All posts tagged Knowledge

  • November 17, 2017

    The Weekend Australian Magazine story: ‘Mind The Gap: Training Queensland Rail train drivers’, November 2017

    A feature story for The Weekend Australian Magazine, published in the November 11-12 issue. Excerpt below.

    Mind The Gap

    It took a “rail fail” to realise the network needed more train drivers. So what does it take to be one?

    'Mind The Gap: Training Queensland Rail train drivers' story by Andrew McMillen in The Weekend Australian Magazine, November 2017. Photo by Justine Walpole

    The passenger train slows as it approaches Grovely Station, 11 stops north of Brisbane Central, on a lovely winter’s Friday. At precisely 10.10am it comes to a stop and a bloke alights, pulls out a can of bourbon and cola and takes a swig as he passes the train driver’s cabin, occupied by tutor Chris Haag and his trainee, Matau Hohaia. They pay no heed. Hohaia pauses for a few moments and then presses a button on the console, triggering an automated announcement that’s heard throughout the carriages behind his ­comfortable seat. “Doors closing,” says a calm male voice. “Please stand clear.”

    At the end of the platform a few metres from the driver’s seat is a silver pole topped by a single yellow light. “Restricted signal,” says Hohaia, thinking aloud in a coded shorthand for the ­benefit of his tutor. “So our red will be the red starter at Keperra. We’re going to be taking the 60 for the 80 straight track sign, then 20 over the magnet, stopping at the six-car stop.”

    Hohaia reaches a top speed of 60km/h and slows to ease into Keperra Station, bringing the front cabin to a stop beside a mark on the platform that’s no bigger than a dinner plate. This black ­circle inside a yellow square denotes the proper finishing point for a six-car carriage, part of the Queensland Rail Citytrain service. “Beautiful. It’s surprising just how difficult that is — it takes a lot of practice,” says Haag. “Why thank you,” replies Hohaia with a grin. “I’ve been working on that!”

    “And I owe you a jelly bean,” says Haag, referring to the unofficial reward system for trainees who stick the landing at each platform. “You’ll make me a poor man from all those jelly beans!” At 29, Haag is eight years Hohaia’s junior, but the older apprentice has a great respect for the keen eyes and observations of the younger master, who is helping him to finish his training and become one of Queensland’s most precious resources: a qualified train driver.

    To read the full story, visit The Australian. Above photo credit: Justine Walpole.

    No Comments / Feature Journalism, Published Writing /

  • October 24, 2011

    The Courier-Mail author profile: Melissa Gregg and ‘Work’s Intimacy’, October 2011

    A short author profile for The Courier-Mail’s new Life section, which is included in the Saturday paper. Click the below image to view the version that appeared in print.

    The text I’ve supplied underneath is the full article, which was slightly edited in print due to space restrictions.

    How to leave work at home: Work’s Intimacy by Melissa Gregg

    If the office exists in your phone, how is it possible to claim the right to be away from it for any length of time?

    This question is central to Work’s Intimacy by Melissa Gregg, a senior lecturer in gender and cultural studies at the University of Sydney. Gregg’s book is the result of a three-year study of information workers – including broadcast journalists, librarians and academics – which took place in Brisbane between 2007 and 2009.

    “That question captures the twin tensions in the book’s title: the idea of work being something that we’re invested in, in a way that’s pleasurable, and the way that technology allows that relationship to be available wherever we are,” she says. “Mobile devices are increasingly marketed as this desirable object because it gives us access to every pleasure we could possibly imagine,” she laughs. “The more portable the device, the more intimate the device, right?”

    If we’re to believe the companies that market these devices, that’s absolutely correct. Yet Gregg’s book contains dozens of examples of salaried professionals struggling to draw barriers between their work and leisure. This behaviour extends to checking and replying to emails outside of the workplace, in preparation for the actual workday.

    “That was extremely common,” Gregg says. “It seemed to point to a sense of unpredictability in people’s work days. We once thought of the office as a mind-numbing routine of 9-5, of always knowing what’s coming, and that being part of the problem. This tendency to check email outside of the office seemed to suggest that, individually, people did not know how to cope with the pace and the unpredictability of the workplace today.”

