Poem: The Brown Hat

 

Toast and cuppa

Shower with scrubber

Then load the tools

at some ungodly hour

Look up the day’s site

Got time for another bite?

And then I don the Brown Hat.

 

6:30am

On the Road by then

At least the traffic

Is somewhat bearable

Stop by the servo

Hot Coffee, bravo

That’s life in today’s Brown Hat

 

Briefing time

Foreman’s lines

On timeframes,

And incidents

Set out the workplan

Try avoid the Boss man

For it is I who wears the Brown Hat.

 

Sun bears down

Bakes the ground

The Humidity

Is 75 Percent

Ground is hard

FUCK! Get the bar

Sweat drips off the brim of my Brown Hat

Need a break

And gotta hydrate

But boss complains

about his deadlines

He hasn’t a clue

He’s in for a blue

For that bastard wears the Black Hat

 

Tools go down

Upon Picket Line

Assembled neath

The closest tree

Boss gets the message

Shouts us electrolytes

As I wave my face with my Brown Hat

 

8 hours done

By 3pm

On days like this

You can’t do much more

Race home again

Shower, then under the fan

And I take off my Brown Hat.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Corporate Class drain on economy, Productivity Commission Reveals

Image
  Corporate Class drain on economy, Productivity Commission Reveals 09-04-25 The Productivity Commission’s 2025 Bulletin has revealed that the Corporate Class is the most inefficient sector of the economy. While the productivity of most skilled Trades increased their productivity; the “Administration and Support Services Sector” has seen a decline in labour productivity over the same timeframe. The Productivity Commission’s Annual Bulletin (accessible here: https://www.pc.gov.au/ongoing/productivity-insights/bulletins/bulletin-2025/productivity-bulletin-2025.pdf ) reveals that the “Administration and Support Services” industry saw a decline in labour productivity. Meanwhile, Labour productivity in agriculture, construction, transport, and manufacturing increased. The Utilities industry saw labour productivity decline slightly. Despite this decline in corporate productivity, the ABS reveals that the industry saw the fourth largest wage rise in 2024 (see here: https://www...
Read more

Review of "The Big Book of Australian Folk Song."

Image
Got a copy of this classic. Its more of a reference book, than designed to be read cover to cover. It includes various folk songs from the colonial era until the 70s when it was published. It's a good addition to my few folk albums. I've got a signed copy of Text Egan's album "The Shearer's" from the faces of Australia series. I've also got a few of Redgum's albums downloaded, though that's unlikely to be in here because they came later (and a full discography of them would warrant a coffee table book of its own). I've also got a few of The Bushwackers' covers of the classics. Almost every agricultural profession has a "Lament" about the Hard Yakka and the poor food. The Shearer's, naturally, have countless songs, but the cane cutters have at least a few, with 2 versions of their "Lament."  
Read more

Attempt to organise Airtasker Fails; Scabs rampant on Platform

Image
In April 2024, I attempted to Unionise Airtasker. Airtasker is a gig economy platform that engages contractors to bid on customer's jobs advertised on the platform. As a former Airtasker worker, I know how bad the platform is. It is a race to the bottom in terms of wages and conditions. A few years ago (in 2020) I wrote an as yet unpublished essay comparing Airtasker to the infamous "Bull System," of casual labour. As part of this essay, I screenshotted various examples of jobs completed on Airtasker withing about 6 months of each other, demonstrating that Airtasker is is practice a race to the bottom. My investigation into Airtasker's standards exposed a completely unregulated market. Airtasker claims it is complying with its legal obligations, but it is clear to me that that are doing the bare minimum to cover their arses. For example, I uncovered numerous instances of renumeration below the Award Rates of the time.  There was an example of 8 hours "Landscape L...
Read more