The Big Issue

The first problem is getting here. The second is getting permission to enter. Then asylum seekers living in the community must find somewhere to stay. Greg Foyster meets a group of people constantly on the move.

SORIYAN SPENT  a year and a half travelling on trains to nowhere. He would wake up early, haul himself off a bench at Cheltenham Station, in Melbourne’s southern suburbs, and shuffle, tired and cold, onto the six o’clock train. Dressed in jeans, sneakers and a red-and-black jacket – a gift from a friend – he would stretch out on a row of seats and close his eyes while the suburbs whooshed past the windows.

He would spend three, four, five hours on the train, travelling on almost all the lines, passing all the stations. Craigieburn, Cranbourne, Sydenham, Glen Waverley, Lilydale, Pakenham – this 28-year-old man from India has criss-crossed the city more times than most locals. At night he would return to Cheltenham or Watergardens Station, in the city’s northwest, and lie on a bench, a backpack under his head for a pillow, a brown blanket over his body for warmth. Sometimes, neighbourhood kids would come and abuse him, shouting racial taunts or trying to grab his bag. Sometimes, he would be left alone. At dawn the cycle would start again: another day riding the rails to pass the time; another night chasing sleep at a train station.

From the middle of 2007 to near the end of 2008, this was Soriyan’s life. He was a constant commuter, caught between a place where he was forced to leave and a place where he wasn’t allowed to stay. The relentless monotony of daily train travel was, in a way, a symbol of his plight. Soriyan is an asylum seeker, a Tamil who fled persecution. At the time he was adrift in Australia without a home, job or visa: a young man on track to poverty and depression.

Amid the deafening media hysteria over ‘boat people’, it’s hard to hear the quiet, unassuming voices of people like Soriyan. Just for a moment, let’s turn off the talkback commentary and tune in to the stories of real asylum seekers, if only to be reminded who they are and why they come to Australia. On a basic level, asylum seekers are people who’ve fled their homeland and are looking for shelter. Seen from this perspective, asylum seekers are the ultimately homeless: people who don’t even have a country to call their own, let a fixed address. Sadly, once they’ve been allowed to stay in Australia, that homelessness often continues. “If you read about asylum seekers, the focus is always on the political or policy issues. No one ever talks about the homelessness issue, but it’s massive, and it’s increasing,” says Cyril O’Connor, manager of the House of Welcome, a charity offering accommodation and support to asylum seekers in Sydney.

It seems almost everyone overlooks the issue. The Australian Bureau of Statistics doesn’t count the number of homeless asylum seekers living in the community, and they were not mentioned in the Rudd Government’s 2008 White Paper on homelessness. They are not eligible for public housing, and they can’t access government bond schemes in many states and territories, including Victoria and Western Australia. They are rejected by real estate agents and turned away from homeless refuges, which are set up to cater for people with
different needs, such as substance dependence. And although asylum seekers are technically eligible for some longer-term ‘transitional’ accommodation, they are often refused due to lack of income.

Yet the Hotham Mission Asylum Seeker Project in North Melbourne estimates there are 8000 to 10,000 asylum seekers living in the community. Where are they supposed to sleep? The answer is: anywhere they can. Asylum seekers spend the night at train stations and on park benches, at mosques, temples and churches, at friends’ places and in rooming houses and hostels. The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre in West Melbourne states that asylum seekers move an average of eight times in an attempt to find suitable accommodation.

Dariq, a 42-year-old asylum seeker from Pakistan, says he slept with his wife and three young children in a room the size of a “chicken pen”. He explains: “We had one, two, three mattresses on the ground and we had to lie down, next to [each other]. And there was no space left.”

The family arrived in Australia in February 2010 and quickly ran out of funds. “When you convert Pakistan’s money, this money becomes so little,” says Dariq. They had few possessions and only sheets to keep them warm at night. “We did not have cooking pots, we did not have glasses, we had only one or two cups. If you have your family with you, three little kids, you have to worry.”

Eventually Dariq approached the House of Welcome for blankets, pots and pans. Although he was at a crisis point, initially he didn’t want help finding accommodation. O’Connor, who is the family’s caseworker, says most asylum seekers don’t want to be dependent on charity: “They try to make it on their own, which is contrary to what is portrayed in the media – that they’re here for better lives and benefits and things like that.”

