I waited 3 hours on the phone two weeks ago to convert my dial up to broadband. I rang yesterday to see how it was going and was told the order was cancelled as I could in fact not get broadband at my home addres. No call to tell me just everything cancelled.

Rang my mate who can do things for telstra and get a commision, he told me to apply for wireless and he would do it for me online. Took five mins and he told me to ring and quote this telstra number to identify myself to confirm i wanted the order.

I rang Telstra and the girl could not find me. I offered to give her the reference number my mate quoted but no she wanted by old phone number form 4 years ago which no longer has anything to do with my internet.

She could not find me and the ysytem she was using did not recognisse the reference. She had to trasfer me to another section as they have deen moving to another system for the last 6 months and nothing works.

I have noghitn but sympathy for the employees as they would have been grilled to never admit anything is wrong but here is what has happened.

Sol and his amigos have updated telstar to a new platform but the whole shebang is F@#ked. It cannot talk to the old one. Orders are taken on both systems and therfore lost in black holes. Staff are leaving in droves to be replaced by temps with no experience or knowledge who giggle on the other end of the phone tell you all sorts of lies about how its all being processed and you ring up weeks later and there is nothing on the system. The one that answered the phone told me she had been there a wekk and was only trained in limited knowledge of the new system and had no knowledge of the old system. For Gods sake Telstra train your bloody staff. I simply cannot wait until all the amigos have left our shores.

What is it with politicians and big business, why is there such a significant gap in understanding between the two?

Firstly, the Howard Government allowed Telstra to become run down and since my opinion was published in the Australian, Sol and his amigos have done everything in their power to rip the heart out of the once iconic company

A case of hear no evil, see no evil

http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,20201956-15425,00.html

HERE’S something to really amuse Telstra shareholders. Back in June 1999, The Weekend Australian ran a piece under the headline “Why Telstra’s a Real Humdinger”.
“The growth premium you are being asked to pay for Telstra now does not take into account any of the goodies in the pipeline that are likely to start appearing over the next couple of years.” That was a huge sales pitch and was always going to be an impossible task.

As a majority shareholder and regulator, the federal Government has an interest in selling its shares at a premium price and an obligation to ensure the telco functions and will continue to function properly. Given the Government has so much of our money invested in the telco, it should have been monitoring our investment much more closely. Mr Trujillo and his team have attempted to reveal the true operational state of the telco, something that has been conveniently ignored. The PM admits he was aware the share price was being propped up by redirecting profits to shareholders as dividends instead of reinvesting in operational requirements. Mr Costello heard rumours but ignored them because, he claims, it was not his area of responsibility. What I think we have here is a case of hear no evil, see no evil, and that is what’s hurting investors. .

http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,24947138-5013038,00.html

http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,24947242-15335,00.html?referrer=email

What an absolute disgrace and now they are fleeing back to the US enmasse after getting unbelievable pay increases for their 3 years which caused a devaluation of telstra of 20 billion.

while not doubting you I cannot see where it states these things are excluded.

Item numbers 1,3,8,19 and 21 are interesting in the notes on the data here

http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/6302.0Explanatory%20Notes2Aug%202008?OpenDocument

You state that this only relates to earnings excluding bonuses and share options. 1 example for you is the CBA annual results for 2008 which saw a major shift in packages to a much larger cash component of salary and major reduction in salary sacrifice to super. Do you think they knew something.

The following is the increase in their CASH ONLY FIXED component to 30 June 2008 which will reflect in the ABS statistics as it is fixed and paid in cash. Non Executive Directors Increase 31% CEO Increase 113% Executives Increase 26%.

This is only 1 company.

The growth in earnings for executives has been in the package structure – bonuses & incentives and share options.

There is ABS data about actual settlements that also illustrates my point, and I’ll send it through when I get a chance.

I keep pointing it out, but some are simply blind to facts, and prefer to use statistics averaged by government departments or big business to achieve their own ideology which is exactly the reason the figures are issued by the businesses in the first place.

If they want to be real about pay rises then remove the top 10% and the bottom 10% and then give us the true average for the 80% of normal workers.

A classis example. My previous employer asked all of its employees to complete a survey on almost everything in the Bank, their likes, their dislikes, what can be improved and what should be thrown out all together. It was around 14 pages long with multiple choice answers. You were anonymous (only you had to put the state, and area you worked in and your age, and sex, which makes you identifiable). The promise was made to print all results warts and all for the improvement of the company and staff relations.

Well many months later we were still waiting being told that the results were being finalised. Many more months pass with no mention. Then after almost 2 years they decide that the figures will not be released as they are no longer reflective of the corporation. In other words the figures were a shocking wake up call to management who could not possibly publish statistics that are negative or had any warts to their perception of staff morale and issues.

Finally! Thank you shane for pointing out how the big earners skew the figures.

NEW STOCK MARKET TERMS for 2008 and beyond.

CEO –Chief Embezzlement Officer.

CFO– Corporate Fraud Officer.

BULL MARKET — A random market movement causing an investor to mistake himself for a financial genius.

BEAR MARKET — A 6 to 18 month period when the kids get no allowance, the wife gets no jewelry, and the husband gets no sex.

VALUE INVESTING — The art of buying low and selling lower.

P/E RATIO — The percentage of investors wetting their pants as the market keeps crashing.

STANDARD & POOR — Your life in a nutshell.

STOCK ANALYST — Idiot who just downgraded your stock.

STOCK SPLIT — When your ex-wife and her lawyer split your assets equally between themselves.

FINANCIAL PLANNER — A guy whose phone has been disconnected.

MARKET CORRECTION — The day after you buy stocks.

CASH FLOW– The movement your money makes as it disappears down the toilet.

YAHOO — What you yell after selling it to some poor sucker for $240 per share.

WINDOWS — What you jump out of when you’re the sucker who bought Yahoo at $240 per share.

INSTITUTIONAL INVESTOR — Past year investor who’s now locked up in a nuthouse.

PROFIT — An archaic word no longer in use.

The problem with these statistics is that they also include all of the top management and CEO wage increases.

Example. company has 102 employees. 2 of those employees are CEOs who receive a 50% pay rise. 10 are managers who receive a 20% payrise and 90 are workers who receive a 3% payrise. The average of the companys pay increase is 5.59% yet 88% of the employees received 53% less than the average company wage increase at 3%.

Figures are smoke and mirrors.

Shane, I think if you look at some ABS data you’ll find evidence, eg –

http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/6302.0Main+Features1Aug%202008?OpenDocument

For example full time private sector earnings increased by 5% in the year to Aug 08. The public sector had plenty of belt tightening though – 3.1%

Various former public sector instrumentalities – though not Telstra obviously – had quite high settlements. Also mining and construction, where skills were short and profits high, had high outcomes.

The point is that the generalisation you and others made is inaccurate.

I’m not seeking to defend the high levels of executive remuneration. Though I’m sure we will see a significant decline during the next couple of years.