HSA delay - Volume Ten: the end is nigh for uncontracted assessors

[On the morning of 23 April 2011, I sent the following email to all of the uncontracted Green Loans assessors I know, and a few other interested parties.]

Hi everyone,

I write to you today with heavy heart. I fear that the fight is over, not with a bang but with a whimper.

I write to advise you to take DCCEE up on its Financial Assistance Scheme.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not giving this advice because I believe that what DCCEE is offering is fair. I don't believe it at all, and yet, I intend to take the advice myself. I'm saying this because we have run out of other options.

Why I have nominated for the ABSA Board

With the ABSA 2010 Annual General Meeting less than a month away, members will shortly be receiving information about who has been nominated to run for the all-new Board of Directors.

There has been some speculation that I would be among the candidates. I am hereby announcing that this is indeed the case.

If you've been reading my blog - which has been dominated for nearly a year by the (ahem) less successful facets of the Home Sustainability Assessment Scheme (HSAS) - or, as it is still (inaccurately) called, the Green Loans Program - you might be wondering what on Earth has possessed me to go through with this.

HSA delay - Volume Nine: Work, Choices

I want to write this time about the Department of Climate Change and about ABSA. This was originally going to be two letters, and then two articles, with many of the key details duplicated. Bear with it being one long article now; it's been a long time since I've written publicly about what's happening, so there's a lot to cover.

HSA delay - Volume Eight: from the Senate Inquiry

I was in Sydney on Tuesday, 29 June 2010, to give evidence to the ongoing Senate Inquiry into the Green Loans Program. It was an interesting day, certainly, but it was exactly as much fun as it sounds.

A proof transcript is available online here.

United Programs of Australia - Adelaide protest rally on Wednesday, 23 June

Green Loans Assessors Action Group is proud to announce the United Programs of Australia protest rally, taking place simultaneously around the country on Wednesday, 23 June.

The Adelaide rally will be held in Victoria Square from 8am to 9am.

Printable flier here. More details after the jump.

HSA delay - Volume Seven: the oncoming train

On Thursday, 6 May 2010 - nearly 11 weeks after the fact - DCCEE awarded a contract to work in the Green Loans Program.

Some other uncontracted Home Sustainability Assessors received news of theirs the next day, and were kind enough to share the news on the ABSA Forums. Good luck to them. But what's really going on here?

HSA delay - Volume Six: Where do we stand?

With a Senate Inquiry looming, this is as good a time as any to take stock of the Green Loans Program. The scheme has been riddled at all levels with a broad spectrum of problems, many of which have already been discussed at length, even on this blog. However, we need to understand where we are at this point in time and, most importantly, what to do from here.

What follows is a summary of the GLP so far, laced with a few anecdotes I have received personally from assessors, both working and waiting, and customers who have had their own homes assessed.

Letter to Mark Butler MP regarding the Green Loans Program

[I have written the following letter to Mark Butler MP, my federal member for the seat of Port Adelaide. If we in the GLP are to secure a fair outcome, in either the short or long term, we need the understanding and support of the federal government. - A.N.]

Dear Mr Butler,

I remember meeting you at a public visit to Mawson Lakes when you were first a candidate for the seat of Port Adelaide. We spoke briefly about discovering the topic of peak oil and of Jeremy Leggett's book, "Carbon War".

My letter concerns another issue of environmentalism: the federal government's Green Loans Program and the difficulties it is causing working families in your constituency and across Australia.

HSA delay - Volume Five: The Return Of Fieldforce

This week, I want to look at what that pack of bastards at Fieldforce have suggested doing to thousands of defenceless participants in the Green Loans Program. (With apologies to Mr Littlemore QC for the paraphrasing, of course.)

HSA delay - Volume Four

Wednesday saw Senator Penny Wong, now the Minister in charge of the stagnant Green Loans Program, on her third day on the job. As is par for the course, though, the afternoon was less about what was said that was left unsaid.

Read the relevant pages from Senate Hansard here. More analysis after the jump.