So why did Dariq come to Australia? He rises from his seat, eyes wide. He points to his right kidney, his right chest and a spot below his left collarbone. “I didn’t want to be an asylum seeker,” he says. “I was shot three times.” The Taliban even fired at his car while he was sitting inside with his young daughter

Shanti, a 54-year-old woman from Malaysia, also came to Australia fearing for her safety. A Hindu, she fled a violent husband and religious persecution in a Muslim-dominated culture. Despite limited English, she’s very talkative. Her story tumbles out of her mouth almost unprompted. She arrived in April 2009, she says, and lived in a rooming house in Wangaratta, before moving into a hostel in central Melbourne with financial assistance from the Red Cross.

“One time I’m very sick because I’m very upset I stay there [at the hostel]. I went to overdose,” she says, the words coming more slowly now. “I just take the medicine for the depression, sleeping tablet. Then I don’t know what’s going on.”

An ambulance took Shanti to hospital and she spent a week recovering. The night she returned, a drunken young man asked to have sex with her roommate, another middle-aged woman from Malaysia. He kept knocking on the door, so the two women called the police. After the incident, they decided it was time to leave. “The backpackers’ is really not safe,” says Shanti.

The Department of Immigration and Citizenship has since rejected Shanti’s initial application for a protection visa. But in Australia the determination process for refugee status has multiple stages, so Shanti should have the option of appealing to an independent tribunal. She should, but she doesn’t. Why? Her invitation to appeal was sent to an old address and she missed the cut-off date. Now she has to take her case all the way to the Federal Court.

“Homelessness and moving around can really mean that information just falls through the gaps,” explains Amy Watson, Shanti’s caseworker. This is happening across the board. In Queensland and New South Wales, caseworkers say the same thing: asylum seekers are missing vital information about their applications due to homelessness.

A letter might not seem like a big deal. But let’s not forget what is at stake. Asylum seekers are often fleeing for their lives, and a wrong decision to send them home could be
disastrous. Anything that might jeopardise their legal case is of monumental importance.

A single letter from the Department or Tribunal could be pivotal. The Refugee Review Tribunal cannot extend the time limit if an asylum seeker – like Shanti – misses the cut-off date to appeal. Then there are other legal notifications. A 2009 Federal Court judgement states that failure to comply with a “formal invitation” has “adverse consequences”, because the Tribunal may make a decision without inviting the applicant to appear at a hearing. This puts asylum seekers without a fixed address at a significant disadvantage.

Even if they do receive that all-important letter, what then? It’s hard to think about your legal case when you’re trying to feed and house your children. O’Connor tells the story of a male asylum seeker, a father, whose “whole thought process around his asylum claim had disappeared because he was just so focused on trying to get out and find that roof over his head”. He was highly stressed and had a family to support: “If his interview came in the middle of that, there is no way he could present a proper case.”

Thankfully, Dariq and Shanti have found accommodation through the House of Welcome and Hotham Mission Asylum Seeker Project, in collaboration with other charities. Most of the funding comes from church groups and donations, so there’s a real risk of financial failure. What if these safe havens didn’t exist?

“We would have ended up on the streets,” says Dariq.

“Very difficult. I cannot imagine,” says Shanti.

As for Soriyan, in June he took yet another train trip. This time it was on the Glen Waverley line. He got off at the final stop and walked three blocks to a brown brick house with a neat lawn and cypress trees out the front. A caseworker from the Hotham Mission Asylum Seeker Project was waiting for him. She opened the door, and together they walked inside. The constant commuter had finally reached his destination.

The asylum seekers’ names have been changed.

Eureka Street

I WAS born in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. I was born in Kashmir, between India and Pakistan. I was born in Iran. I was born in Iraq. I was born in Sri Lanka.

I worked as an architect, building up my business. I worked as a negotiator, liaising with the government. I worked as an engineer. I worked as a veterinarian. I worked as an accountant.

I am a member of the Hazara ethnic group. I am opposed to the government’s occupation of Kashmir. I am a firm believer in women’s rights. I am a whistleblower for government corruption. I am an ethnic Tamil.

I was held down while I watched my father beaten to death. I was kidnapped by the government and taken to an interrogation room. I was knocked out with the butt of a rifle. I was shot three times. I was arrested and put in a camp.

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The Sydney Morning Herald, My Career

“We’re going to focus collectively as a group to streamline our growth so we can hit the ground running with a win-win. You know what I mean?’’

