Woke up today around 10am and I had some breakfast but I decided to make it a little more interesting by having chia pudding but rather than eating it out of the jar I decanted the contents from the jar into a bowel and then put some black Doris plums on top (minus the stone). The combination of that along with the vanilla Up and Go, chia seeds and the psyllium husk added some much needed flavour after having pretty bland breakfasts for the last couple of weeks.
I caught the bus so I could have dinner at mum’s place – meat loaf, whole potatoes with sour cream and sweet chilli, broccoli and cauliflower with cheese sauce then for desert some ice cream. I was also able to pick up some home made musli bars which were quite tasty although I asked that next time mum made them to maybe add some craisins which would add an interesting sweet but tart flavour to it. The musli bar reminds me of the Cookie Time Bumper Bars – quite a hearty snack with plenty of fibre.
After dinner mum dropped me off home but on the way I picked up some groceries – I picked up some yoghurt for breakfast along with some chocolate Up and Go. I also finally got my act together to buy bigger glass containers because the current ones are around 300ml where as the new one is around 450ml which makes it a lot easier to meal prep because I can give it a good shake, stir it thoroughly to remove an clumps of chia seeds or psyllium husk that may form as the chia seeds or psyllium husk are absorbing the water in the Up and Go.
I’m sure it isn’t going to be a popular opinion but I would say that the villain from the movie ‘A Few Good Men’, Colonel Nathan R. Jessup, and the famous “you can’t handle the truth” speech he gave in the court scene. What the main protagonist pointed out was the hypocrisy of the those running the proverbial sausage factory but not wanting to know how the sausage gets made. The professional managerial class, politicians and those in positions of power are happy to bask in the glory of success but the moment that it is known how that success was achieved then they suddenly become very high and mighty, giving bloviating speeches about the importance of the very things they were happy to ignore as so long as the masses didn’t know how the results were achieved.
Unfortunately there is a habit that for many in power they like to keep their distance so it always gives them plausible deniability when things go pear shaped, to be able to claim that they were left in the dark or if they had an inkling but to never actually ask the necessary questions. The reason why many don’t ask questions because asking questions would then expose themselves to trickier questions regarding why underlings made the decisions they did and what sort of culture exists within the organisation along with who is responsible for the culture – the culture being very much a product of those at the top. As the old saying goes, “The fish rots from the head down”, it is ultimately the leadership who create and nurture a culture within an organisation – if you punish people who do things by the book but take longer but reward those who take short cuts and break the rules then get the results you want then it shouldn’t be surprising that there is now an incentive structure in place.
We’re already seeing that in New Zealand when it comes to the Ministry of Social Development where employee performance is going to be evaluated based on whether they can hit the numbers set down by the government (link). What is the National led government doing in response to the revelation reported by Radio New Zealand? well, there appears to be a ‘Yes Minister’ video for everything these days – or as my old man used to say about how Yes Minister isn’t too far from reality:
The government of the day are trying to distance themselves from the objectives they’ve set down and the methods that are being employed to achieve those end goals. Like the Yes Minister video the government of the day are trying to make out as if methods of achieving goals have nothing to do with them while ignoring that the policies that they’re laying down lead to such operational policies being drawn up and implemented by the ministry itself. It is truly amazing how no very few seem to have learnt from the work that Sue Bradford over 20 years ago did while in parliament where she worked on undoing the damage of prior government policies. The policies of prior governments where by Work and Income New Zealand (the precursor to the Ministry of Social Development) would withhold information from those seeking help so then they could hit their KPIs for the year for example, not voluntarily telling clients the benefits they were entitled to. Sue Bradford worked tirelessly to ensure that when clients were dealing with Work and Income New Zealand that there was full disclosure regarding all the assistance that they could apply for rather than the onus falling on the client to do the research regarding what they may or may not be entitled to.
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