John Linton
Reading the articles about SPT not paying its personnel and attempting to coerce them in to resigning to avoid paying them redundancy was unpleasant reading over the last three days of last week and it leaves an unpleasant taste in the mouth of most people with some semblance of an ethically based upbringing.
I had recently written on the widespread practice among larger service providers of grossly, and persistently, overcharging wholesale and retail customers and the huge sums often involved in those practices.
Today I read this article in the Australian:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23785696-643,00.html
highlighting the dishonesty of the very highest executives in this particular company but also pointing out that the resellers/franchisees whom they were defrauding were far from honest themselves - at least in the one instance of the company bringing the action.
All of these 'straws in the wind' can't help leading a disinterested observer into believing that the communications business is operated by by very unpleasant people more resembling crooks and thieves than competent 'captains of industry'.
Even more unpleasant was the statement in the article that Stupid Stephen had appointed the chairman of the company convicted of committing the frauds to his FTTN "Expert Panel" - though I suppose that has a certain irony given the whole nature of that 'tender' process - a person of less generous spirit than I am might say you'd always rig the jury if you wanted to be sure of getting the result you had promised Telstra. It's hard to believe that he didn't know about this law suit (or hadn't been told by the person concerned) though, and how it would look when it became public knowledge - I don't refer to him as 'Stupid' without good reason.
There is no doubt that providing communications services in Australia (if you aren't Telstra) is a very tough business with relatively low to very low margins available to most providers (with the exception of TPG who have developed the only profit performance that not only approaches Telstra's but apparently exceeds it).
Tough marketplaces and low margins certainly demand very hard work, very long hours and, for the most part, lower levels of reward than apply to almost every other commercial endeavour. These conditions also appear to blur the lines between honesty and dishonesty more often than you'd expect based on media reports over the past week.
I have met, on a business basis, many 'executives' and more than a few 'business owners' involved in the communications industry over the years and have read and been told about a huge number of 'instances' that most reasonable people would find immoral or unethical or just plain illegal and callously crooked. I have, several times, felt the urge to wash my hands after a handshake with some of these people and while not metaphorically "counting my fingers" after shaking hands with several of them - I've certainly been aware that what I was being urged to do bore no relation to what would actually be done - by them.
It's rare to meet an honest and straightforward person in this industry - at least in my experience to date (which may be a massive indictment of the sort of person I am and therefore the people prepared to meet with me or alternatively I may need a mental health check up for gross paranoia). This feeling has become so pronounced over the years that I have progressively moved towards an almost 'Howard Hughes' method of interlocution in that I have an almost 'horror' of meeting with people I am unfamiliar with and being exposed to their lying and I now much prefer, as much as possible, to only communicate with suppliers via email and written contracts.
It's far more difficult to lie in writing than it is verbally (not just because of the 'evidential' nature of the communication but, for whatever reason, people don't feel as comfortable in writing lies while they have far less reservation about 'speaking' lies).
I think I've probably taken this business methodology too extremely over the last one or two years and must take a less stringent attitude towards meeting 'business' people if only for the reason that I deprive myself of using 40 years of verbal business skills in getting the best deals for Exetel. However, when you look at the media articles over the last few days you can't help feeling that there are a lot of people in the communications industry that a sensible person is much better off not meeting.
....now where did I put that halo.........