Today Australia’s Productivity Commission released their scathing annual report on the lack of progress and multiple failings in Closing the Gap in inequality experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (Guardian Australia (2024), Closing the Gap will fail without ‘fundamental change’, scathing report finds).
Indigenous disadvantage, conditions and health outcomes not improving. Governments criticised for not listening or incorporating knowledgeable Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the process.
It’s disappointing to see the ongoing failure in this report. What’s more disappointing is an identified strategy in the Indigenous Voice to Parliament took aim at resolving some of these issues, but not given a chance.
For those who said A Voice would achieve nothing, well, doing nothing new has achieved nothing also.
At a recent interview I was stumped by the common question about what I feel are my weaknesses. I knew it was a standard question, and did prepare for it at some stage, though when it was time to respond I almost drew a complete blank. The question followed in order from what I thought were my strengths. So perhaps I had not quite finished being in “beat my chest” mode. Or perhaps the answer I thought I’d go with didn’t really resonate well enough.
When I’m nervous or feel awkward with a silence I often lead with a gag. I guess I was nervous or felt awkward, cause my first statement was along the lines of “I should give you my wife’s phone number, she can share a long list of my weaknesses”. It’s not even true, though critical wife gags are quicker to devise than a thoughtful self-analysis.
There was a bit of a pause to give me time to think, and I did fumble through with an answer which seemed OK, though definitely not great.
So I realised, I was very weak at describing my weaknesses!
The benefit of things going less than ideal, it leads me to contemplate on a better answer.
I thought I’d get this down, and perhaps review it over time.
Perhaps posting such a topic to a blog with open comments is a way to crowd source better answers – or just trolling.
Most of the research suggests the question is used to test whether the candidate is self aware, and mature enough to realise short-comings, and whether they have made adjustments to become more effective.
I’ve certainly thought for long enough about my short-comings, and this is a good enough place to consider what adjustments to become better.
Ryan Brinkworth’s Weaknesses:
A perfectionist
For quite some time, mostly with my own work I’ve had a desire for things to be perfect. My preference would be to work on things forever, to prevent passing it on for people to identify faults with it. Being a perfectionist is apparently something I inherited from my father, and he inherited it from his father. Though, I’ve been intent on breaking with the tradition. I’ve seen value in getting stuff out there, and have even made it into a habit to share early drafts, to the point where I get a buzz with quantity of documents & revisions, rather than the quality.
I’ll still pick the eyes out of my work, and other things that have been handed to me. Though I recognise, the value addition of a perfect piece of work is too low to warrant the amount of time it takes to make one.
Unorganised
In the past, such as my university days, I was tremendously poor at being organised. It was a bit of a curse how I could crunch many weeks effort into a single evening or two and still get through with flying colours. Because I was such a gifted scrambler, it almost encouraged the behaviour of not staying on top of deadlines or where things were up to. As I got older though, and the stakes become higher – such as having a family, I realised how stressful these situations are and that things would get missed. It made me recognise the need to change significantly.
Many people talk about dull books that change their lives. My eyes usually glaze over when I hear this. For me, that one book did change my life in terms of my organisation was Getting Things Done by David Allen. I’ve read many management and productivity books, think they’re useful, then very soon after I’d regularly, and quite happily ignore the advice. The “GTD” system though, is something I can continue to use every day, since reading the book quite a few years ago. Thanks to recognising that I was making things unnecessarily tough, and missing out on opportunities, I knew I could become far more organised with life and work. And having a good system has really put far more focus on the proactive tasks, and reviews that I now enjoy.
So, while I managed to get by quite well without being organised. I feel I am living life far better now because I’m staying on top of things thanks to a change in my behaviour and trusty processes I live each day.
Theoretical
Perhaps related to Weakness #1 about being a perfectionist, I have noticed I tend to prefer to base some of my decisions and actions on theories of what is right or wrong – in place of feelings, experience, or hearsay. In some respects, this is what university equipped me with as a strength. However, in different roles and situations I’ve learned that this is not terribly useful at times.
Having a theoretical base is useful, as the thinking work and path to success is often done for you. Though, some audience or personality types are repelled by such assertions. I could argue why that’s the case, though it’s not useful here.
Regardless, I do see a purely theoretical approach as a weakness. My career has always included some level of practice or experience, and over time I see I’m moving away from my ideals about what the best theory may be, and I’m often leading now with what I see are the practical and pragmatic approaches. They will support a theory, but they’re not a theory alone. That would be terribly weak.
