Terms and Conditions

A few years ago I had the enormous privilege to work with a start-up non profit fund raising organisation. This organisation has a novel method of collecting funds and consequently had to ensure that all the complicated legal and other governance issues were well and truly covered. Our attorneys belonged to one of the countries biggest firms and they unstintingly spent so much time (pro bono) with us and shared their knowledge. It was a tremendous learning experience: contracts, patents, trust and foundation law and so on, even tax issues thrown in for good measure.

For me, I found contracts to be really interesting (I also enjoyed patents, but more of this another time). The biggest lesson was that a contract should be fair for both parties ie. If a contract is 100%, then each party should benefit by 50% each. So, if I rent a place for Rxy, being the standard rate for a 2 bedroom flat, then I expect to get a 2 bedroom flat, no more, no less. And you can apply this to employment, purchasing a motor vehicle etc.

Well now I am going to talk about personal relationships. And you may quite rightly ask what on earth this has to do with contracts.

In the last couple of week, I have heard a number of people (men and women) talk, albeit sheepishly, about “contracts” they have entered into with their so called significant other.

The contracts go something like this: Person A says to potential significant other at the beginning of relationship
· “I don’t ever see us walking off hand in hand into the sunset”,
· “the most important thing in my life is my mother/sister/children/father/wife/husband and they will always come first”,
· “I am incapable of loving so don’t expect that”,
· “this will just be a short term relationship – with no strings attached”,
· “you can get out of this relationship any time you like – I will not hold you back”

Do you see what is happening here? Are these people emotionally dead/deprived or what? What they are actually saying is that your needs just do not count, my needs do. This is a one sided relationship of note.

Even worse is to come. The people who told me these things are in a bit of a pickle because their emotions are involved, they want a bit more commitment now and when they tried to discuss this with the “advantaged other” they were told “but I stated the Terms and Conditions at the beginning – so what’s your problem - you knew what the story was – I have always been honest with you”. The problem is that no-one should get involved in relationships where T & C’s are so one sided. If you are going to have a fling, by all means have a fling. But a fling does not last 1, 3, 5, 7 years. Good grief – these relationships are entirely one sided. Why should they change their minds?

But my personal favourite with one of these relationships, is of a married man who began an affair with: “I will not hurt my wife, I am known as a man of honour and I will never break a promise, I gave my word to my wife (ie. Till death do us part), I cannot hurt the kids even if they are grown up, and so on and so on”. Do you also see something wrong with this? This man, in one breath states he is an honourable man, but is quite happy to lie to and deceive his nearest and dearest and mess up someone else’s life in the process – but he did warn her first… well one hopes so, cause that makes it all OK. And this is the classic one sided contract – definitely no win/win here.

And yes, you may ask why people (men and women) can be so stupid – well who knows, but the heart, a bit of lust and some true emotions do get in the way of rational thinking…….

And the final lesson here – remember, always remember how a contract should be structured.

The Turkey Graph

I so appreciated the hearty chuckle from my friend Jeanne when I told her about the book, The Black Swan, and how the author Nassim Nicholas Taleb, describes the Black Swan in his “turkey graph” (my term for the graph - Taleb calls the graph “one thousand and one days in history”).

So, what is this graph? Well, take one turkey and feed him every day for one thousand and one days to get him ready for Christmas. The amount of food the turkey gets every day is just about the same and he’s fed twice a day at almost the same time. The graph will be fairly flat with a few small, insignificant ups and down for the amount of food he gets… but it is just about a straight line for a thousand days. And then the surprise happens – he gets the chop and is plucked and dressed for the Christmas table.

Significantly, there is absolutely nothing in this view that would have prepared the turkey for this surprise (black swan). Every day he got fed and things progressed along really nicely. This view really begs the question of why we always/mostly base our predictions (share prices, oil prices, sales forecasts, interest rates, life events etc) on historical data?

(NB: I don’t mean to reduce the essence of this amazing book to this one graph – but it sure as hell describes the Black Swan and how blinkered we can be. I recommend this book to everyone – give yourself a little treat and buy it)

So, who wants a proper job?

At lunchtime today I am dropping my daughter Lisa, at the airport. She is off overseas; firstly to compete in the 24hr Rogaine World Champs taking place in Estonia, and secondly to spend a bit of time in the UK with friends. You can read about the Rogaine World Champs on her blog: http://adventurelisa.blogspot.com/2008/09/rogaining-world-champs-estonia.html

Lisa is an adventure sports journalist and I thought I would tot up the countries she has been to since 2000, either reporting on events or participating and then writing the articles afterwards.

So, in no particular order: North America – East and West Coast – a few times, Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Patagonia a couple of times, Costa Rica, England, France Switzerland, Russia, Borneo, New Zealand, Hawaii, Singapore, Zambia, Mozambique, and Namibia. And now Estonia and at the end of the year she will be taking an invitation team to Abu Dhabi.

She is one person who has successfully turned something she loves (running and adventure racing) into a job that has taken her to some really exotic places. In between all the travel and sports events she has written for various magazines and managed to remain employed with a non-profit organisation.

My friend Chris often asks if Lisa has a “proper job” yet ie. 9 to 5 *grin*. But seriously, given all the exciting things she does and gets paid for – if this was you, would you opt for a proper job?

