Wayne Potgieter

Thanks Folks. Since dropping my bomb I have already started investigating two projects. My wife says I am already more relaxed. Well that's not true, she actually said "you aren't such a knob anymore"

Well, I have resigned for the first time in my life with no other job to go to. My last day of being a contributing member of society will be 22 December. From then on I am going to be a bum.

Honestly dont know. The plan is to do the NEBOSH Certificate then get into the industry to start gaining work experience while doing the 2 year diploma. Thats the plan at least. My wife reckons that i have 30 years of work left in me so she says taking a few months to make a proper career decision is a great investment of time. She is right. I suppose thats why we have savings right...

SA company is no more. I sold to my partner and took a step out. I was trying to find a replacement candidate for myself as i moved into a new role here in NZ. I looked for 6 weeks for a candidate and eventually took someone with little experience. There is really almost no unemployment here and that means that its far harder to find workers than work. Thanks for the kind words BTW.

I think I have made a mistake. I absolutely detest my new job. The company is terrible and I have zero job satisfaction. I was made several financial commitments around incentives but these are not actually achievable. Most of the commitments I was made centre around EBIT, but after spending a week with my head buried in the financials, I can now see why this is an almost impossible target. Those of you that know me well, will know that I am not the smartest guy in the world. BUT I am no quitter and will make up for my lack of aptitude with hard and diligent work. Here is a bit of history for you... I was kicked out of school at a pretty young age and began my first full time job at 13. I later went back to school and obtained matric equivalncy and went on to study further, but this was all done either part time or correspondence. I obtained my first job in logistics in 1999. I am tired of the industry. We have worked pretty hard as a family and we have some money tucked away and i could comfortably afford to take a year off of work and dip into the savings. The only cost of this way of thinking is that it eats into our savings and that money could be used for a house or an investment. My wife is pushing me to take a 3 or 4 month sabbatical from work and clear my head. I have NEVER been unemployed since the age of 13. This is a very alien way for me to think. I have recently been trying to recruit some staff here at work and I have really struggled. There are too many vacancies and not enough candidates. I am certain when i decide to jump back in to the working word that I would be able to obtain a job pretty quick. I am thinking of a complete career change. I would like to get into Health and Safety. I feel it is a growing field and there is huge consultancy work opportunities available. My plan is to take some time over the sabbatical and obtain the necessary qualifications to begin a career in Health and Safety. I will give my current employer 2.5 months notice to give them as much chance as possible to replace me before the end of the year to try and reduce the impact to my reputation. Anyways, not sure why i posted that, but it felt good to get it off my shoulders.

probably ubag. www.ubag.co.za Or find someone willing to take it for you?

Right folks, I need some help. Part of my university work is I have to conduct a public survey on some healthcare issues in New Zealand. May i please ask you to complete one or all of these surveys? They are only ten questions each, so it should not take up too much time. Only for folks living in NZ though. Thanks https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/G2YWPBX https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/GJWXHYL https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/GC5PK5N

he would probably get some more love taps on the back of the head. "Knock knock"

I am in Christchurch for the day. It's pretty cool. I dig it.

i support this completely.

Thanks

We babysitting while the ladies run?

Hayley, If you keen for a dinner together with your mum, we can definately do that. There is a great little mexican place in Tauranga we can all go to?

We would love to show you and your mom the black sand beaches. Also, the ski trip would be awesome if she joins us as well. As for the Rotorua ride, i hadnt really looked at any dates or anything, i just realised i have been to Rotorua 5 times and I have not yet ridden my bike there and thats kinda sad.

Anyone keen on a Rotorua Bike weekend?

Yeah, i found that ground as well, but i kinda like the idea of camping on a beach...it feels kinda special.

Need some advice. I love hiking. I want to take my kids on a couple of hikes and this has got me wondering on the rules and regulations around freedom camping on beaches. Does anyone know if it forbidden to camp for a night on a public beach? There is a gorgeous beach north of Piha (Anawhata Beach). It is only accessable through walking and is part of the Hillary trail. While we are on the subject, does anyone have any suggestions for an overnight trip that can be done around auckland?

Completely agree. NEvermind what the hotels and flights must be costing to get to the USofA

the forks over knives website is pretty cool.

The only animal based products I still use are a bit of milk in my coffee in the morning and occasionally some cheese added to a recipe. Like last night we had a really nice roast veg salad that had a small crumbling of feta on the top. Other than that...no animal products. The change in my kids has been amazing as well. My daughter asks for broccolini as a snack. There is photographic evidence to prove this! I did not believe my wife when she told me so I forced a photo out of her. Sure, I reckon if we went to friends house for dinner and they made something with meat we would eat and enjoy it. Nobody wants to be around those preaching and condescending vegan type folks. I just found the changes quite dramatic and considering that we all discussed this on the group ride , I felt you all deserved some feedback. Ps. Don't tell my wife she is right....no husband needs that!!! ????

shout if you need a lift

So on an extremely personal note. About three years ago I weighed in at 92KGS. Most of you have met me and know that I am almost legally a midget, so that's a lot of kilo's for a short guy. I struggled to lose most of the weight but had managed to get down to around 75 kgs. The last few kilo's have really been hanging on for dear life. As much as I was not that interested in my wife's crazy plan to switch to a predominantly plant based diet, I reluctantly agreed simply because I am lazy and don't want to cook. But the results have actually been quite amazing and profound. Here is a little graph of my weight loss over the last year as measured by my Garmin scale. Can you guess where the plants came in Honestly speaking, at no point in the last three weeks have I "missed" meat. Its kinda weird. We have been eating fantastically well. Now, I am not about to grow dreadlocks and start living in a forest or anything and god help me if i become one of those vegan weirdos, but maybe, just maybe, there is something to this....

ha ha ha. #firstworldproblem