The Disruptive Economy……..Gimme a Break!

12 hour shifts tend to take it out of an old bugger like myself, so it’s usually a shower, a quick bite and off to bed ready to start another day at 5:00am. Occasionally, I will follow the boys into town for a steak at the Royal….medium rare, chips and sal, mushy sauce.

They have banned me from watching Q&A in the pub as I tend to get a bit excited after a few reds (yeah, even hardrock miners don’t mind a full bodied cab sav), and have been known to throw things at the flatscreen. Q&A is like a window into the enemies living room. You don’t want to watch, but better the devil you know….

So….through a mixup of new staff and a lack of written procedures a few weeks ago, Q&A was on the screen with a bunch of miners watching. I’d had a few, but the boys were keeping me under control………..Uber.

Nothing makes my blood boil faster than Gen Y’s talking about Uber and the disruptive economy. What absolute wankers!

So here’s the deal. You get a bunch of mercenary businessmen with a slick marketing campaign selling an illegal business model to the most gullible generation in the history of humanity and you make a killing. The disruptive economy…..gimme a break FFS.

Let’s look at this logically. It is illegal to operate hire vehicles without the appropriate registration, permits, etc. etc. the beauty of Uber is that the market they are creating wears no risk. The hirers are not the ones being fined. The hirers are not the ones breaking the law. Imagine if I grabbed a bunch of illegal miners and shoved them down the hole without any of the appropriate training or regulation. We could build mines so fast it wasn’t funny. We’d grab a bunch of guys who own an excavator and a bobcat and tell ’em to start digging. We’d pay them by the meter…no sick leave….no holiday pay….no superannuation…no contract..Costs would plummet!!!. We wouldn’t have to worry about all that environmental or safety crap, we’d just get into it. Yeeehaaa! We’d be DISRUPTIVE!!!!! And NOW and we’d TREND!!!

We’d also kill a lot of people, but hey, that’s OK, we’re now part of the digital economy!

So here’s Ms Monica Bradley on Q& A part of the “PWC Chair of the Digital Economy”.  When asked about her thoughts on Uber she grinned like a Cheshire Cat and proudly announced “Well….I use Uber!”. And everyone in the audience clapped and cheered. Yeehaaa!

So here’s Monica….sponsored by an accounting firm…you know…COMPLIANCE ….Corporate Legislation…Governance…..telling the world that she couldn’t give a crap about the law. What a great look. Oh, but she’s part of the disruptive generation, YEEEEEEEHHAAAAAAA!

Don’t get me wrong! I would LOVE to be disruptive, I really would (some say I have been for years). I’d love Monica to come to the mine and show me how to be disruptive but, at the end of the day, I am responsible for the safety of the guys and girls who work for me. So, call me old fashioned, call me a dinosaur, but I am not going to be disruptive, I’m going to be safe and boring!

Disruptive……Wankers!