This was the end of my initial list of thoughts, if I was able to answer the interview question over again.
It probably goes without saying I am still trying to perfectthe response in my head. Though please note, I have blogged my Weaknesses before it’s all perfect. So I am certainly making progress.
Reading Time: 5minutesWednesday night the boys and I decided to catch a metro after dinner to The Dubai Mall and watch the water fountain show. At 6:30pm, the decision was possibly a bit late, but the boys hadn’t been out of the apartment, and Mum wasn’t around so the boys felt like partying. In hindsight, it was a good idea to go, it was a bad idea to not drive like we did the night before.
I drove to Nakheel Harbour & Tower which is the closest metro station with car parking. It’s a bit counter-intuitive as it’s in the opposite way to our direction of travel, but there’s no closer station with a good park.
Finally, the ticket seller agreed Myles needs a card. It’s the smart card ticket for the metro. On every previous trip he didn’t need one, much to his disappointment. To say Myles was over the moon to finally get his card is an understatement.
There was something wrong with the metro on the way in. It stayed at a few of the stations way too long. We missed the 8pm show by the time we left home, driven to Nakheel, caught the metro, and got off, caught the bus to the mall. It’s amazing how long things can take, with just a few delays here and there. I couldn’t bear to turn the boys around without seeing the show, so we perservered.
I was glad we did perservere. The show was great. Lewis’s reaction was again gold – for the big water jets he’d shoot his arms up, and yell “Wow!”.
When the show finished Myles said he was hungry. I knew there was something I forgot in my bag 😐 We got some fries from fatburgers inside, and used the bathrooms, then it was time for the next water show so we got to see the 9pm one also. It’s amazing how the Dubai crowd gets bigger as the night gets more late. And it’s unsurprising why all the poor little kids are getting more and more rowdy.
The second show was better than the first, so very worthwhile to stick around – although the boys are now nearly 2 hours beyond their bedtime.
When the show finished about 10 minutes later we made our way through the dense crowd and got on the shuttle bus. It left within a couple of minutes, joy! But we knew our faith in public transport was displaced when we arrived at the Dubai Mall & Burj Khalifa station and saw the station doors shut and maybe 300 people standing outside. The odd taxi driving past was getting swarmed by a dozen or so frantic people.
We stood for 5 minutes before I made a chase game with the boys to keep them occupied. We saw the doors open, but only to let a police man come out and swing his baton at people trying to force their way in. I also saw some of the families being redirected to the other doors, so we followed. There were less people there, but the crowd was just as aggressive. The worker asked us to go yet another door to get in, which we did. By the time we reached that door the group was nearly 100 strong. The door was now open with a police man was yelling loudly in Arabic. Then I heard him say families only – so I started making my way through the mostly male crowd.
In Dubai there’s a belief that local Emiratis get preferential treatment by the police and many other agencies. That night the myth was busted. A group of local boys tried to squeeze past this policeman, and the policeman didn’t blink and swung his baton with such force to send them back and yelled some further Arabic words I imagined some pretty short translations to. Another guy trying to get through also got smashed in the face with the policeman yelling “where’s your family!”.
Myles picture of the policeman “ples” with baton – drawn on the Metro trip home
To avoid the same treatment, I displayed my boys like they were a premiership trophy I had just won. Myles told me afterwards apparently the intense policeman actually smiled at him as we made our way through, which was a nice touch.
Once we were on the train it was quite a relief, but the train didn’t move for some time. Finally it set off, and we were moving. A nice European guy insisted I take his seat as I was holding a sleeping Lewis at this point.
We passed my usual station of Dubai Internet City (DIC) to get to the car. I actually contemplated whether it would be quicker to get off and taxi home – and leave the car at the station. I decided against it. This became proof you should always go with your first instinct. One station later, the train was left stationary for 10 minutes. Then there was an announcement it’d be delayed by another 10 minutes. I decided to give up, and try my luck finding a taxi to get us straight home.
Many people had decided to ditch the train before me, so there was already a violent tussle on the street for taxis between those people. Instead we tried the shuttle bus which would get us back to DIC. The driver had very limited English, but it was clear he wasn’t moving for another 14 minutes. It had to be the best option. Both boys fell asleep on the way. Then we were able to cross the overpass and hail a taxi to get us back to our apartment about 5 minutes away.
I usually hate catching taxis with a passion, but it was like a lovely dream compared to the prior two metro rides and three bus rides.
