Business, Bureacracy and .......

Cathy has a new job (yeah), out of Robert Harris and on to a high end deli across the harbour.  The commute is OK, the ferry runs form our marina and then she has a 20 minute walk to work.  Total travel time from the boat to work is around 40 minutes.  She’s quite happy with the new place, the people are nice and treat her with respect, a welcome change.  It was comical when she resigned from Robert Harris, she told her boss she was leaving, he said she had a contract and had to give two weeks notice (it was actually Cathy who insisted on the contract), Cathy replied, yes, I have a contact, and as I am still on probation, I only have to give you 48 hours notice as per page 6 section 9, paragraph 3(she was actually giving him 4 days).  His response, well, that’s 48 working hours.  She laughed and left.

I have been working steadily on getting myself going with McApples Enterprises Ltd.  I’ve written a business plan, looked at the market figures, come up with some ideas about services, put together a first year’s budget and generally got myself organized.  I’ve made contacts with a couple of training organizations to offer my services and have received positive feedback and will hopefully meet with them in a couple of weeks.  I’ve joined the Chamber of Commerce here in Auckland and will hopefully get some useful contacts out of the networking opportunities they provide.  All in all a positive couple of weeks.  The challenge has been once again dealing with WINZ.  I found out that they run a business support grant system called the “Enterprise Allowance”.  OK, McApples is a start-up, we could use some money for advertising etc. so off we go on the merry-go-round again.  It started last Friday when I had a meeting with WINZ to advise them of Cathy’s new job.  The case worker was very supportive of what McApples planned to offer and arranged for me to attend a required seminar that afternoon.  She said Mt Albert but printed out an address in another part of town.  I didn’t realize this until I left to go there and “assumed” she had printed out the correct address.  So 30km through Auckland to find this WINZ office.  There is no parking, the sign was missing, but I did find it.  I get in there and there is line of about 25 people.  There is another reception desk with no one in line, so off I go.  I tell the lady why I’m there, she replies yes, take a seat across the way and wait for Graeme.  10 minutes goes by, another lovely lady comes and asks who/;what I am waiting for, I tell her the Enterprise Allowance seminar and she looks surprised.  Long story short, there was no seminar there that day.  I leave with an appointment for the following Wednesday.  Wednesday afternoon (this past Wednesday) off I go to WINZ in Waitakere again.  I get into a seminar, with Graeme leading it, and around 20 people in attendance.  Graeme spends 2 straight hours speed talking through a presentation that had maybe 45 minutes of content.  That being said, the grant process is a mess.  You create and submit a business plan, well that sounds right.  The catch is that the business plan needs to be a particular format.  OK, I ask if they have template.  The answer, NO.  BUT, they recommend that you attend a 6 week “Be Your Own Boss” course where they walk you through building a business plan.  The next course starts in August, there are 12 places left on it for the entire Auckland region.  Midway through the 2 hour speed talk, a person representing the private company that has a government contract to supply the course gave a brief presentation.  I am a suspicious person, granted, but I find it odd that a government department that is supposed to support New Zealanders requires you (actually not required but STRONGLY recommends) you take a course from a private contractor that is paid for by government money.  Don’t get me wrong, I actually think this is a good idea for a lot of people, but the ENTIRE SYSTEM is set up around this with little provision for deviation.  We get to the end of the presentation, I have made a few notes of additions to my business plan, learned about the VERY strict and rigid guidelines about the grants, some of which are just plain bizarre.  To explain, the Enterprise Allowance is a grant system of a maximum of 11,000 dollars for up to 52 weeks.  The grant is designed to pay for living allowance and a portion can be used for capital acquisition.  The maximum capital acquisition is 5000 dollars.  If you get approved, you submit a budget detailing what you will spend money on (a budget).  WINZ then says OK, and give you the money in one lump sum, in advance, to purchase what you have defined.  You have EXACTLY 3 weeks to buy everything.  If you don’t get everything in this SINGLE 3 week period, you will loose your grant and be kicked off the Enterprise Allowance scheme.  I can see all kinds of issues with this but I won’t go into them here.