HSA delay - Volume Three - a complaint on behalf of assessors yet to be contracted

[This was emailed to ABSA, DEWHA, and others for whom I have email addresses. If you know a HSA, practising or not, or anyone else involved in the Green Loans Program, please pass this message on to them. - A.N.]

Subject: a complaint on behalf of assessors yet to be contracted

HSA delay - Volume Two

Update: This article was republished in On Line Opinion on 24 February 2010. Many thanks to Susan Prior for her consideration.

Given the pressure mounting against the Minister for the Environment, Peter Garrett, you would think that he would be trying to stem the tide of scandals unfolding from his portfolio. If a problem persists, try to solve it, or at least try not to make it worse. Sadly, politics is not that kind of operation.

HSA delay

Happy New Year to you all. This has been a busy time for me, but hopefully, things will be calming down over the next couple of weeks.

As some people know from meeting me in real life, I have taken a course to become a Home Sustainability Assessor, under the Australian government's Green Loans programme to help householders become more energy- and water-efficient. The process of becoming a HSA has taken longer than I expected, not least of which due to the fact that the police records office, despite my explicit forwarding instructions, sent the certificate of my police check to my home address while I was on holidays. However, with that minor setback behind me, I was set to register with ABSA and get started.

On Friday afternoon, I got a troubling email from Alison Carmichael, CEO of ABSA, some of which I will republish here:

farewell to QinetiQ

On Monday, 11 May 2009, I handed in my letter of resignation from QinetiQ Consulting, where I'd been working for nearly one and a half years. Today - Wednesday, 13 May - was my last day at work, notwithstanding the notice period and my annual leave.

I didn't get a chance to see all of my colleagues in person between announcing my departure and the departure itself, so I wrote an email to them to bid them all farewell. I got two compliments about it before I got out the door, so I thought I'd republish it here. No hard feelings, of course.

* * * * * *

Hi all,

As some of you are already aware, today is my last day as an employee of QinetiQ. Having given this decision a lot of thought, I finally tendered my resignation on Monday. I thought I’d send out an email to you all to mark the occasion.

I am reminded at this moment that a wise man once said to me, “hey, you, get the hell out of my wardrobe”. Even then, I knew that truer words had never been spoken – which shows you how wrong you can be, because I’m still friends with his wife. But that’s another story.

This story is not one I have taken lightly. To many of you, this development won’t come as a surprise. The past year and a half has had its moments, but in truth, this job hasn’t always been good to me, nor I to it. I can at least say we’ve always treated each other with patience and understanding. As such, the decision to leave was not an easy one, but it is a mutual and positive one.

We find ourselves in interesting times, in a period of social, political, economic and environmental instability that is far from over. You might imagine that such a scenario made me more than a little nervous about resigning. At the same time, I also saw it as a compulsion to act before things get any worse. I can weather the crisis of paying bills for a while, but I’m more enthusiastic about the opportunity to figure out what I want to do with myself, in my own time and with minimal distractions.

First things first, of course: I’m taking a bit of a break. I’m travelling to Japan for two weeks, spending a week back home in Townsville and attending a cousin’s wedding in Brisbane. When I return to Adelaide afterwards, I can get back into my career again. Who knows, maybe I’ll even get it right this time. Or not.

So, it is on this note that I leave my position of receptionist, economist, permaculturalist, IT support officer, wildlife wrangler, grocery shopper, Wii tennis champion, and occasional software engineer. To everyone here in Edinburgh and across the country, I want to thank you for your support and company throughout my time at QinetiQ, and I give you my best wishes for the future.

Warmest regards,

Aaron Nielsen

tempting fate

My time capsule posts aside, it's been a while since I've written here, and a lot has happened since I failed to decide on any specific New Year's resolutions. Here goes...

Sadly, I'm still working in the same spot; gladly, not for much longer. I've been applying for other jobs and I'm starting to get a few responses back, although nothing too positive yet. It's strange, perhaps, that as tense as I was about deciding to look for alternative employment, I'm even more tense about finding it. You might think I'd be a bit more relaxed after making the decision and relieved to think I can still do it, and I might feel that way once I've found a new job, but in the meantime, I'm still very nervous.

