoo]

The lack of experience and skill seemed to kick in a few years into this century. The industry I spent half my life working in was traditionally centered on a lot of experience. It evolved in Australia from the Americans coming here and setting the foundations of our exploration industry. They had decades of experience to bring with them. By the time we were getting into the 2000's, companies and management had changed dramatically. The majority of managers were now 30 year old wizz kids who tended to discourage experience; possibly they saw it as a threat to their position because they had very little of it themselves. The other noticeable thing was the big increase in middle management positions of people who actually did very little. In the 80's and 90's, a crew might have 8 or 10 people maximum in the camp during the day, and 40 out in the field doing what the company was paid for. It eventually got to the stage where there were more people sitting around in the air conditioning in camp than there were out in the field working.

 

As an example, back in the early 90's I got talking to a new bloke on his first hitch in the game. He was middle aged and fresh out of the Army. He was a Major in the Army and because it was a management position, he naturally assumed he would start civilian life in a middle management position and quickly work his way into an upper level position. It was a huge shock to him to be offered the lowest position in the company, but that's how the industry worked back then. You had to learn the game and gain experience first. The difference is that if you fast forwarded that scenario to present time, he would be offered a middle management position straight away and would fit in well with the rest of them who don't know what they're doing.

 

 

[willedoo]

On the subject of nostalgia, being the VP day commemoration, it would have been a nostalgic day for my old dad if he was still alive. 75 years ago he would have received the news of war's end. When the war ended, he was with the 2/9th. Battalion AIF in Borneo, in the Rimu River area across the bay from Balikpapan. It was a sad thing that one member of the battalion was killed on the last day of the war.

Edited August 15, 2020 by willedoo

[willedoo]

Simpler days when a reel to reel tape could amuse a whole family.

 

 

[pmccarthy]

I still have recordings of my kids from more than 40 years ago. They still amuse me.

[old man emu]

Reel-to-reel tape recorder? You lucky, lucky bastard. When I were yung lad, all we had were wind up gramophone with hat pin for needle and Grandma's hearing horn for speaker. 

[Bruce Tuncks]

Wille, Thats sad about the guy killed on the last day of the war. I have thought about WW1 and how many guys died waiting for that stupid " eleventh hour of the eleventh day" nonsense. At least WW2 was just waiting for the Japanese to see reason and capitulate.

[pmccarthy]

I remember one distinguished Aussie aviator from WW1 fell overboard and drowned on the way home.

[willedoo]

4 hours ago, Bruce Tuncks said:

Wille, Thats sad about the guy killed on the last day of the war. I have thought about WW1 and how many guys died waiting for that stupid " eleventh hour of the eleventh day" nonsense. At least WW2 was just waiting for the Japanese to see reason and capitulate.

Yes Bruce, it was a bit sad as I seem to remember he was the only loss for the battalion in Borneo. They got off fairly light in the initial invasion. By the time they got ashore, the Japs had been pushed back to the outskirts of town. Another battalion in their brigade had a few losses in that initial stage. My dad's battalion was only there a few days before they went up the Rimu River area and from then till the end of the war, it was down to Vietnam style patrolling. They were to patrol and if they made contact, report back so a larger force could round the enemy up. At that stage, the Japs were scattered all over the countryside in isolated groups and still showing resistance.

 

One of my dad's best mates in another platoon was wounded and still had the MG bullet lodged in his spine when he died in his 90's. My father and a couple of mates almost got bayoneted when they were having a splash bath, but someone scared the two Japs off with a couple of .303 shots. They had their backs turned to the Japs and didn't see them sneak out of the bush. The first they knew about it was when they got back up to the camp and asked them what the shots were all about. They were told the Japs were only a few yards behind them when they were spotted and scared off. My dad did alright and didn't get a scratch over there. But he got crook and spent five months in hospital with malaria and amoebic dysentery. Three months in Rabaul AGH, one month in Sydney and a month in Greenslopes.

 

This is his battalion working their way up through Balikpapan on the first day of the invasion.

 

 

Edited March 4, 2021 by willedoo