Getting the grant is a whole other issue.  There is exactly ONE person in the entire Auckland region (Warkworth to the Bombay Hills) who runs the scheme, processes and makes the decision, and you guessed it, Graeme, the speed talker is the one.  The business plan is reviewed by an independent person and gives a pass/fail check, literally all it is given, if it fails, there is NO explanation given.  The independent reviewers are under government contract by the way.  The Business Plan is then sent back to Graeme, who then has the ultimate authority to say yes or no.  Not only does this one person have this level of control but he is also the only person that you send copies of your receipts to, and woe to anyone who does not supply receipts in a timely manner, you will be cut off, asked to repay etc., no word of what happens if he gets behind on his email.  Speaking of email, at the end of the presentation, I ask him for his email address (this had been conspicuous by its absence).  He is very hesitant to give it to me and when I ask why, his reply is:

I don’t like giving out my email address because people then send me their Business Plans by email

My response;

What is the problem with emailing you my business plan?

Graeme’s response

When I send the business plans to be vetted, part of the approval is dependant on the presentation, the format of the plan.

My response:

I’m not actually writing my business plan in the email, I am attaching either a Word document or a PDF file TO the email

Graeme’s response;

I can’t open those types of documents and besides, I don’t want to have to print off 30 pages of your Business Plan, that’s for you to do

At this point, I express extreme surprise that the government can not open internationally standardized document formats (PDF) and literally turned away, and walked out.  I could not believe that a government department would insist on a paper copy only of a Business Plan for review, AND that the independent vetting of the plan included deciding if the plan LOOKED GOOD.  It did however explain the strong push to attend the government funded Be Your Own Boss course that apparently teaches you how to make a good LOOKING business plan, who cares about content.  I am not applying for the grant, it’s not worth the time and effort to deal with them any further.

 

Updates on Life in New Zealand

Its been awhile since I wrote anything here and I thought I better remind myself what’s been happening.  We have been basically cut off from WINZ because Cathy is working.  It really makes me scratch my head in wonder at the logic of a system that says you will receive no more support from the government if one of you is working full time at a minimum wage job.  This seems absurd to me as minimum wage, is just that, minimum.  Apparently the government feels that it is more than enough money for TWO people to live on, bizarre.  Anyhow, we are surviving and will continue to survive, unlike many others who are in desperate straits here.  There are an increasing number of mortgage sales as families can not afford to keep their homes are forced to sell.  I had a long conversation with a person at WINZ the other day and she had never seen so many people in one day requiring emergency assistance, i.e. food vouchers.  As we drive around, I am noticing more people apparently living in the vehicles, either cars or vans.  Maybe I am seeing more because I am looking for it.  I continue to send out CV’s to all and sundry and have started work defining a new, affordable project management service for small business.  I am drafting a white paper and hope to have it available on my website within a week or so (www.mcapples.co.nz) .  The “My Safe Ride Home” program has been slow but there seems to be an investor that is interested so we will see how that pans out.  Not much can be done until we get some infrastructure in place in NZ which requires capital of course.  In other fun news, I decided to go to the new Pac-N-Save on opening day last Sunday to see if I could find any amazing bargains.  I was amazed alright.  I was circling the car park looking for a spot (with everyone else) when after about 30 minutes, I heard a pretty good bang from under the hood of the car and a saw a lot of steam escaping.  I quickly shut the car off, and popped the hood, careful to step around the river of antifreeze running out of the engine.  NOT GOOD I thought.  I was off to one side and not really blocking cars too badly.  It was then I became REALY glad we had spent the extra 25 dollars on our insurance and purchased the Roadside Assistance package from State Insurance.  I called the number, gave our license number and they dispatched a tow truck.  They did say average time response time was 30-45 minutes.  After an hour, when the engine had cooled down, I could see fluid in the bottom of the radiator and on a lark, poured in some antifreeze I had in the boot (trunk).  Nothing poured out so I started the car up and drove out of the busy parking lot and around the corner to a nice quiet place which fortunately had an outside water tap that worked.  I called roadside assistance and told them I have moved the car and as I was adding water  the tow truck turned up.  I topped off the radiator and looked under the car to see that it was still leaking so decided to get it towed.  The tow truck driver gave me my options, tow it their yard for the night and then get it towed to the garage the next morning thereby using both of the free tows for the year, tow it the marina and get it towed to the garage the next morning, again using our free tows for the year, or call and see if the dealer was open in Takapuna and drop the car off directly.  She seemed to think it was (yes the tow truck driver was a woman, and very good at her job).  I called, the sales people were there and said no problem, drop the car off.  We did.  I had an enjoyable walk home (around 5.5 km) on a beautiful sunny day and that was that.  I called the dealer Monday, they said no worries we’ll look at it, they did, told be good news that it was a relatively simple issue, they fixed it.  I had the service done as well which found worn ball joints and other assorted front end issues, BAD, and had them fixed as the warrant of fitness is due next week and it would not have passed.  Got the car back, it runs great and we are hopefully over the big bills on it.  It annoys the hell out of me that the warrant of fitness check done 6 months ago when we bought the car was a not properly done as there is no way the ball joints etc could have deteriorated in so short a time.  Lesson learned, get a warrant on ANY used car through VTNZ (Vehicle Testing New Zealand).  They are thorough and have no vested interest with used car dealers or repair shops, all they do is warrant of fitness checks. 