Part of the nervousness comes from a few plans that I may or may not have for the next two months or so. My brother is planning a two-week trip to Japan in May and June, and a cousin of ours is getting married shortly afterwards. I'm hoping to join them both. The problem is applying to take leave in one of our busiest times of the year, particularly for a block of several weeks.

Wait, what? I'm actually needed at work suddenly? Well, sort of.

The task that I'm on now, and that I've been complaining about to no avail for more than six months, still refuses to die. I've had a colleague from across the corridor looking at this in some idle time, and another colleague from interstate who visited here for two days this week, and I'm still not entirely sure what's going on. I've only got about a week and a half to finish the entire task, and I don't even know what we're supposed to be delivering any more.

On the proviso that I see this task out, there are two more tasks lined up for me. The former of those tasks is with my supervisor, for whom I worked directly this time last year. By the time I start working there again, he will have held up my work there for a full year, without having even had the common courtesy to tell me the truth about it. The latter is with another group I spent about a month with on and off about eight months ago. I tried to stop them reinventing a wheel and I didn't get invited back. I haven't received any feedback about this work either, and although my supervisor has claimed to have some, he said it would be "unprofessional" to pass it on to me. Somewhere in the middle of this, this same supervisor is magically going to do his job and thereby allow my work from this time last year to be completed. Of course, I've heard all of this many times before, and the message is just as mixed as ever.

I've tried talking to my boss, my boss's boss and our HR officer about these problems. Everyone seems to understand but nobody seems even remotely interested in solving them. As a result, I'm pretty much through wondering whether any of this will get better. I'm well and truly embedded in a search for another job, and I can't wait for the day when I can leave this one behind. I don't even care that much where I end up afterwards, although it will certainly not be in a defence job. Make no mistake, I'm happy with the money I'm getting here, but this job has nothing else to offer; there's no worth in the work itself, nor in my being there to do it.

My job has drained me of my energy, both physical and mental; in fact, I took today and yesterday off to recover. However, I haven't given up. My mind and body are weak, but my spirit still has hope, at least for the prospect of getting another job. On the other hand, I've still got this one, and I can't talk about how much worse things will get without it sounding like a temptation of fate.

irresolute

Now that the silly season is over, you'd think this would be as good a time as any for things to start settling down again.

Indeed, this would appear to be the case, at first glance. My family has returned home after an altogether too brief spot of Adelaide's indecisive weather. I'm back at work as of today and I start work on a new project next week. I sign off on some investments tomorrow, and I'm looking towards a permaculture course split over a few extended weekends over the next two months. It certainly sounds like a plan.

It could hardly be that simple for me, though. Okay, the new project would mean working back close to my old haunt, which is much better catered and much better served by public transport, so my efforts to get fit and lose weight would be more readily rewarded. The problem is that the work is basically back from where I left in disgrace eighteen months ago, and I'm still waiting for someone in the upper echelons of the organisation to rekindle a grudge with me and set about voiding the whole deal. I can old keep my fingers crossed that this person will make a professional decision, rather than an unprofessional one. I may not know better until next week, if not later.

As I mentioned in a previous post, a lot hangs on this. Sure, the permaculture course depends on getting a couple of days' leave here and there, but this is a minor detail in the grand scheme of things. I refer, of course, to the decision I failed to make at the end of last year about whether I would remain in this job at all - and, perhaps more significantly, how far away I would go if I did decide to leave.

There's just so much that I'd rather be doing. Over the Christmas break, I cut together the video from my parents' recent holiday, but it was all done in a hurry and there's a lot more work to be done on it before I'm happy with the result. I'm also putting a CD together for a friend of mine, as a way of dealing with our we-are-just-friends episode from October last year. (Yes, I'm aware that replacing the memories of that weekend with new ones forged with someone else would be far more effective.) I've still got a lot on my reading list as well. At least I've finished decorating at home, thanks in no small part to my Mum.

I don't really have any resolutions per se for the New Year; there are things I want to change in my life, but I started trying for them last year. As much as my life is still up in the air, I'm still confident that things are headed in the right direction, but I'm just not sure how far.