No. I have absolutely no idea. I can’t count the number of times I’ve sat in a meeting, heard a manager regurgitate buzzwords onto the boardroom table and then nodded as if what he said was perfectly understandable.

Enough!

I can pretend no more. In fact, it is time we all stared our Directors of Jibberish in the face and delivered the truth in plain English: ‘‘You don’t make sense!’’

Buzzwords and business jargon have infected our offices. They crept in through our air-con vents and now everyone in the building has linguistic legionnaires’ disease.

We must act swiftly and decisively.

Phase one: Quarantine the CBD. Seal every cubicle with soundproof glass. Round up the CEOs and make them listen to themselves on continuous playback until they tear out their own eardrums. Savour sweet revenge for several minutes.

Phase two: Deploy a Cliché Containment Taskforce. Earmuff-clad volunteers will patrol the streets, wearing acronym-repellent suits and carrying megaphones. ‘‘Guesstimate is incorrect!’’ they’ll yell at gagged managing directors. ‘‘Guess and estimate are separate words that shouldn’t be joined. You’re not conducting a merger here.’’

Seem drastic? Let me tell you how critical the situation has become. Things are now so bad, my co-workers are using buzzwords during conversations that have nothing to do with business.

Picture this typical Monday morning. It’s 9 o’clock and bleary-eyed employees are assembled around the coffee machine.

‘‘So, how was your weekend?’’ asks Co-Worker One.

‘‘Overshot the mark with drinks on Saturday night but took the recovery to a new level the next day, so, yeah, pretty happy with the end result,’’ replies Co-Worker Two.

But of all the ridiculous phrases bandied about my office, ‘‘in terms of’’ has to be the most overused.

‘‘In terms of coffee, would you like one?’’ queries Co-Worker One.

Another staff favourite is the suffix ‘‘wise’’, as in ‘‘How are we doing budget-wise?’’ Each day, my co-workers are under the pump time-wise, so lunch-wise, they often skip it. I’m still waiting for someone to say: ‘‘Wise-wise, it’s a wise decision.’’

Point-wise, let’s get to it. Why is this level of language acceptable? You could never write these nonsense terms in print because they don’t mean anything. Yet for some reason, it is fine to use these pseudo-words in a boardroom. In fact, if you don’t use the vernacular of box-ticking and paradigm-shifting, people assume you’re inexperienced.

That guy over there? He speaks in clear English; he obviously hasn’t had management experience. If he had, he’d integrate up-scaled sentences and value-added acronyms for greater ROI.

Well, buzzword abusers, I’m here to put you ‘‘in the loop’’. You don’t make sense. Unfortunately, even a statement that pointed can’t penetrate the mumbo jumbo lining your skulls. So here it is in your own tongue: going forward, buzzwords are a lose-lose.

Get the picture?

New Matilda

SIVAN describes himself as a “Tamil gentleman”. With his combed-down hair, tucked-in shirt and polished brown shoes, he looks every part the white collar worker. Except no one will give him work.

“I am a person with degrees and qualifications. I have been given work rights, but I can’t find work — not even part-time work,” he tells me.

Sivan arrived in Australia in March 2009. He applied for asylum promptly and was granted permission to work. Compared to other asylum seekers, he was lucky to get that far. Under the old “45-day rule” that was in force from July 1997 to July 2009, asylum seekers who applied for protection more than 45 days after arrival were denied access to employment. Some spent years in the community without an income, relying on charity to survive.

Things improved for people in that situation on 1 July 2009, when the Rudd Government abolished the 45-day rule. Its media release stated this would “alleviate the burden on Australian community and religious groups who provide support to asylum seekers”. Now, asylum seekers who apply for protection after more than 45 days are in the same situation as Sivan, supposedly free to find work and support themselves.

But it isn’t that easy. Although most asylum seekers on bridging visas now have work rights, the majority are still unemployed or underemployed. Caz Coleman, director of Hotham Mission Asylum Seeker Project (ASP), estimates that around 90 per cent of the agency’s clients have work rights, but fewer than 20 per cent are employed. Charities continue to bear the brunt of providing financial help and essential services, despite the law change.

Some reasons for the high levels of unemployment are common to all migrants. Limited access to transport, poor English and a lack of understanding about Australia’s employment system are barriers many foreigners face when looking for work.

