Paper Giant

NewslettersJuly 9th, 2019

PG #37: The peculiar blindness of experts

Dr Reuben Stanton
Dr Reuben Stanton, Non-executive Director & Co-Founder
Illustration by Hope Lumsden-Barry, Communication Designer

Illustration by Hope Lumsden-Barry, Communication Designer


There’s this strange thing that happens in Australia every June – it’s called the ‘End of Financial Year’ (aka EOFY). It’s an odd time where companies and government agencies alike are trying to spend as much money as possible to justify their budget requests for the next financial year and reduce their tax liability.

What it means for consultancies like ours is that June is the busiest time of year: the time when our clients desperately need work delivered before July rolls around, and we are working as hard as we can to deliver it.

It’s also winter, and everyone wants to take a break.

It’s also school holiday time.

It’s also flu season.

And what happens is the interaction between these things – busiest time of year + winter + holiday time + flu season – means we arrive early July exhausted and gasping for breath. I don’t know about you, but if I wanted to design a healthy working economy, this is not how I would go about it. And there are ways to design better economies – check out this article on 5 things Australia could do right now to end poverty.

All this is really just a preamble to explain why you might notice the newsletter is a little light on this week. We hope you are able to be kind to yourself for the rest of the winter months!


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