Super Heroes

Last year, our Springbok Rugby Team had just about every South African glued to the TV cheering them on at the World Cup final - which they won. The build up of our team prior to the World Cup was an amazing marketing exercise. The team was turned in super heroes. Even the non-rugby fans knew who they were. They were in the papers, and not just the sports section, there was a bit of drama about the coach, there was a bit of drama about the players….but at the end there was a team that would not do anything else but go to the World Cup and win. No one was going to mess with them. The Sasol advert on TV had the team morphing into super heroes with extraordinary powers. There was so much hype – I don’t think these guys even thought about losing!

So what happened with our Olympic Team? There certainly was not a lot of hype over them. Perhaps there was something on Super Sport, but there wasn’t a heck of lot on SABC - although there have been flashes of some of the athletes in a rather weak advert. And they sure haven’t been made out to be super heroes.

Oscar Pistorius managed to get a huge amount of publicity prior to the Olympics. He made world headlines with his plight. He spent a lot of time fighting various boards for admission to the able bodied Games. Thousands of people were saying “Ag Shame” he should be allowed. The people who wanted him excluded, because of the blade advantage, were seen as baddies, meanies and all sorts of things. Oscar has an amazing PR machine in place. Larger than life images of him on the side of multi story buildings, Powerade ads on TV, stories galore in popular magazines, even a modelling assignment in Cape Town – he is all over the place

But here’s a thing. Whilst this PR machine was on the go and boards were sitting to decide his fate, he wasn’t in training and he wasn’t anywhere near a qualifying time. And nor did he have a chance of achieving a qualifying time. Then there was a big public discussion that maybe he should be in the relay team, but he would have to run first in case he injured another runner and this debate went on for a while taking up media time.

But, he wasn’t close to qualifying for the team (it will probably take another 2 – 3 years of training) but he sure hogged a lot of pre-Olympic media time and attention.

Our actual Olympic athletes got just about zero.

And what about Natalie du Toit? She is disabled, qualified for the team and quietly got on with her training – and now she has performed more than admirably in her able bodied race. And prior to the race she has been the darling of the foreign press. They have love her in Beijing. She is our real super hero but we seem to have ignored her.

My computer shop

Yesterday I took my new funky red (albeit unusable) keyboard back to my local computer equipment shop. When I told the guy at the counter I wanted to return it, he said "no problem, would you like to exchange it or have a refund?". There was no hassle at all.

I mentioned that I really needed a new keyboard but this one that my daughter had got for me was OK for typing a small amount but I spend too much time as it is behind my keyboard without having to battle with pressing keys down hard! The keyboard was one of those rubber things that you can fold up - looks great but not so practical. He said he quite understood and led me off to the rack with keyboards.... we chose a really nice one, plain and simple and practical. He gave some good advice, was very pleasant, and I didn't feel rushed or pressured.

So, I walked out of the shop with a keyboard, a new mouse, a new USB hub and a really cool printer/scanner combo. Not bad for a returned keyboard!

An aside: I really did need all those things - I have put off getting a new mouse for ages and my daughter is moving out of my home office and taking her equipment with her. So, I do need my own printer etc. My idea of emailing documents for printing to Lisa met with not an awful lot of humour *grin* .

Best Soup

Because I have some hectic deadlines today, I thought I would heat up a cup of soup and shlurp it at my desk. In between spoonfuls I Googled "Best Soup". Firstly, there are 1.3 million results for Best Soup (amazing) and this little gem (the one in the middle) popped up on the second page:

SARS

I have always had a healthy respect for SARS and I have always submitted my returns on time, coughed up the dosh when asked and generally been a model citizen in this regard.

Last year when we could register for e-filing, I left it a bit late and try as might, I couldn't register because of my name. I tried every conceivable combination of "d'Oger de Speville" you can think of but still got the message - number does not match surname. So, due to the time constraints and my desire to be a goodie two shoes, I downloaded the form, filled it in, printed it off, attached all the documentation I could think of to substantiate the information I had supplied, got in my car and zipped off to my local SARS office.

SARS are in an exceptionally grim building in Germiston. Goodness knows which school that architect went to. The queue was out the front door and round the corner but moving at a reasonable pace. So I stood in it cursing myself for not registering and sorting out my electronic name. Once inside, it is not too bad. The staff has really tried to jolly the place up with posters showing exotic holiday locations and little waterfall things in the corners - even a couple of little fairies perched on artificial rocks. I handed in my form and got a stamp to prove it and went home.

In April this year, I received a query from them. They returned my completed form with ticks all over the place and one big cross - reminiscent of homework assignments. And they returned all my documentation with a big note that they didn't need and if I read the form properly I would see that they hadn't even asked for it. So, I figured out what I had done wrong filling out the form, got in my car and headed off to the SARS office again. I also took all my documentation so that I could show the assessor how I had just put something in the wrong place.

The SARS people in my local are really nice, friendly and helpful - and always have been. I met with a pleasant young woman who listened to my story, grabbed all my papers, went through them and then pushed all this supporting documentation back to me. She corrected my error online and re-submitted my return. And gave me a little lecture about only submitting supporting documentation if they needed it and I should read the form thoroughly before sending it in. I told her that "I got the message" - and clutching the wad of paper and a receipt, left the office.

So yesterday, I received this large letter from SARS - they only seem to ever use A4 size stationery. And guess what, they have asked me to submit all my supporting documentation.