Le ras-le-bol

At the end of October, while wondering why I was at work, I wrote something of a manifesto to implore myself to figure out whether to start looking for a new job. The one I have now is boring me and wasting my time, and I wanted to know for sure whether or not things could be improved.

Some six weeks later, I am convinced that things are actually worse now than they were. Two supplementary tasks have crossed my desk since October - one wanting an Excel spreadsheet, one wanting a couple of reports added to an Access database - and even after several weeks of campaigning, neither of them can even begin. My contact for the latter task is at least trying, despite a total lack of working software or useful data. By contrast, my contacts for the former are no longer just jerking me around and have started blaming me for the delays. I had a meeting yesterday morning with yet another manager, in order to sort out the mess, but we shall see what comes of it.

Were that not bad enough, I have returned to Adelaide, after two days in Melbourne, to a computer that is now a mere inch from useless. We have moved to a new Windows domain and installed Office 2007, the net result of which "upgrades" being nothing but grief. It's taken me two weeks to get access to all my old emails, and everything is slow, slow slow. I suppose that I could be typing this blog entry on it while I'm still at the office (provided Notepad still works), but I've bringing my Mac to work most days and I'd rather use that for personal things while I've got it here.

There's been another reason I've been bringing the Mac to work recently. I started a new version of my curriculum vitae about two weeks ago, and I think it's now complete. No, I haven't exactly decided it's time to start looking for a new job, but I'm quite prepared to do so if these two supplementary tasks don't work out. My software engineering skills can still pay the bills, but if I am to leave, I'd rather get out of the defence industry if at all possible - it'd be nice to be working for the good guys for a change.

Obviously, this might end up putting me in quite a bind. Firstly, the state of the economy hasn't exactly stabilised, and I imagine that I'd find a number of jobs that can't be offered because the money to recruit a new employee simply isn't coming. Secondly, if the job that suits me is in an industry other than defence, it will mean leaving Adelaide in all likelihood, which, despite Adelaide's shortcomings, would be a heartbreaking experience. Thirdly, my skills and experience as a computer programmer are hardly applicable to my new-found passions for film-making and environmentalism. Sure, there's obvious scope for a project that can link all three, but I'm not confident that such an opportunity would arise very often - unless I take an entrepreneurial plunge myself, a nerve-wracking thought to say the least.

It's holding up the process of finding a girlfriend as well. I have met a few people who I'm tempted to ask out and who I think might be open to it if I do. That said, if my clearest career prospects involve being unemployed and leaving Adelaide, I can't really offer them my stability in my own life; in fact, I'm not always good company at the moment. I want to get back into the game again, but I can't help but wonder how long I could string someone along without hurting them. All of these things take time: a lot could happen in the next few months, and a major upheaval of my livelihood is certainly a strong possibility.

In the meantime, I can still look forward to a few pleasant certainties in my life. I went out last week with some old work colleagues for nachos and Sangria. The Crocs were here last night - although the less said about that, the better - and the office Christmas party is tonight. My family is staying with me over Christmas and New Year. I've caught up with a few long lost friends on Facebook. Plus, I've still got a bedroom to renovate, a Christmas tree to put up, and a few presents to wrap (and at least one to make).

These are the things to which I'm looking forward right now. Something has to keep me going at work, when the work itself has so little left to offer.

plus ça change

Half-way around the world, another country embraces change. Upstairs at my place, things are more the same than ever.

The upstairs rooms are still in a state. I've been meaning to tidy up the bathrooms, but I got gastro a couple of weeks ago and I didn't feel like doing much for a few days. That set everything else back, so I'm only just getting back to it now. Admittedly, I've only got a few odd jobs left to do before I set upon my own bedroom, but getting back to them has been a bit of a struggle.

My parents and my brother are coming down for Christmas and New Year and not much else. They're only getting here the day before Christmas itself (so I'll miss Dad's birthday), and they're only here for a few days after New Year. Now that I've got plenty of places to put them up, that's not going to be an issue. Plus, I won't have many days to fill up with things to do. Still, I only get to see them in person once a year, an experience sadly not available on Skype.

