if it's successful don't expand discontinue it

I've just learned that the brown waste bins get processed in this big state of the art compost making facility in westmeath and that they used to bag it and sell it in B&Q but now you have to go and get it yourself. They won't deliver it so now after building this state of the art facility the compost it makes just sits there or worse still is removed to landfill. Madness. At Christmas the tree recycling facilities were so popular they shut them down. and so many people were using the plastic recycling bank that they took them away. So the logic is "We're getting pressure about the environment so we have to do something. Hire the brainy git with an interest and qualification in this area. Get the state of the art practice put in place but don't actually use it because a that would mean we have to work. Actually so many people were adopting these recycling practices that (instead of employing more people) we had to work harder but we didn't want the overtime because we only wanted part time work in the first place so we all thought we would be better off back on the dole sure we can do another training course in six months or a year. I heard there's a new coffee shop open...."

you have to have a swipe at your own

I volunteer in an environmental outreach type education events centre and they have a shop which pretty much pays the way. However over an extended period of time there has been stocktaking issues. Without going into the details of how perfectly sellling products were not renewed (remember if it's making money don't reorder it for six months). I will give some examples of the business methods of our shop. One install a programme which tells you when a product has run out. In case you don't find anything amiss with this, think why not get a programme which tells you when you are running out instead of when you have run out, then you would never be out of stock as you would have restocked before you ran out. I went in one day and asked for a product I buy regularly and they then realised it was out of stock (computer programme not working obviously). I asked when will you expect to have it in again to be told in about a week.

Imagine if McDonald's applied this method of stocktaking:

Customer walks into McDonald's
Customer" I'll have a Big Mac please ! "
Counterclerk to people cook " One Big Mac please"
Cook to counterclerk "We're all out of Big Mac's I'm afraid"
Counterclerk to customer: " Sorry, all out of Big Mac's "
Customer to counterclerk : " Well, when do you expect to have them in again"
Counterclerk " oh! In about a week"

McDonald's would soon go out of business!!!!!!

This is the cutting edge in alternative co-operative's.

dyfunctionality built in

This is probably the most unbelieveable yet. The new supermarket has what is called a loyalty card. Well they planned it, designed it, and manufactured it and delivered it to my apartment without including a barcode on it. Unbeliveable. The computer in the supermarket doesn't read the swipe section. When I went to the woman and explained she said don't worry they'll send you out vouchers every three months. How in God's name are they going to know how much I spent if there is no barcode or swipe to register my purchases. Are there ghosts hanging around the machines? Do they employ a team of Psychics ? No! this is dyfunctionality buit in. This is so dyfunctional that is is designed and implemented in such a way that it is impossible to work. Just think of how much money these people are getting paid! And instead of firing them they pay them double in overtime to sort out the mess they made. Financial wizardry of the upmost order. No one will be unemployed. In fact people will be over employed. Also no one will get points for loyalty as it's not possible and they won't have to for the time being give anything back.

Restaurant food solutions: if it's not broken don't fix it.

There is a proliferation of new restaurant's in Dublin and usually they start offf with low prices and big portions of qulaity prepared food. This brings the customers in big time!!!!! However when this winning solution works they, feeling comfortable, up the prices, lower the quality and reduce the portions. This invariably causes customers to stop coming and although certain ones that come to mind have not gone out of business yet when one passes their window one sees alot less clientele in them. As I said if it's not broken don't fix it.

No fish counter ????? !!!!

A new supermarket opened up beside where I live and I thought oh great I can walk to get my food / goods etc instead of driving to the next village. I can save on carbon emissions, think global / act local. Well they bulit it with a built in meat counter, a built in pizza counter, a built in sudried tomatoes and olive counter, a built in cheese counter and guess what no fish counter. Like hello!!!!!!!! how much are you being paid make such an oversight? Guess what. Since it opened the most requested item is a fish counter. Wonder why they didn’t think of that? Simple dysfunction comes as standard.

Second thing to do with this supermarket. I’ve just come from buying shampoo. There’s this brand which is really cool with all herbs added. Well I’ve got some cousins coming from america and there only young teenagers so I thought I’d get them this brand of shampoo. Well they have sixteen varieties available but not one of them is for normal hair. We now have so much choice we have nothing to chose. Madness.

