John Linton
.........the day the outlook died. (with apologies to Don McLean)
It's been a long time since I delivered newspapers but the words of Don McLean's song leaped in to my mind as I wandered back down the drive after picking up the paper this morning (not on the door step of course but in the gutter as usual).
I briefly scanned the business section on the short walk down the drive to the front door and what did I see as I slowly stopped in my tracks as I read?:
Tricom failed to settle its stock trades on time with who knows what consequences
Commander announced it was laying off 600 of its 2,000 employees
Some jerk in some union is proposing employers pay more superannuation
Some other union jerk is saying make employers pay long service leave annually
Another union has hijacked a UK Navy ship in Darwin Harbour because they refuse to accept their contract has ended and thats how unions can now act without the slightest fear from 100% Labor governments round the country
Labor is saying they'll force employers to pay 14 weeks maternity leave
Rudd is holding meetings for THREE DAYS with unions in Canberra to pay back for the election funding
The US is so panicky about a recession (quite rightly) they just cut interest rates a further half percent following the three quarter percent last week after their annual economic growth slowed in the December quarter to 0.6%
...oh and Jenny Macklin thinks the most important first agenda item for the first sitting of the new Federal parliament is to "say sorry" on behalf of who knows whom to who knows who for actions taken in the past before the vast majority of current Australians were born or had arrived in this country.
With a government now beginning to truly 'show its hand' I'm not sure why I bothered to start working today.
I am fully aware that I have a very inadequate understanding of the Australian (or any other country's) economy and how the multitude of intricately linked and highly complex events and issues 'play out' in terms of the tiny parts of the marketplaces that Exetel is involved in but somehow I don't think that raft of bad news that occupies three pages of today's business reports can be any thing but darkly forbidding in terms of the immediate and medium term future.
On the other hand, January, with one day still to go, continues to boom for Exetel in terms of new orders for every one of our services. We will achieve new records for 8 out of 10 of those services and one off revenues will also set a record as did the two recurrent revenue bill runs in January. I have no idea why this is the case as we have done nothing differently to the preceding few months and while January is always a strong month for residential ADSL sales it is usually very quiet in all other aspects of our business.
So what do all these mixed signals mean and what is really going to happen?
I haven't got the slightest idea....and that's really disturbing because it's my job to have a very clear idea about what we should plan to do for the immediate and medium term future to 'safeguard' Exetel against any 'bad things' that may occur. After thinking about it I also think that Exetel needs to slow its growth in ADSL1 and ADSL2 new customers and I will do something about that (increase new activation and churn charges) later today. I'm getting to the point where I also think it will be prudent to raise monthly charges for new customers if raising the activation charges doesn't cut the new applications to a level that I think would be more comfortable.
I think it's getting to the time that we must seriously consider winding back our plans for 2008 and put on ice all planned investment in new equipment for new ventures until it becomes clearer whether these twinks posing as a Federal government are going to/have already scared real business decision makers around Australia as much as they've scared me.
One thing's for sure - it doesn't augur well if you're a female of child bearing age looking for a job in 2008; which just reinforces that old caution - be careful what you wish for.......