    For Gregg [pictured below], being based in Brisbane for the duration of her study was a blessing. “As someone who’s always been a bit of an outsider to any city I’ve lived in, I saw this as a great chance to look, from an outsider’s point of view, at changes that were happening in Brisbane at that time”; namely, the way in which the city was positioning itself within a creative economy.

    This confusing transitional period was reflected in the workers Gregg interviewed. She met a 61 year-old university professor, Clive, who said “I worry that I’m going to miss something” if he doesn’t check his email constantly. “I’m a bit addicted,” he said. “Partly because I don’t want email to swamp me. If I had a weekend off the Internet, then on Monday, I just have a huge inbox.”

    Similar anxieties were expressed by Patrick, a 24-year old part-time radio producer who barely sees his partner, Adam, since their schedules rarely align. Yet Patrick admitted “I do get a pang of sadness” when the pair were home at the same time, but both absorbed in their individual computer screens. The author dubs this being ‘together alone’.

    Gregg says that maintaining an emotional distance in these scenarios is “one of the challenges of this kind of research, because you’re always needing to retain objectivity in the moment of the interview, and to say as little as possible to affect them telling you what’s really going on.”

    She says that “a number of the interviews were quite shocking to me, and did make me feel that there was merit in having people talking about these issues, because they could at least become prominent in their minds for a while, to see just how much they could recognise their relationships had changed within the family structure.”

    Though Gregg says she’s “no shining example” in contrast to the work/life issues raised by her interviewees, she hopes that people “take a little more independent action to refuse the pace of their workplace. Teamwork culture is very coercive because of the rhetoric of collegiality and friendship, so it does make it very difficult for people to resist. But that’s not going to stop me recommending that people do it.”

    Work’s Intimacy can be ordered via Polity Books’ website.

    No Comments / Feature Journalism, Published Writing /

  • July 26, 2009

    Bachelor Of Communication

    Is it arrogant for me to state that my Bachelor Of Communication is worthless? Probably.

    Aside from being a physical reminder of my ability to (somewhat) focus on a goal for three-plus years, a degree is only useful if a potential employer needs to check that box before hiring me. Since I don’t see myself applying for a job that requires a résumé ever again, can you see why I feel this way?

    Andrew McMillen became Andrew McMillen, BComm on July 24 2009. An old dude who speak at the ceremony said to my fellow graduands something along the lines of: “Having invested years of your life studying here at the University Of Queensland, you understand that a university education is more than simply attending lectures and handing in assignments.”

    Cue sniggers, because that’s exactly what I found my university education to be: a matter of attending lectures and handing in assignments. Essentially, doing enough to pass, without extending myself.

    Why didn’t I extend myself? A good question. The old dude was hinting that a university education is what you make of it. There was a whole lot of extracurricular bullshit like networking, volunteering and university politics that absolutely didn’t interest me. So I opted to show up to class occasionally, hand in assignments, and do enough to pass.

    I suppose I always felt that studying Communication was a waste of my time. The cute summary of the program I give to people is that Communication is half journalism, half media studies. And entirely rooted in events that happened decades ago; practices that were established centuries ago.

    Why didn’t I quit? Another good question. I’ve made it clear that I don’t value the certificate that’ll sit in my closet for eternity. I guess I took the easy way out by sticking to what I’d started, rather than course-correcting from what I constantly felt was a misguided pathway. Call it parental pressure, call it social expectation; my boss last year told me I’d be fired if didn’t finish the degree. Another example of me not wanting to rock the boat, not wanting to cause a scene, not wanting to stray from the presupposed outcome I’ve allowed others to dictate since high school, even while feeling nothing toward the journey itself.

    As I write this, I feel a misguided arrogance tickling the edge of my consciousness. It prompts me to spout something like: “Almost everything I was instructed to learn and understand throughout my degree was written at a time before the internet! Newspapers are dying, traditional journalists are displaced! The internet changed everything! That a university education is valuable is a fucking fallacy!”

    That’s my irrational response to this discussion. I’ve attempted to curtail it many times, both psychologically and in conversation, but it still tends to rear its head. I know there are a thousand arguments against what I just wrote; entertain me with them if you wish.