Possible explanation. Most people buy the normal hair shampoo and they have this new magazine award winning oily roots dry ends version out and their trying to promote this with all its fancy label with award winning sticker and all. So don’t stock the most commonly bought product stock this one in its place instread. Like it makes sense even if you have normal hair to use one that treats greasy roots and dry ends at the same time, sounds pretty much like standard fare but you wont switch to it if the normal one is available: not broken don’t fix it type thing. Well capitalist ireland's solution to a branded product that sells really well is to take it off the shelves. Why? well if most people but it then the sixteen other choices won’t sell as well. So now you have a choice of sixteen products you do not want and do not have a choice of the one product you do!!!

180 million euro down the drain

The last Government, in structural readjustment of systems, set up a body called the HSE i.e. the Health Service Executive. It is the overseeing body for the health service, kind of an independent state body type thing (Note:Independent and state being the operative contradiction here). Well they purchased a computer system to administer the payroll. The computer system cost 30 million euro. It didn’t work. Instead of going back to the company with the reciept to say it didn’t work they spent a further 120 million euro trying to get it to work. When it didn’t work they went back to the original company and spent another 30 million euros on a version of the same product that works.

It may seem like absolute madness to the outsider and it is frustrating to us taxpayers but here’s where the principle kicks in. In all the years of being oppressed we the Irish learned the value of acting stupid. Here is what most likely happened: the body (HSE) needed a computer system to operate a funtioning administration of wages. Some guy (a civil servant) in the dept of health knows some guy in a computer company. They come up with a plan to get rich. As in I’ll buy the software, you make sure it doesn’t work. I’ll authorise our guys to try and fix it. They’ll all get overtime and more money, but we’ll make sure it’s not fixed. We’ll ship it out to our mate in the private sector. He’ll get lots of money failing to fix it. We’ll come back to you complaining but it will be passed it’s gauruntee date so we’ll just have to order a new one which I’ll sanction. You’ll ship us a properly functioning one, sure all you’ll have to do is tweak a few things on the original that we ”overlooked”. It will be no work at all and we’ll make a mint. We’ll lodge the personalised money in an offshore a/c in the Cayman Islands and I’ll see you at the next Ireland match. Brilliant.

Intro; background: a poor recollective overview of Irish history

Aparrently somebody got in a boat from Scotland or crossed the then very small stream that seperated Ireland and Scotland (sounds mythical) sometime B.C. and that's who was here first. Well they settled in and created great edifices like Newgrange and so on and so on... I'm not too good on my history but rumour has it that despite the mass marketing of Celtic Ireland and despite the fact that both sides of my family can be traced back to Celtic names from Scythia the scientific DNA research is showing that the Celts didn't interbreed with the Irish but only inculturated them (this too sounds unlikely). So the Irish people adopted the Celtic culture and so Celtic Ireland was born. When exactly? Well you'll just have to consult one of the historians who argue about such stuff, see www.nuim.ie NUI Maynooth's Celtic studies Dept. for more detail ( Incidentally the Prof. has been arrested for protesting against the distruction of tara, www.tarawatch.com ). So then St.Patrick (one of two) came and converted us all to Catholicism about the fourth century. Then the vikings came and sacked all the monastries containing the saints and schollars which had grown up under Christianity, the the Normans came and then the British ( with the Pope's blessing). The British rulled Ireland for some 700 - 800 years and then in 1922( I think) gave us back 26 out of the 32 counties. thus creating division.

My memory of Irish history is so poor that I do not even know for sure if the chronology above or dates stated are acurrate.

Well, under British rule the Irish felt that this was not their country, that they hadn't power, that the "establishment", the system was not theirs. So it became a cultural value to be a dysfunctional idiot for the purpose of sabotaging the British system and for one's own personal game. The Irish became as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.

It is my proposition that 85 years later when the majority of the country is in Irish rule we are still sabotaging our own system for the purpose of self gain. Some of you might extrapolate this further to show how the whole world is sabotaging the environment for the purpose of self gain. this is not what this site is about, if you are interested in the environment I suggest you check out www.cultivate.ie or www.treehugger.com . this blog will be mostly about Ireland and how dysfunctional it is.