Stupid Capitalists

Well what a week! It's not every week you get the news nearly $75,000 is soon to come your way. I will be able to pay off all my debts, and it looks like about $45,000 will be left over. Now after the initial euphoria, I'm faced with what options I have with this money now.

I've thought about the Lightning Ridge thing, and although I'll definitely go up there and spend some time there with Simon for a month or so, I've decided it's just too remote a place for me to live permanently. I've thought about it before and it always comes back to the same conclusion. The medical services are completely inadequate for my needs, particularly as it takes a week to see the one doctor in town. With going on HIV meds at some point I'd be worrying about getting them out there to the chemist, or would I have to get them from the local hospital pharmacy? Who knows. It's not something that a mistake can ever be made with and to miss doses with. Simon also has only solar electricity of 12 volts, needing a generator for normal power.After 30 years in Sydney I don't think I could live like that long term.

So that leaves living in Sydney and paying $210 a week rent (currently). With $45,000 I could probably stretch that our for over a year at least if I wanted to, or maybe try to find a little part time job somewhere. Dunno. A year off sounds pretty appealing. Maybe I could even do a bit of volunteer work for some of the HIV services around the place. It'd be a nice change from what has been the endless drudgery of being a machine operator in a dying industry.

Or maybe I could buy some little place to live in the country? I doubt there'd be much available at all for that money, but it might be worth looking into. It's all up in the air right now. I'll be having a big discussion with the psychologist early next month, as he's known me since my diagnosis in 2009 and would be an impartial judge of what options would be best for me. Oh what a fuckin dilemma; how to spend $45,000!

Apart from that, some people at work weren't so happy. Those who'd not been there as long as some others of us got a much smaller payout, one with a family and the sole income provider, another with a new baby born only days before. Even my dept head got the boot, and he'd not been there very long either. 

Overall it's an example of stupid Capitalists after short term profits for shareholders, at the expense of a very profitable dept. Yes, we were making them a lot of money. But they decided it was cheaper to outsource the work and sack us all. Complete and utter greed, and like taking a wrecking ball to the company. They have sacked the only two qualified guillotine operators on the site for example, me and the other bloke. The sort of work they will have left to do they need someone who knows what they're doing. They even asked me to train one or two of them to show them how to set up a programme on the guillotine and operate it. WTF? Get fucked! They sack me telling me I'm redundant and don't need me, then they want me to train someone for my job? They obviously have no idea. And who's going to change the knife? A particular procedure twice a week that you have to know how to do it to do it safely. A metre long sharp as a razor. You have to be a tradesman to do it, simple.

Anyway it's not my problem anymore. It's been interesting though since we got taken over a while back. A lesson in how to destroy a very profitable company.  

And this is the work that is soon to be no more. I've been cutting this one for the last few days. It's 2 million in quantity, that job alone worth $80,000 and very profitable.