    I won’t pretend to empathise with my fellow graduates, Communication or otherwise. But as I sat among the hundreds, I thought thoughts like:

    • How many of them feel entitled to the certificate they’re about to receive?
    • How many of them feel that they deserve to walk right into a job, a career, simply because they passed classes for a couple of years?
    • How many of them are prepared for the world in which we live – one that values the sharing of ideas rather than the submission of formulaic assignments that fit into predetermined criteria?
    • How many are going to proudly call themselves ‘professional communicators’ for the rest of their lives, without irony?
    • How many are going to fail to realise how sad it is to self-define by a Bachelor/Doctorate/Master ‘of’?
    • How many of them blog?

    I’d like to think that I’m being realistic, here, expressing these sentiments. Refusing to accept that life is as easy as the steps set out by the people who run the business of tertiary education: study, degree, career, happiness, death.

    The cylinder is empty. I SENSE A METAPHOR

    I’d like to think that I’m being honest with myself, and that I’m achieving something by sharing my feelings of discontent.

    I’d like to think that I’m being pragmatic by shrugging off congratulations; the myth that completing a degree is worthy of recognition.

    But it’s probably pretty clear that my assertions are filled with contradictions, hypocrisy and half-truths. I’m not looking for reassurance. I know where I want to be and who I want to represent, and I know that I didn’t need a certificate to signify either.

    Maybe I’m alone on this among my peers, but I’d hope not. It’d make things a lot easier for me were they that delusional, but mostly I’d just pity them.

    Kind of ironic that the graduation ceremony’s guest speaker, ABC reporter and journalist Chris Masters – whose speech greatly inspired and motivated me – has been awarded honorary doctorates and degrees, but chose to never set foot within a university.

    It’s not all bad. My time at university prompted me to write the first post on this site, in May 2008. That single decision – inspired by frustration and helplessness – pointed me in what felt like the right direction. Namely, far from sandstone hallways and dull classrooms.

    Thanks for boring me into action, University Of Queensland! IOU $16,306.

    13 Comments / Writing /

  • July 1, 2009

    Know, II

    I just re-read this post, ‘Know‘, that I wrote nearly a year ago.

    I don’t know much. But I’m not comfortable with that. Which is why I endeavour to know more every day.

    There’s nothing wrong with not knowing if you’re honest with yourself and others. Not knowing should not cause embarrassment. Not knowing should be reframed as an opportunity to learn a new skill or new information.

    I’m thinking about what’s occurred since that entry; the new information that I’ve taken on board and the progress I’ve made.

    At the time, I was a couple of months into my first office job. I threw myself into that opportunity with fervent passion for several months. I was focussed on the idea of the career, of being the person I believed I should be. And I think about how that belief has changed since that post.

    It’s also interesting to step back and realise how singularly influenced I was by Ryan Holiday. I still treasure his writing, for sure, but now I’ve a wider base of influences with which to assure myself in times of doubt.

    And these times occur, much as it pains me to admit it, both to myself and my audience. I wonder when the seed of that desire to hide perceived weakness was planted.

    Sometimes I feel the weight of so many people – and, as a writer, words – that’ve come before me, and I wonder what I’m doing. I’m occasionally struck by the arrogance attached to the desire to tell stories. And I wonder if that desire is artificial within me, since it tends to come and go.

    What’s changed since ‘Know‘? A new home, many new friends, a mentor, and several interrelated opportunities upon which to build a platform for myself, as a writer. This time last year, I wrote for Rave Magazine and FasterLouder.com.au. Now, scratch FL, and add Mess+Noise, FourThousand, and The Music Network.

    Add to that ongoing work for Nick‘s Native Digital, and attempting to manage the affairs of one of my favourite musical artists. And last week I met and interviewed one of my favourite writers. Yes, the interview will appear on here eventually.

    See, listing my current interests – which largely, happily combine the dual-cliché of business and pleasure – it’s a wonder that I’m ever at a loose end. And in reality, I’m not. So why aren’t I researching the next great Mess+Noise feature? Why aren’t I further forging Native’s name as a media innovation partner? Why aren’t I putting into practice the modern marketing and promotion tactics that I read about every day?

    I wish I had some pithy, smart-ass sentence here to answer my own questions. But the reality is that I’m crippled by inertia far too often for my own good, and it sucks. It sucks the most when I’m feel like I’m letting myself down due to my inactivity.

    This would be the part where I’d publicly state my goals, but right now, I’m struggling to figure out where to begin.