I invited a few friends and relatives out to celebrate my birthday - not on my birthday, because nobody could go, but still, the celebration's the thing. I wanted to bring together people from different circles but that I knew would get along, so I invited them all out for dinner at one of the local restaurants. It all went off pretty well. Not everyone could turn up, including my lady friend who isn't my girlfriend; she did drunk-dial me to invite me out afterwards, though.

Since someone has already asked, I should mention that this time was much easier and much less awkward than two weeks prior. Sure, she got nearly as drunk and I was even more sober, but the pressure came off: the expectations were much more subdued, and having learnt what she gets like, I understand a bit better how I should treat her. Even the weird things drunk people say - which might be insightful unspoken truths, or which might be random crap - don't affect me as much any more. (Actually, they affect me a lot more than I care to admit, but I'm getting more graceful about it.)

Actually, on that note, I did meet someone a week ago. I was at a presentation about the limits to economic growth, organised by Economic Reform Australia. It was an excellent discussion - the presenter just about wore himself out with his own enthusiasm, and everyone seemed to hang on his every word. I hung around afterwards to join in the afterglow, and in the process, I met a young lady who had come from China to do her PhD in environmental accounting. We got to talking about climate change and peak oil - normally a good way to end conversations with the uninitiated, but not in this case. It was actually something of a novelty for me to talk to someone both intellectual and open-minded about the subject: most of the people I know either worry themselves sick about peak oil or refuse to acknowledge the problems in any way. I've sent her a couple of emails on the subject, so she's got plenty of homework to do, but I can't help but wonder if she'll get back to me. I mean, I'm happy enough to network for now, but I wonder if she'd like to continue the conversation over a coffee. Oh well, we'll see.

* * * * * *

The thing that's really bothering me at the moment is work. Things are going from the sublime to the ridiculous, and I'm still bored out of my mind. However, it has taken a turn for the worse in the past week or two.

We are working on a task that has turned sour before it has even started. I suspect my boss doesn't know what we're doing either and is just making it up as he goes along. This wouldn't worry me, normally, but not only is he holding me up by our not knowing, but he's working hard to pretend both that we do and that I can't see through it. Every time we talk about what's happening, I learn something fundamental about the project that I should have been told weeks ago, certainly before we started submitting documents about it.

I spent some time writing my boss an email, in which I collated the whole array of things I hadn't been told in a timely fashion, or hadn't been told at all, that have gotten this project on the wrong foot so early. The email turned pretty nasty pretty quickly, though, and I wasn't sure it wouldn't do more harm than good to send it. Normally, I prefer to write something a bit more positive and a lot more constructive, even if the nasty version says things that really need to be said. I don't know whether I can hold back this time. Maybe my patient really is at an end.

For all the time I've had wasted by having nothing to do at work, you'd think I'd be welcoming this with open arms. However, that's not the point. I'm sick and tired of being treated like a mushroom in this job. I've been so patient with him, and I've been consistently let down. This has to change now. The question remains: even if this will make things better for me, do I have the guts to do it?

giving is receiving

Not much is happening at the moment. I had hoped to be busy enough to appreciate the calm, but really, I'm itching to disturb it.

I was paid a visit last weekend by an old friend from Townsville. Janet and I have only kept in touch sporadically over the past couple of years, but she came down for a wedding and stayed a few nights here. I was fighting off a generic lurgi from two different directions, so I wasn't ideal company, but made a good time of it. The Crocs lost, sadly, but we took a bus trip up to the Barossa Valley and spent most of the Monday shopping. Most of this I've done before, but I've never spent quite so much time with a $185 bottle of Wolf Blass Platinum Shiraz; it cost me a tenner just to taste it, but it was superb, worth every cent.

Work is about the same. I've been on-site on and off for the past two weeks, so I have had at least some proper work to do, even if it's not really mine. Now that I'm officially on standby - a status change that, in itself, took nearly three months - I'm a bit worried about turning into a bit of a dogsbody, getting dragged in to do the dirty work on everyone's little pet projects that they never get time to do. I almost want someone to tell me that we really have run out of things for me to do, so that I'd know that they'd stopped kidding themselves. Actually, I wonder if someone is going to tell me something about anything; the jobs I've been lined up for keep falling through one by one, which is as much a curse as a blessing.