Other reasons are more acute for asylum seekers than for other migrants, as some have been denied work rights for so long that they have lost skills and confidence. “Long-term unemployment makes people long-term unemployed,” explains Sheelagh Purdon, co-ordinator of the Employment Casework Team at the Asylum Seekers Resource Centre (ASRC).

Yet other reasons for this are unique to asylum seekers. According to ASRC campaign co-ordinator Pamela Curr, asylum seekers suffer further from having been subjected to a smear campaign. Under the previous government, companies “were constantly [warned about] the risk of employing ‘illegals’ and about the need to check that people had a permanent visa. The backlash is that employers are nervous about asylum seekers.”

One persistent myth is that all asylum seekers are only in Australia for the short term. The way asylum seekers’ visas are managed often reinforces this perception. “There is a particular problem with Bridging Visa Es [a common type held by many asylum seekers] because they have to be renewed at regular intervals,” explains Purdon. Employers see this condition and assume the asylum seeker is only in Australia temporarily. But the reality is that some asylum seekers have been on this type of visa for more than five years.

Sivan is sure that his temporary visa has been an obstacle to gaining employment. He once applied for interpreting work but was told that since he did not have a permanent visa the employer was not in a position to take him on. “It is very difficult to find full-time work on a bridging visa,” he says.

The problem is made worse because he can’t get his qualifications accredited. Despite being a trained lawyer, he needs to complete a compulsory subject in order to practise law in Australia. But, due to his bridging visa, he is unable to register for it.

Stephanie Mendis, a casework co-ordinator at asylum seeker support agency Hotham Mission ASP, recounts a similar story. An asylum seeker who trained as a nurse couldn’t do her year-long hospital placement because she was on a series of three-month visas. She is now working as a cleaner.

This example illustrates another trend among asylum seekers. Those who do find work are often employed “at a skill level significantly lower than work undertaken before coming to Australia”, according to a 2009 skills audit of asylum seekers in Melbourne. Although the respondents held diverse occupations overseas, in Australia it was common for them to work as kitchenhands, cleaners and labourers.

This sort of employment obviously isn’t suitable for everyone. “I can’t do heavy physical work at my age,” says Sivan. He is also aware that his education and experience are doing no one any good if they are not put to use. “I am a lawyer so I shouldn’t be doing an unskilled job.”

Yet even unskilled work is out of reach for many asylum seekers who are denied access to federally funded traineeships, apprenticeships and employment services. The Rudd Government wants to appear “hard” on asylum seekers and giving them financial help or Centrelink benefits is seen as politically untenable. But advocacy groups say they aren’t asking for handouts, just necessities. An employment service is one such basic need. After all, what use is the right to work without the training and support to find it?

With no government employment service for asylum seekers, this burden falls on charities. The ASRC, for example, supports asylum seekers with resume-writing, job applications and training. Other church and humanitarian organisations are collaborating on a pilot project to provide a similar service. But since a large number of asylum seekers now find themselves in this position, the demand is high.

The pilot project emphasises early intervention. “The sooner we have people in some sort of employment the better the outcome for the long term,” says Purdon. The pilot project’s director, Caz Coleman, says empowering asylum seekers to provide for themselves reduces their reliance on welfare and saves the Government money in the long run.

Amid these concerns, charities such as Hotham Mission and ASRC are keen to stress their approval of the Rudd Government’s changes to asylum seeker policy. Refugee advocates are also grateful for the abolishment of the 45-day rule, which Coleman says “was a long time coming”.

Sivan shares this gratitude for the country that has given him shelter. “I appreciate the Government of Australia and what they’re doing for refugees. We’re very happy to be here,” he says.

Yet the current system is far from perfect. “There are a number of things needed to connect work rights to actual work for people,” says Mendis. One suggestion is giving asylum seekers access to basic support, especially housing and employment services. Another is printing a statement on bridging visas explaining that the asylum seeker has ongoing work rights.

Sivan’s shirt has a pen poking out of the breast pocket. His pants are neat, his shoes shiny. He looks like he belongs in an office. At the moment, though, this white-collar worker’s skills and experience are going to waste.

*Sivan’s name has been changed.

YEN (cover story)

CHANCES are you’re reading this magazine with your mobile nearby, switched on and ready for action. The second it beeps your attention will be yanked from this page, pulled by the invisible cord that connects us to friends and family, work and the web. It’s an electronic lifeline that nourishes with texts and tweets, news and gossip. It’s infiltrated every aspect of our lives and, according to some experts, it’s driving us to distraction.

