Archive for April, 2008

Hi All,

We all hate the see-through email scams where we have won a million dollars or come upon outstanding inheritances (Wills left by deceased persons),Contract Funds and Lottery claims due for payment submitted by the United Nations.

Well, I was lucky enough to come across one yesterday!

Who was dumb enough to put his phone number on the email!

So I called it up and had a serious conversation with him about his offer for at least 20 minutes.

Unfortunately, I didn’t record that.

I then decided to call back, just for fun to see how serious he was…and how far he would go to push his cause.

And he still took the calls…

After the first two times (I’ll tell more about those later) he still took calls but this time I recorded the conversation!

In the fourth discussion, I indicated I was from New Orleans and we were rebuilding after the Hurricane Katrina. This was still reasonable until I told him that we lost grand’ma in the hurricane because she couldn’t get in time away after the alligator took her leg….but he still stayed on the line!

His only reaction was to say he is so sorry about that but I still just need to send him an email.

Hear the ‘alligator took her leg’ clip by following the link below:

http://www.thenewsette.com/downloads/possumradio_bello_call2_alligator_clip.mp3

Check back for more clips soon.

The Rambler

Hi All

I just found out that you can get your hands on this great MP3 interview if you can help to promote a good cause.

As I mentioned yesterday, there is a charity drive going on at the moment to commemorate Subaru legend Possum Bourne with lots of people donating to this great cause.

Unfortunately, not everyone has money to give but would still like to show their support.

Well, now you can get a free MP3 interview that was recorded just recently at the Targa Tasmania with a Subaru driver who was competing in the race.

So, if you can help out by just telling 3 friends about this good cause your help is appreciated.

Just follow this link to find out more:

http://www.subaruperformancehandbook.com/goto/tellafriend 

To commemorate the date of Possum Bourne’s tragic accident, Club Sub in New Zealand are holding the Possum Bourne Memorial Charity Drive on the 26th April.

Club Sub have a goal to raise $2,000 over the weekend and Peggy Bourne has asked that all money raised go to the Elim Christian College who suffered a great tragedy themselves when six students and a teacher from the school died during a flash flood while canyoning the Mangatepopo Stream in the Tongariro National Park on April 15th 2008.

All the proceeds from the ClubSUB event be given to the families of the children that were taken from us in this tragic accident.

The Subaru Performance Handbook has content in it gained from many long chats with the late great Possum Bourne.

Please…. . If you feel as strongly I do about wanting to remember Possum nd help out the families of the Elim Christian College tragedy then click on the link below to see what you can do to help.

http://www.SubaruPerformanceHandbook.com/goto/possum

Mitsubishi Secrets is sponsoring the Mitsubishi Evo 9 RS driven by Richard Kimber and Brian O’Kane at the Targa Tasmania 2008.

Starting in 21st outright spot after the prologue, the car is expected to do well throughout the rally after the great performance testing completed by EcuTek and MRT Performance.

read more | digg story

As a follow up to my previous post regarding Discount Holidays Australia run by the Accor group it has become more and more evident that their questionable employment practices need serious investigation.

Here are some more facts directly from an employee’s experience:

Discount Holidays Australia provide absolutely no training or employee feedback although claimed in their interview process and advertising and mislead employees and fire at will.

Discount Holidays Australia don’t provide employees with copies of any contracts signed.

Discount Holidays Australia mislead employees as to pay dates.

It would be my strongest advice after hearing this first hand account of how Accor and Discount Holidays Australia work that anyone considering working for this company seriously consider this decision due to their deceptive and misleading employment practices.

If you every wondered about the right and wrong ways to train, motivate and evaluate employees then you want to take a leaf out of the book of Accor, the company that sells discount holidays around Australia.  In my opinion, based on over 15 years working in a sales and call centre environment, it is no wonder that they are constantly looking for new staff week in and week out.

When your interview process goes for less than 30 minutes and involves 25 minutes of explanation about what the company does and only one direct question to the interviewee then it is beyond my belief how you could possibly expect to attract and retain staff who are suited to your business environment.  However, that is the Accor process.

Furthermore, when your training involves “here’s your script and here is your phone” then you certainly can’t expect all of your employees to hit the ground running.  Nor should you expect them to be achieving top performer status after 3 days.  However, that is the Accor process.

When your on the job evaluation includes no feedback other than yelling across the room at employees when you have something to tell them and an expectation that you will work out what is right and what is wrong all by yourself without any advice on what criteria you are being judged yet expect your employees after less than 3 days to be top performers then you are completely kidding yourself.  However, that is the Accor process.

So, in an amazing turnaround from reports that I have read over the years about the success, employee focussed working environment and great training provided by Accor and Discount Holidays Australia, it appears that it is all a scam and that they have the world bluffed that they are an employer of choice in Australia.  I think the reality of the matter is that they should be an employer that you avoid at all costs unless you have a lot of time to waste.

It is beyond my comprehension how an employer can get away with providing no training and no employee feedback at any point within three days and then fire people at will because they are not performing.

While Accor take the intelligent approach and only offers casual employement contracts that are not covered by any type of legislation, if you take one step into the realm of the ethical or moral world then you can only label this employer as a cold harted, blood hungry vermon that government has tried to eradicate from society.

So, if anyone is reading this in the future and thinking about taking a job with Accor or Discount Holidays Australia then my strong advice to you would be to steer clear and find an alternative employer that will value the fact that you at least show up for work and put some effort into learning about the job and hope that they will take the time to give you at least 30 minutes training before throwing you a script and pointing to a phone.

Well done Accor – you are the inagural recipient of the Pathetic Employer Award from The Newsette

The Rambler