Things aren't getting any easier on the relationship front, either. I had hoped to set up my actual common-or-garden date for last night, but my lady friend hardly had time even to tell me how busy she already was that night. I feel that she's done a lot more favours for me than I've been able to return so far, and I'm trying hard not to be impatient about when I'll be able to restore the balance.

We're even coming up to another special occasion that won't go exactly as planned. My birthday is only two weeks away, and as usual, not only do I not know what I want, but the only things I can think of are too big and too expensive for other people to buy them for me, and I'm too fussy to let them do it anyway. Try this combination out some day: it's a sure-fire way of not getting the presents you want. (Not that I don't appreciate people trying, of course - and, unlike some of my friends, I do like a pleasant surprise.)

That said, as presents go, if there's nothing you want, maybe there's something you need. Trouble is, what I need more than anything now is to give. I've even thought of calling my birthday off this year and using that time to do something for someone else. I've even got a few ideas already about who I can serve and what they might like. Maybe that's was missing. The serving, that is, not the other people.

Crash

Last night, I watched a film called Crash, which you may remember as the dark horse that pipped Brokeback Mountain for the Academy Award for Best Picture a couple of years ago. I'm not going to get into the controversy of the Oscar nod, particularly because I haven't even seen Brokeback Mountain to comment on it. Crash, however, despite its low budget, is something special: it's a powerful and emotional piece of cinematic storytelling. I'm almost ashamed to have only just found it on sale for ten bucks; it deserves much better.

The movie deals a lot with one's sense of faith in other people. There's a lot of segregation in the film - among races, among classes, among professions - but overall, it's more about people coming together than it is about separating them. The drama comes from the trying coincidences that bring these people together and the decisions that they make when faced with these problems. From a philosophical standpoint, it's fascinating.

I'm faced with a few moral dilemmas myself at the moment, and I'm having a great deal of difficulty deciding on the right things to do. More to the point, I keep wondering whether even any one of these dilemmas might, dramatically and at short notice, change something important in my life. Here are a few examples.

* * * * * *

My housemate and landlord has shuffled some money around, and he's in the market for a photovoltaic installation for the house. He hasn't spoken too much to me about the details; I think he wants to get it started, taking advantage of the government rebates on solar electricity in the process, and do what is obviously the right thing. It seems pretty straightforward.

Now, you'd think that a greenie such as myself would support such a plan. Yet, I don't know whether I do; nay, I don't even know that it's not a really stupid idea of which I want no part whatsoever. How can this be? How can it not be as simple as that?

There is a lot to like about this house, but from the perspective of long-term environmental sustainability, there's a lot to hate as well. Like most houses in the suburb, it has paper-thin walls and no insulation, thanks to the blasé assumption that all interior climate can be solved with a big enough air conditioner. Furthermore, the main living areas have those horrible recessed halogen downlights. Although pitched as low-voltage, they consume enormous amounts of electricity, they each have a transformer that consumes even more electricity, and, according to an uncle of mine who is himself an electrician, they're a fire risk.

If that weren't bad enough, the house is full of electronic gadgets that are continuously either left on or left in standby mode. In fact, my housemate's hi-fi cabinet - which doesn't contain a television or a computer - consumes more electricity on standby than every appliance I own combined. I can only guess what it's like in parts of the house I haven't measured.

For me, the dilemma is that for all of the electricity that his proposed PV installation would provide, he could save far more energy just with a few minor adjustments here and there. The thousands of dollars he would be spending on solar power would be better spent on replacement downlights, ceiling insulation and canopies for the north-facing windows. If that in and of itself doesn't cover the difference in electricity use, the simple habit of turning appliances off at the mains when they're not being used - or getting timers for those power points that are hard to reach - would put him over the top. To look at the problem in reverse, he'll be spending money on electricity he either doesn't even use or doesn't have to have.