So if your mobile beeps, just ignore it. Better yet, switch it off. Because for the next five minutes, we’re going to look at how technology saps your focus and what you can do to get it back.

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The Sydney Morning Herald

A HALF-EATEN sushi roll. Paperwork stacked in different-sized piles like a bar chart measuring inefficiency. A computer desktop strewn with the debris of some digital cyclone. These are the first signs of Obsessive Compulsive Multitasking (OCM), a disorder that affects hundreds of thousands of clerical workers around the country.

Aside from a messy workspace, symptoms of OCM include twitching “text thumb”, half-finished reports, broken conversations and ugly facial growths, otherwise known as “hands-free headsets”. But perhaps the most damaging effect of the disorder is wasted time.

One Microsoft study found that after answering an email, employees took an average of 15 minutes to get back to what they were doing. Clinicians call the time wasted changing from one task to another a “switch cost”. The problem is exacerbated by workus procrastinatus, a particularly virulent strain of apathy found in depressing office environments. Some employees have sunk so far into lethargy they incur switch costs while moving from one distraction to another, meaning they’re essentially wasting time while wasting time. They’ve deteriorated to the point where they can’t even procrastinate efficiently.

OCM is highly contagious. The condition is spread through email to email contact. Once the multitasker has your email address, he’ll immediately bombard you with hundreds of vague, work-related messages. “3rd qurt figures need work asap.” Your only option is to call to clarify. Now the multitasker has your number, he’ll employ another medium: SMS. Pretty soon you’re poking him on Facebook to send that tweet about that call he said he’d memo through.

You can also contract OCM through contaminated food. Multitaskers love the lunchbreak because it gives them the chance to engage in not only several business activities at once but several bodily functions as well. It’s a chance to sip while sending an SMS, eat while composing an email and digest while dialling the local sushi bar for more food. Between noon and 1pm, multitaskers scurry about the office, devouring salmon rolls and bragging about the mind-boggling array of leisure activities they plan to pack into the weekend. At some point, a multitasker will offer you one of his Japanese snacks. Don’t take it. You’ll get in the habit of working while eating, and your desk will be forever covered in the crusty stubs of sushi rolls. The multitasker’s meal, like his work, is always left half-finished.

Without treatment, OCM matures into two more advanced stages of the disorder. The first is Split-Attention Syndrome, where the multitasker spends so much time staring at two separate screens he becomes cross-eyed.

The second is Multitasking Hypermania, where the multitasker becomes so addicted to the illusion of increased productivity he’s physically incapable of doing one thing at a time.

A multitasker in this final stage of OCM is easy to spot. You can see him at his desk, his arms a blur as he types, texts and tweets at the same time. From a distance it looks like he has a hundred hands holding a hundred different gadgets. He’s a yuppie Hindu deity, the Supreme Being of Simultaneity. Sadly, this person is so far gone medical science cannot help. The only hope is that one of his digital devices malfunctions and gives him an ECT treatment. Until then, we can only pray.

The Big Issue

THREE o’clock at the office. The sounds of clerical work reverberate through densely packed cubicles. The familiar clackety-clack of fingertips on keyboards, the laboured breathing of printers under the duress of impending deadlines, and the mechanical slurping of a hungry paper-shredder form a percussion track that’s been playing since morning. Among it all sits a young woman, attuned to the rhythm of industry. She types, files, tends to chirping phones. She’s a typical office worker in a typical office, except for one important distinction: she’s not getting paid.

Talulah is a volunteer; one of a growing number of laid-off workers looking for something to fill the empty pages in their yearly planners. You might expect the recently redundant to be confirmed misanthropes, oozing spite from every pore. But, in some cases, the opposite has occurred.

“A number of not-for-profit organisations are reporting an increased level of volunteer enquiries, particularly from those who’ve been made redundant,” says the CEO of Volunteering Victoria, Dianne Embry. “Primarily, people are seeking to connect with their community, to do something worthwhile, and to feel a sense of meaning in their day.”

But, as always, there’s the issue of money. Judging by the sheer proliferation of its symbols – dollar signs, percentage figures – you’d say money was plentiful. Yet most people are continually on the hunt for this slippery substance, upheaving couches – and companies – to get at the spare change beneath. The whole planet is engaged in this pursuit of cash. So why would anyone want to work for free?

