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There’s a strong strain of the individual about Connect this month. After all, I bet many have come back from their summer break with a plan to approach work differently – more strategically, calmer, less reactive to minor events - remember that’s the plan which lasts until mid-morning on day 1.
You probably, and I accept this might have been after a second bottle of holiday wine, thought, “…and another thing, I’m worth more than those small black numbers on the foot of my payslip!” Maybe. But if that’s where your holiday mental meanderings took you this year, then you really do need to read page 22. Employers beware. In those pages this month, you’ll find the Connect guide to getting a pay rise – guaranteed. Ok, I made the ‘guaranteed’ bit up, but there’s still some fine advice in that article from two local business figures who have sat on either side of the negotiating table.
Now here’s an argument which I suggest you don’t use – very soon, we’re all going to have pay more in tax (sorry, ‘charges’), so on that basis, your pay needs to go up to cover it! Quite so. I would normally say you need to turn to page 58 to find out what the former Senator, and Health Minister, Ben Shenton has to say about our forthcoming fiscal black hole (which according to the previous Treasury Minister isn’t black, and while we’re on the subject, really has nothing of the ‘hole’ about it either). But given the fact he’s a ‘Shenton’, you can probably hear his thoughts from here.
If you’re of a sensitive disposition on subjects like regulation, the invasive tentacles of the State reaching into most areas of local life, the morality of government borrowing, or the likelihood of meaningful public sector reforms actually, ever, materialising - then you might want to put your holiday dark glasses back on, hum those Spanish disco tunes slightly madly to yourself, and flick quickly through to the next feature.
But there’s no fun in that. These are the debates which will shape the next couple of years of Island life. So now that you’re rested, ready for the fray, be brave and take a peek. Welcome to Connect.