Of course, not everyone sees these problems the way I do, and that means I've got to be very careful how I explain it. Certainly, my way would be a far better investment of his time and money, since, importantly, it might actually have a chance of changing his way of thinking about energy use. (Besides, were he really so keen on Mother Earth, he'd be getting rid of that surrogate penis he drives everywhere.) It's really the change in mentality that's required here.

I'm not against him investing in solar power - I do believe it's a worthwhile investment - but I want him to know what he's getting himself into. I want him to be able to quantify what he's spending his time and money on. Perhaps the biggest questions, and the ones I'd ask first, are why he's doing this and how much of a difference he thinks it will make.

That said, I hope he's just as well prepared for my answers. Ideally, I would want to test him, to set him some homework, and make sure he knows what he's doing. On the other hand, if he can't understand that he might just be wasting his time, he's got no chance of understanding how he'll be wasting mine. I'm used to the idea of people not necessarily appreciating my help, but perhaps he is not.

* * * * * *

I'm in something of an odd spot at work as well, and have been for longer than I'm comfortable to admit. Anyway, here goes.

The project I'm doing at work is drawing to a close. Well, apparently, it is, anyway. I pretty much finished everything I needed to do at the end of June, and I've been figuratively twiddling my thumbs ever since. During this time, I haven't been game to take the bus or the bike to work, just in case I get dragged up to the clients' site at short notice. However, I have started taking my Mac to work, to pass the time editing movies rather than playing cards.

In the meantime, my betters have been talking to me about the sorts of projects that I might be working on next time. Every upcoming project seems to be in a different city, so I'm less worried about the work itself than I am about where I'm going to be and how I'm going to get there. Maybe I'll still be here; maybe I'll be here sometimes and flying back and forth to Canberra; maybe I'll have to move temporarily. I just don't know yet.

None of this is really on my mind while I'm at work, though. I'm far more interested to know how I can get rid of the project I've got now. Even after the weeks at the start of the project that were essentially wasted arguing about what we could and couldn't do with the resources we had, I'm convinced that I finished everything I needed to do in the last week of June. It's now September and I've barely done a week's work in that time. I'm getting the impression that this project is never going to end, and it's little consolation that my supervisor is nearly as frustrated about it as I am.

It's a depressing situation to be in, but I wonder whether it wouldn't be worse to say something. At the moment, it's just embarrassing to me; if I speak out, it will be embarrassing to me, to my supervisor, and probably to his supervisor as well. It doesn't seem like that long ago that I embarrassed my bosses in my previous job by speaking frankly about their obvious incompetence. Unsurprisingly, they were very defensive about it and very vindictive towards me, and things ended very badly as a result. It doesn't help when you are dealing with people whose self-image of being problem-solvers is little more than a crude disguise.

Although this isn't exactly the same situation, I don't really want to risk causing the same problems. That being said, I don't know what else to do about it. As it is, I don't know how much longer I can keep coming to work, knowing that every day is going to be a little bit worse than the one before. I should, by rights, speak out and at least stick up for myself. The problem is how to point out a grave problem delicately to someone who might not react in the most gracious fashion - which may have more of a detrimental effect than I was hoping for, and not just on me.

* * * * * *

Two months ago, I wrote in this blog that it was time to find a young woman to bring into my life again. I've been pretty coy about this, but only because this has taken a bit longer than I'd hoped. You know that patience is a virtue, because being patient is really hard.

Well, there is a young woman in the picture now. I'd talked to her a few times where she worked, and she was always really nice to me, as fleeting as our conversations were. Shortly after I wrote about wanting someone special in my life again, I summoned up the courage to ask her out - and although she didn't know when she'd have time to do it, she said yes. We've slotted in some short conversations after work, but even these have been few and far between. It's tricky to talk to her at work, even if it's only to ask whether she can hang around for a chat afterwards. (The last time I talked to her at work, I hung around a bit too long and I think I might have gotten her into trouble with her boss. Actually, I think I might have gotten myself into trouble with her boss as well.)