Talulah does it partly for the atmosphere. Her office is immersed in sound because it’s the administrative hub of a Melbourne community radio station, 3RRR. For around 10 hours a week, she operates the switchboard, fields listeners’ calls, and hosts the ‘graveyarder’ – the shift in which the DJ attempts to cover up the awkward silence between 2am and 6am. “I’d come here every day if I could,” she says, over the clomp-clomp of high heels on wooden floorboards.

She also does it for career advancement. “I would like to work in media arts so part of the reason for volunteering is to gain more experience in that area.” The know-how she picks up here also applies outside the insular, soundproofed world of broadcasting. “I’m sure I could have done reception jobs in the past, but I’d never really operated a busy switchboard,” she says. “Volunteering is a good way of learning a new skill.”

Talulah used to work in retail. For months, business had been slowing and shifts had been cut back. Management fobbed off requests for extra hours and started scrutinising staff performance, searching for excuses to fire people. The embattled workers muttered and moaned, then threatened to walk. The entire design team was sacked. Tension clogged the air-con vents.

“The day that it actually happened was kind of this huge culmination of these sort of bad vibes,” says Talulah. She was called in on her day off and told the store could no longer afford to keep her. Talulah hopes her volunteering at 3RRR will impress employers next time she pounds the pavement, resumé in hand.

Karen Kirton, a human resources manager, agrees that volunteering can look good on paper. “It shows some kind of dedication to something you’re not forced to do,” she says. But she stresses that sprucing up a CV should not be the sole motivation for offering your services. An unpaid position can be as demanding as a paid one. Without a genuine passion for the cause, commitment quickly wanes.

Until recently, Kirton was the national HR manager for FedEx Kinko’s, a printing business with 13 retail centres in Sydney and Melbourne. In September 2008 she got the call from headquarters. “That’s when they told us they’d decided to close operations in a couple of countries – and Australia was one of them.” Her bosses in the US lumped her with the unenviable task of telling 250 printing staff that their jobs were also destined for the wastepaper basket.

Kirton found the redundancy process, which was drawn out over six months, “emotionally draining”. On one occasion, she broke the news to a male employee on his birthday. His wife was pregnant at the time. The man was given several months’ notice. On his last day at work, his wife received a call. She was being made redundant, too. Effective immediately.

When Kirton finished up, she used her time to volunteer for 10 weeks in Ao Luk, Thailand, teaching English to adults. But it was no holiday. “You’re living in these communities. You’re expected to be working – in that volunteer sense – for most of the day, six days a week.”

Erica Louise was formerly the Australasian regional manager for Global Vision International, the agency that placed Kirton overseas. Louise says she saw a “surge of interest” in volunteering last year. Five or six redundant workers were calling every month; previously, the agency would receive only a few such enquiries a year.

People like Kirton and Talulah are the lucky ones in this story. They had a choice to volunteer, but 62-year-old Jim [not his real name] wasn’t given that luxury. Before the Global Financial Crisis he was happily retired, with his savings squirreled away in a super fund. Then the stockmarket took a dive, and the value of his shares plummeted $200,000. Now he can’t sell for fear of crystallising his losses. For the time being, he’s living off the Newstart allowance, but because he’s over 55, he has to complete 30 hours of unpaid work every fortnight in order to get paid. As silly as it sounds, Jim is an involuntary volunteer.

But is it right to force people to freely offer their services? Surely the restorative power of charity lies not in the thing that is given, but in the fact it is given without being demanded.

Even if volunteering is hinged on ambition – gaining experience, garnishing a resumé or travelling to an exotic land – selflessness and a desire to pitch in is also apparent. Perhaps that’s why many people say they’d continue to volunteer even if they managed to secure full-time employment. Talulah sums up the sentiment best: “I love volunteering more than working and getting paid!”

Hard times may present challenges, but opportunities can also arise.

WAtoday

WITH all the hullabaloo about the Kindle™ and the iPad™, it’s easy to overlook the e-reader’s centuries-old rival. But the Book™ is alive and well, with a sleek new design, lightweight packaging and wireless mobility to suit today’s busy bibliophile.

I have to admit being a little baffled by the Book™ at first. No matter how hard I looked, I just couldn’t find the ON button. After much fumbling I managed to start the device, and all it took was turning the front cover from left to right. No loading screen, sound effect or grand hurrah. It was an elegant beginning to what proved to be a charming piece of technology.