When we walked into our building Myles eyes were barely open, and I was carrying Lewis who was nodding in and out of sleep.
My watch said 11:40pm as we reached the long hallway from the lift to our apartment. Although Lewis was terribly tried, he still quietly suggested “run”, referring to the normal race the three of us have to the front door. But he was happy enough with my suggestion for a cuddle.
The metro for the most part is great, but when it fails, the whole system fails. I (jokingly) suggested Myles should toss his new Nol card in the bin cause we’ll never trust catching a metro ever again. We’ll just limit our trips to times when we won’t be so inconvenienced by such delays.
The next morning we caught the metro to Nakheel Harbor & Tower to pick up our car. Against all odds the metro worked like clockwork, and my car was fine. I was half-expecting as the night before was so disastrous that my car would have been towed or something as the icing on the cake.
Reading Time: < 1minuteTalk about rebel without a cause. The one day I DON’T catch public transport, is the one day a year that it’s free. It wasn’t by design for me to drive into work, but the family were home sick so the car was more useful for me.
The Free Transport Day will be held every year on November 1.
Reading Time: < 1minute“Can I please have 50 dirhams Etisalat (pre-paid phone credit to the value of 50 dirhams)?”
“Sorry sir, we’re all out. We have 25 dirhams though.”
“Can I have two of those?”
“Sure sir. 50 dirhams please.”
Reading Time: 3minutesLast year I ran the Gold Coast full Marathon. It didn’t go great, but I did OK.
Unfortunately my training this year has been abridged due to more than a few injuries. That’s why I decided to focus on just the half marathon this year. I say “just” because 21.1km still seems like a decent distance unless you’re in a taxi stuck in traffic.
But the half marathon was definitely my worst yet. I painfully came home in a disappining – even embarassing – time of 1:53:23. >20 minutes beyond my best. 13 minutes beyond anything I’d consider average for myself. 3 minutes beyond some of the 50 year old ladies in my running club.
Not happy Jan.
I should say though, the event was great, and the buzz of the Gold Coast is always worth it.
The first three kms I ran with a couple of guys from my club. We were stuck in a fair bit of traffic so we were reduced to 5min+ km, then we started to find some space and got to just over 4:30min/km pace which was closer to our target.
But I fell off this bus at the four km mark as my legs felt like there were filled to the brim with concrete. My legs just didn’t want to move. Each movement was quite painful, particularly anything quicker than a jog, so I deduced from this I should slow things down if I’m going to go any further.
It’s a depressing feeling when you’re in a world of hurt, and there’s still more than 17 km to go. Thoughts of stopping there flashed into my mind, but I couldn’t live with a DNF (Did Not Finish) next to my name. And I thought considering the cost of this exercise, and the trouble I went through to get to GC it would be even more disappointing. So I continued in a modified running style – one that was less painful.
At around the seven km mark I lost sensation in my left foot. This is a condition I’ve had on and off for way too long now. It happened to me at the Brisbane Marathon Festival half marathon also – my last disappointing race. There I decided to sit down and stretch it out, then I was able to run for a while and the numbness subsided. So I figured I could just run through this again, and all would be OK. Four km later, my foot is still annoyingly numb. But the numbness is starting to be exchanged with a stabbing pain. Again I considered if I should stop or not – it was really starting to suck.
I continue on, but it’s very noticeable that I’m getting passed by 100s of people, and I’m not passing anyone.
The final half a dozen kilometres were worse still. My speed was reduced to 6mins/km, otherwise my legs felt like they would seize up. And new feelings of being sick come on the scene to add to the experience.
With a kilometre to go, and then 100m to go I assumed I was going to finish, but I was not overly confident about anything.
I have the ability during any run to break into an impressive sprint when I know I’ll finish soon. I think I could have sped up a little at this tragic event also, but there was little point and hypocritical to finish fast. Instead I just maintain my dilapidated canter and stop dead over the finish line. One of the first-aid ladies take a look at me and ask if I’m alright. Not a good sign.
Very disappoining end to a disappointing run. But I guess there are two positives to take from the event. One is I finished despite the adversity, and two is at least I beat the Queensland Premier, Anna Bligh.
ADDENDUM:
I was still not well more than a week after the run. In fact I was worse. I chose to go against my usual tendencies, and this time actually visit a doctor. He diagnosed my issue as an infected windpipe. He was suitably unimpressed that I had attempted a half marathon in that condition.
Antio-biotics and an asthma puffer have eased things.
