Friday 20 February 2015

A three-quarters full glass

It is now almost a month since I moved from Christchurch to Wellington and so it is a good time to reflect on the move.

Is the glass is half empty?
  1. Wellington tap water is heavily chlorinated;
  2. no Christchurch School of Music;
  3. I'm no entophobe, but the insects here are bigger and more intrusive;
  4. the local Super XV team is the Hurricanes not the Crusaders;
  5. just as I leave Christchurch for Wellington the former gets a cricket ground better than the Basin Reserve. 
Or is it half full?
  1. tuis in the back garden;
  2. forest walks in the city;
  3. lots of school options with no school uniform;
  4. in contrast to Christchurch, downtown doesn't look like there was a major earthquake in the past 12 months
  5. my employer not only provides rubbish bins in offices, but allows the cleaning staff to empty them! 
These are not equally weighted: On balance, it has been a good move. 

10 comments:

  1. Man, I remember the good old days in the Commerce building, when the worst thing we had to complain about was that we had to empty our own rubbish bins.

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  2. Whats with universities not allowing rubbish bins in offices, I was at UniServices (part of auckland uni) and the desks would get covered in shit because someone would eat a packet of crisps and then have nowhere to put the rubbish

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  3. I think you should provide the explicit weightings!

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  4. Eric, they took away rubbish bins some years ago in the state sector as part of some stupid green initiative. Apparently, are you also supposed to divide your rubbish up for recycling, but I don't understand how to do that.

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  5. Some people believe there are unlimited economies of scope and scale in government, and in local government especially. Never seem to have heard of concepts like the economics of bureaucracy and hierarchies!

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  6. Ours at Canty was justified on the basis of greenie stuff, but it was really a cost-cutting move.

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  7. I don't really mind the insects (I was just surprised to find a weta stuck between the oven and microwave on day 1!) and I can support the Crusaders from anywhere, so downweight those. At some point, I'll get sick of the tuis' chatter, so give that one a low present value. Upweight the rubbish tins (largely as it is a metaphor for things not stated). The rest are all pretty major but equally weighted, giving a weighting of 3/4 full!

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  8. I think point 2.4 deserves a fairly high rating (just a guess).

    Perhaps you should revisit the three quarters full assessment after a Wellington winter?

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  9. Went to a symposium on this on Tuesday morning. I was neutral until I heard John Shewan (a supercity supporter) say that mergers would allow for spacial city planning. As a Christchurch refugee, that was sufficient to persuade me to oppose the proposed merger!


    Incidentally, Stephen Franks was in the audience and was the jmost convincing speaker present making the points he made in the piece you linked to.

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  10. There is nothing "super" about Auckland's city council. Except the size of the egos.

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