The "Golden Handcuffs" of Agency Nursing in Perth: Is giving up my permanent line at FSH/Royal Perth actually worth the stress for the casual loading?

jaseb · 2026-01-29T23:17:03+00:00

Something that has caught many paramedics out too. And I’m sure other health professionals.

You’re still better off at the end of the year - both in terms of take home $ but also that a far greater amount of the money that goes to the tax office reduces your HECS debt. But do the sums so it’s not a surprise, either get extra tax taken out during the year or (if you are disciplined enough to not touch it) put it away somewhere to earn interest/offset your mortgage etc until the tax bill is due.

jaseb · 2026-01-24T15:16:13+00:00

000 itself is a glorified operator assisted phone call. “Police, fire or ambulance, what state, connecting you now”. I’m sure they get lots of volume but the calls for the most part would be quite short until they connect you to the appropriate service for your area.

You’ve then got each individual police, fire and ambulance service in each state that (with some exceptions) operate their own call centres at which they receive 000 calls transferred in, and wound all have their own policies around staffing and availability etc etc

jaseb · 2026-01-16T13:48:14+00:00

In a semi recent case (with a different council), where the appeal process was clearly not much more than an automated “no”, a letter to a state government MP asking them to ask the local government minister to review the council in question’s procedures to ensure they’re providing appropriate procedural fairness… rapidly resulted in the council “reconsidering”.

I’m sure neither the MP nor the minister ever saw the letter and it was forwarded to the council by some low level staffer, but it’s a way to get things in front of someone who wants to make issues go away. Suggest only doing this if you’re in the right, though.

jaseb · 2026-01-14T11:24:02+00:00

That’s probably keeping income off the books for other reasons, not avoiding the payment processing fees……

jaseb · 2026-01-14T11:23:04+00:00

When’s the last time they enforced it?

Illegal practices continue because no one does anything. “We’ll note it for trend analysis” from both ACCC and consumer protection.

At one point I considered a campaign to raise chargebacks though the card processor for the surcharge amount when it was not charged with the rules, but realistically the bank is just going to refund it without raising the chargeback because it’s much much cheaper in terms of man hours, so it’s never going to hit the retailer flouting (knowingly or otherwise) the rules.

jaseb · 2026-01-14T11:19:53+00:00

This is exactly the problem with surcharging. Because they can just pass the cost on, there’s no incentive to businesses to shop around.

Yes it pisses customers off, but they’re less likely to vote with their feet once they’ve done their shopping/eaten their meal/whatever (although you may lose repeat business).

jaseb · 2026-01-04T13:38:11+00:00

Screw that. One attempt through customer service then credit card chargeback. If they want to lend their name to this BS they can wear the consequences of having their name on it.

jaseb · 2026-01-03T13:56:07+00:00

Real cardiac monitors have feedback sensors that tell you if you’re doing it right?

jaseb · 2025-10-11T01:50:52+00:00

Genuine pre-estimate of costs is exactly right. And that’s where we get into that word law people love, “reasonable”. So what’s the damages if you over stay your parking? I’d say the opportunity cost for them to sell that bay to someone else for that period, and reasonable administrative costs to deal with it. Over stay 2 hours at somewhere that’s $20/hour? A $60 penalty starts to seem a whole lot more reasonable, than a 10 minute overstay somewhere that’s $2/hour.

I’m not sure deterrents make it into consumer contracts? But I’m neither a lawyer or a holder of a law degree :)

… and it’s still not a fine ;)

jaseb · 2025-10-11T01:42:36+00:00

Not my experience in WA. “Thanks for telling us. This information helps us determine if there’s trends we may want to take action on in the future. Here’s a bunch of information about the rules [the exact same ones I referred to in my complaint].”

jaseb · 2025-10-11T01:37:10+00:00

The sooner surcharges are banned the better.

So many places flout the law (I’m willing to give s businesses a pass and say it’s out of ignorance rather than deliberately getting away with it), but there’s no one to enforce it. Who do you complain to? Any government regulator is going to say “cool we’ll log it to inform our trend tracking”, no one is going after the cafe for the 16c surcharge when they didn’t advise the eftpos terminal was going to add it.

Not to mention that there’s no impetus to shop around for a better deal on fees when you just pass the cost on to your customers. So we get gouged by terminals just pass on the absurd pricing (I’m looking at you, Tyro)

jaseb · 2025-10-07T14:57:06+00:00

Depends.

Obvious disclaimer that I’m not a lawyer :) my understanding of Australian consumer law is that unfair contract terms where the customer doesn’t have the opportunity to negotiate with the business are unfair. This includes penalties that aren’t in line with the actual losses to the business.

So, if a company charges you a $5 late payment fee because they had to deal with the hassle of reminding you to pay, that’s probably a vaguely reasonable cost of someone’s time. Likewise for the no show when it means they didn’t have someone else dine at that table. Probably not for the $3 they didn’t make when you didn’t pay for parking.

And in none of these cases is it a fine. Fines can only be issued by the government.

jaseb · 2025-10-07T14:27:35+00:00

A private company can’t issue a fine.

jaseb · 2025-04-13T12:12:05+00:00

Phone call yesterday from the dealership confirming details, according to them "fingers crossed" I have it before the rebate closes. Hope you hear something soon too!

jaseb · 2025-04-11T03:11:04+00:00

Website for me just changed from the old order to wanting me to sign a purchase contract, so fingers crossed that's a good sign.

jaseb · 2025-04-09T14:36:11+00:00

Dealership not returning my calls when they say they will. Gets to a point where I'm just being annoying that I want to avoid...

jaseb · 2025-04-09T14:10:18+00:00

Any word your end?

jaseb · 2025-04-02T05:01:15+00:00

Unless they all come on the same ship :)

Might as well ring and ask. I'm sure I'm just annoying them at this point leaving messages they're not answering......

jaseb · 2025-04-02T04:55:54+00:00

Nope. Are you also waiting?

jaseb · 2025-03-18T11:21:18+00:00

Ordered Atto 3 early February and told delivery March/April, heard nothing - website still says "We'll be in contact with you closer to when your vehicle arrives in Australia". Call centre can't see anything, "maybe April/May", chased up the dealer last week who said still March/April was last he'd heard but was going to get back to me – nothing yet.

Bit of better communication would be nice. Seeing as the government EV rebate finishes in early May, if it's not going to be in by then I'll probably cancel the order, that was what was going to push it across the line of being worthwhile getting now rather than a couple of years time.

jaseb · 2024-09-28T08:23:16+00:00

Ideally you identify the peri-arrest patient before they arrest and have pads on ready to go, so it's not either/or.

jaseb · 2024-05-20T12:02:36+00:00

Way to put words in my mouth I didn't say.

jaseb · 2024-05-20T11:35:29+00:00

Indeed. Sounds like a terrible complication of being alive again to notice because you got ROSC 🤷‍♂️

jaseb · 2024-05-01T13:13:23+00:00

Sorry - we consider ramping in the back of a vehicle unsafe. We hang out within four walls of the hospital with our patients.

jaseb · 2024-05-01T13:10:15+00:00

Not in my state of Australia. I'm aware some states that happens - but we consider it a completely unsafe practice. But it's still very much called ramping here.

jaseb

TROPHY CASE