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New Matilda

CAN newspapers get any more desperate? Since Apple launched its newest bit of consumer electronics a week ago, newspaper editors everywhere have dedicated acres of space to the gadget, hoping to hold the attention of “tech-savvy” younger readers.

The day after the world’s least aesthetically pleasing dresser, Steve Jobs, released the world’s most aesthetically pleasing hunk of metal and glass, the iPad, the Age ran four articles in the “Focus” section, the Herald Sun ran a double-page spread asking if this product will “change the world” and the Australian ran three reports, an editorial and an online survey.

Overkill, anyone?

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Trespass Magazine

HI! I’m Greg, I was born in 1983, which kind of makes me Gen Y. Being Gen Y is really cool, ‘cos we’re ‘technologically savvy’ (I just looked up ‘savvy’ on my iPhone dictionary app) and ‘globally aware’ (I’m going to South-East Asia next year), and we’re the most ‘materially endowed’ generation, like, ever.

It’s true, I read it in The Age on Saturday, even though I didn’t finish the whole article ‘cos I had to check Facebook and tweet my friends to let them know what I was up to, just in case they were wondering. And then I got the BIGGEST laugh when I went back to the newspaper ‘cos the journo wrote that Gen Yers have ‘nomadic online tendencies’ and I thought, that is totally me right now.

The article also said that Gen Yers don’t read newspapers, which is kind of true but kind of not, ‘cos sometimes I’ll pick up some dead tree news if I don’t have my iPhone with me and I’ve got nothing to do on the tram. I HATE being bored. I’m Gen Y, and I need to be stimulated all the time.

I don’t read much at all, though once I did pick up this book in the library. Don’t remember what it was called, but it was about how the digital age ‘stupefies’ young people, and it was written by this professor-dude. His name was Mark B-something, might have been Bowerleen, or Bauerlein, I’m not sure. Anyways, he’s what demographers call a ‘Baby Boomer’ (I know about demographers and Baby Boomers ‘cos I looked them up on Wikipedia). Baby Boomers were born before the 60s so they’re old, really old, and they like to bag Gen Y, but sometimes I think they’re biased. Like this Mark B guy, for instance. He goes on and on about the importance of books, but it turns out HE’S AN ENGLISH PROFESSOR, so of course he’s going to defend literature. I mean, it’s his job to talk about the relevance of books. And though he says reading rates are falling, he doesn’t even mention the 100 million or whatever blogs, which is a total oversight, in my opinion. Big-time fail.

Baby Boomers also say that Gen Yers have short attention spans. Like in this article, where the journo wrote that Facebook and Twitter and Bebo ‘shorten attention spans’ and ‘encourage instant gratification’. Apparently this professor-chick, Susan G-something, from Oxford or somewhere, spoke before the House of Lords, which I learnt about on Wikipedia. Anyways, she gave a long speech about the impact of screen time on concentration, but the journo only quoted a few sound bites, which kind of makes me think newspapers might be shortening people’s attention spans as well. But I’m Gen Y, and I’m not so good @ that sort of analytical-type stuff, so what would I know?

The other thing I learnt from the Age article is that Gen Y might be self-centred, which doesn’t add up to me ‘cos although I look out for myself, I also give a lot to charities and stuff, though I guess I could be doing that for selfish reasons too. Whatevs.

Sometimes I get sick of people typecasting Gen Y. The media portrays young people as technology-obsessed narcissists who scrounge off their parents, spend every dollar they earn, flit between relationships and jobs and can’t string a sentence together. But the truth is, I rarely use Facebook, and I don’t have a personal Twitter account or an iPhone. I moved out of home when I was 19, I save more than 60 percent of my income, I’ve only worked a few jobs in my life, and I’m in a long-term stable relationship. I’ve been a professional writer since the age of 20 and have been published in major newspapers. My day job involves correcting the atrocious grammar of Baby Boomer bureaucrats.

But none of that matters, ‘cos I’m Gen Y, and all Gen Yers are the same. We act stupid and, like, talk in this vague way, and have this totally dumbed-down vocabulary, and so when people see me on the street they think I’m ‘tech savvy’ and ‘self indulgent’ and part of the ‘Me Generation’, even though they don’t know me. ‘Cos I was born in 1983, and that makes me a Gen Y stereotype.