    Thanks for reading. I’m out-of-sorts with this entry, I know. I might owe that to recent dental surgery, but maybe I was just looking for a way to tell you what I’ve been up to since my last entry.

    Hold me accountable, won’t you?

    2 Comments / Writing /

  • July 25, 2008

    Head Down

    There’s a point in your life when you realise exactly what matters to you. It doesn’t have to be a poetic Fight Club moment. It could be a slow-moving process where you get so caught up in your life’s inertia that you stop to take stock, and notice everything that you’ve left behind.

    I’ve lived the latter of the two. I’m not quite running lean, but I’ve been subconsciously drifting in that direction.

    The things and people that don’t matter just fade into the background, into the distance as you keep moving. They’re far behind, now, and still caught up in their incessant bickering about endless trivialities. Caught up in the minutiae of life.

    Glenn‘s eighteenth birthday post made me stop and smile. Such optimism and enthusiasm for what’s ahead.

    I can’t pretend that any of the things that concerned me when I turned eighteen were anywhere near as important as the concepts and possibilities that Glenn is currently juggling. I was writing, sure, but without a purpose or an audience.

    Girls. Drinking. The opinions of my peers. These are the things that concerned me at age eighteen. As much as I wish that I’d been grappling with notions of personal accountability or building self-value – I wasn’t.

    Realising that you’ve got to put your head down and just go for it – that’s an important point to reach.

    Stating that ‘nothing else matters’ is over-simplifying a little, but hell, you’re in control. It’s the difference between crawling, or choosing to stand up and walk.

    2 Comments / Writing /

  • July 10, 2008

    Know

    I don’t know much. But I’m not comfortable with that. Which is why I endeavour to know more every day.

    There’s nothing wrong with not knowing if you’re honest with yourself and others. Not knowing should not cause embarrassment. Not knowing should be reframed as an opportunity to learn a new skill or new information.

    Before this week, I didn’t know Metcalfe’s Law. I didn’t know the capital of Uruguay. I didn’t know about petabytes.

    Not knowing can be difficult. I know. Difficulty becomes problematic when a paralysing fear of new information takes hold and you resign yourself to not knowing. You’re caught within your own self-concept loop.

    Picture a fruit tree. Imagine the fruit as knowledge. There’s ten thousand low hanging fruit that just about anyone can reach. They taste fine. You can easily survive on eating them for the rest of your life. Many do.

    But just out of reach are countless, considerably more fulfilling fruit. With a little extra effort and determination, you can climb the tree and feast on tastier knowledge. This is easier than ever before.

    Knowing can be dangerous. A voracious desire to know can intimidate those who are comfortable with not knowing.

    The Bayesian notion suggests that we should constantly examine our circumstance and direction against new information. I’m reminded of John Boyd’s OODA Loop.

    Observe. Orient. Decide. Act. If you don’t want to know more, enjoy those low-hanging fruit.

    6 Comments / Writing /

  • June 1, 2008

    What don’t you know?

    While chatting with a friend using MSN Messenger, I found myself about to ask a simple, specific question about an upcoming event. I stopped myself, because I realised that the answer was almost right in front of me.

    All that I had to do was alt-tab; ctrl+E; enter query.

    I’m embarrassed that I only just noticed this tendency of denying myself instant knowledge. Of relying on others to supply information that’s easily within my grasp. While I regularly use Google to define unfamiliar terms when reading, I’ve never consciously acknowledged this selfish habit when interacting with others.

    This is less about creating an all-knowing facade than it is about about a desire to save time. By taking the initiative and informing myself of an unfamiliar term, I’m saving my friend the time it’d take them to explain. It’s futile to wish for this desire to be mutual: I’ve already realised that you should never hold others to your own standards.

    This discussion presents an interesting dichotomy: increasingly, the question is changing from “what do you know?“, to “what don’t you know?”.

    In an economy where information is free and search engine algorithms are constantly being refined, knowledge barriers are almost non-existent. This means that age is no longer an issue. It’s entirely possible that a dedicated 15 year-old – hell, a 12 year-old – could become one of the most knowledgeable individuals in the world in a particular topic; though, this notion has limitations in fields that require practical experience.

    It’s heartening to see that some are realising the value of encouraging students to engage with social media. True world-changers are already engaging.

    2 Comments / Writing /