The weather continues to be challenging, sun, rain, hail, wind, rain, wind, sun, rain, wind, rain, rain.  You get the picture.  As I look outside just now it looks like dusk, it’s a shame it’s 9:00AM.  I have been looking at weather for our friends David and Linda on Toketie as they are heading to Fiji.  Unfortunately they will likely be waiting until later next week unless something changes significantly in the next day or so.

Life on a Boat Continues

After a couple of weeks I thought I should put down what’s been going on in our lives.  Cathy got a job, on her own imitative, i.e. without going through a recruiter etc.  Since we moved to Bayswater, Cathy has been going around to the various cafes in the area and dropping off her resume.  She got called back to the Robert Harris café in Takapuna.  Cathy was asked to go in for “training” last Sunday so off she went for 4 hours.  She went for more “training” Friday and started full time today.  Not a career job but enough to get us of WINZ.  Needless to say, the search for a life continues.

I have accepted the position of President/CEO of MMC Software New Zealand, a grand title.  The challenge is that they need an investor for MMC in New Zealand before the company gets off the ground, so until then, I’m looking at the market here and making plans but can not do much else. 

The highlight this week has been the formation of our company.  Cathy and I officially incorporated McApples Enterprises Ltd.  Hopefully we will be able to generate some business.

The weather has turned to typical autumn here, wind, rain, sun, cloud, all in the space of about 45 minutes. The forecast is for rain through mid week but who knows.  It was supposed to rain all day yesterday but the sun came out most of the day.  Speaking of yesterday, our day started really early, around 4:00 am.  We woke up to the really loud flapping sound.  I poked my head out to see a partially unfurled headsail on a boat on C dock.  I first tried to call 24 hour security, they didn’t answer, so I got dressed, walked around to the C dock and spent 15 minutes or so unwrapping lines, and getting the sail sorted out before it beat itself to pieces.  I would hope that someone would do the same for us if the situation occurred.  Anyhow, no drama, got it sorted and back to bed.  Later in the day we decided to torture ourselves a bit and went around looking at houses in a couple of different areas.  The farther you are from the motorway, the less expensive.  A relative term as something halfway decent will still run 350,000 plus.  Prices are insane to say the least.  There is a small, 2 bedroom 1940s brick bungalow on a subdivided lot for sale near here, asking price, 495,000 dollars.  Unless the interior is fitted out with gold trim and expensive hardwoods, I can’t see a lot of people shelling out that kind of cash for a small place.  The consensus is that prices will continue to drop as we have not seen the bottom of the recession here yet.  Unemployment continues to rise with more and more companies now laying people off.  There was a mood of general optimism a couple of months ago, but that seems to have disappeared.  Interesting times ahead.  That being said, there are still jobs being advertised but the number of applicants for each job has risen dramatically.  Cathy applied to one customer service job and the email she received back stated that they had received over 300 applicants for the position.  Feedback I have received indicates that at the professional level, companies are receiving 50+ applicants for each role.  The responses I get range from you are over qualified, to “the client has put that role on hold”, to “the client only decided to interview 2 people”, to, my favourite, “ thank you for the time and effort you have put into your high quality application…. but our client had very specific requirements that were better matched by other applicants”  I am always curious what the specific requirements were, and no one seems willing to tell me.  It is odd, as I am careful to read descriptions and make sure I address ALL specific requirements in my application but apparently there are other more specific requirements somewhere else.  If the last sentence sounds confusing, it is.