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Showing posts from June, 2014

Inertia

I think I have a different definition of what 'inertia' means than most people. It seems like most people use it to mean 'do nothing' as in 'be inert', whereas I understand it to mean to continue going along the same path unabated, and if it so happens that nothing was happening originally, then nothing will keep happening. So, I might say, (1) 'I switched the telly over to Wimbledon and my inertia led me to sit on the couch all night watching the tennis'. And that seems to fit both definitions. But if I say: (2) 'the inertia behind Abbott's campaign to scrap the Carbon Tax ensured it became an eventuality' Then I think most people would understand (2) as 'Abbott did nothing about the scrapping the Carbon Tax and so the Carbon Tax continued to exist', whereas I could easily read it as 'there was so much momentum behind repealing the Carbon Tax that it got repealed anyway, despite it becoming an increasingly unpopular m

Today at the bank

This morning in the line at the bank in Katherine: Teller serving Aboriginal customer who was ordering a new card. Teller spoke to her loudly and abruptly. Customer didn't sound like English was her first language. Part of the exchange went something like this: Customer: "It's a debit card?". Teller "Yes. It's a debit card. What colour do you want?" "What?" "What colour do you want? You can have black, blue or pink." "Oh. ahhh... black?" "Ok, black." "Oh, no it's a debit card. Blue." "It's too late now. I can't go back. It's black now." and so on... No friendliness. Didn't seem to go out of her way to be helpful or provide extra service. Tellers next two customers were white. Teller appears to know them and was friendly, chatty, laughing and helpful. While there could easily be more to the story, based only on what I saw, the inconsistency in the service this tel