What I'd been hoping for was a chance for us just to sit down and get to know each other a bit better, which is something on which I put a lot of value. That said, it might also have been a chance for her to chat with me and not to have somewhere else to go in a hurry straight afterwards. It was time to ask her on a proper date. I would have done it, too - had she not gotten in first.

She was taking her mother out bowling on Friday night, along with a few other relatives, just for a bit of fun. When I saw her on Thursday, she asked me if I wanted to come along. My date idea would have to wait for another time, but I was thinking more about trying not to be overcome with how flattered I was to be invited.

It's hard to see any of this as a bad thing. Okay, so she couldn't get a booking at the first bowling alley she tried, but she found another one and booked a lane there. Everything else on the night went off without a hitch. Bowling was fun, even with the bumpers out for those of us who had never bowled before. Better, though, I got to meet some of her family, who were all quite warm to me, and I hope I came across the same way. Everyone had a good time.

I'm the first to admit that things haven't progressed as quickly as I'd hoped with this girl and that I don't know her very well yet. Still, I like what I've found out so far, and I'm trying to be patient with it, waiting for a chance to learn more. She's a fairly straight talker, and even being a few years younger than me, she seems to have a strong sense of responsibility, both for herself and for others. (Having spent six years working among people who have neither of these qualities, you can see how much I'd appreciate someone who exhibits both.) As if the way she carries herself weren't attractive enough, she made the bold gesture of inviting me out to family get-together. Something must be going right. Indeed, nothing much seems to have gone wrong yet.

So... what's the problem? What's on my mind? What am I afraid of?

As I mentioned earlier, things are a bit up-in-the-air at work. The thing I'm most worried about is the idea that I might have to leave town at short notice and that I might not be back for many months. I'm worried about getting so close that I might hurt her if I have to be away. How I might feel is a worry as well, of course, but I'm more worried about how she might feel if things end before they really start. I don't really know what to do.

I was talking to my best friend back home about this. My instinctive response is to tell her what's happening at work and how something interstate might just pop up. My friend wasn't so sure it was the right time to tell her: there's a chance that it might scare her off, and there's a chance that this might be an "issue" that scares her off. I don't know whether any of this will happen yet, but at this early stage, talking about what might ruin things might send the wrong message, as though I was looking for a way to avoid her, or as though I didn't care whether it hurt her or not. As I put it, I'm concerned that something might happen with work before something happens with her, and I'm concerned that something will happen with her and then I'll get sent away for work.

One thing I love about this job is the breadth of opportunity - that if I stay on long enough, I might get to work all over the world in all sorts of different areas. (That's also helping me be patient with the project I've got that I don't seem to be able to get rid of.) That said, it might just be my undoing as well. It all seems a bit delicate at the moment.

I'm pretty sure I like this girl, and I'm pretty sure that she likes me - and yet, somehow, this isn't entirely a good thing. It's difficult enough for her to make time for me, since we rarely see each other outside of her work, but this is a minor hurdle by comparison. This is a complication that I don't need, and one that I don't want, but also one I don't want to give up on.

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Crash opens with a voiceover from "Detective Graham Waters" (Don Cheadle), who laments that in the city, paradoxically, people are so close together, and yet so isolated from each other, that it's only the most dramatic aspects of society that people notice. Everything has to be in black and white. It's either good or it's evil. It's either perfect or it's nothing.

I can see this happening among other people, but I'm not sure it's true of me. I'm proud of how flexible and tolerant I can be and how much of life's subtlety I can appreciate. As I'm finishing this off at work, my boss's boss has stuck his head through the door. I hardly even notice that he's seen me doing something that doesn't even look work-related. He says he hasn't heard about the Perth job: we may not have won the tender, but then again, the whole thing might just be running late. Another story with two sides, and neither of them is easy to explain.

Suddenly, I'm transported into the movie again. I'm sitting here typing all alone, still surrounded by people who I don't know whether I can trust. I don't know how they see themselves, nor how they see themselves tested every day. All I have is myself. The test is one set for my own faith that other people will do the right thing for the right reasons. I've failed this test before, but I'll do better this time. I have to.