WA/Daylight Saving: To Join The 21st Century Or To Not, Part II

[opng]

Re: WA/Daylight Saving: To Join The 21st Century Or To Not.

Alright, i'll post it then.

We hate this darned daylight saving - and keep the shops closed after 6 and on Sundays too fang damn it!

Hey theres a place for DLS as i have said in my previous post just as theres a place for changing the shop trading laws, but name calling and mud slinging dosnt fix anything all people do is stick their nose up and say no, just for the sake of sayin "you wont tell me wat to do". Why dont the pro DLS camp say i dont think it can get in the way it is at the moment so how can we taylor it to suit the people of WA, not just stand there and say ur a bunch of turn of the century hillbillys for not wanting it. It's just childish behaviuor from grown adults.

 

[JimDocker]

Re: WA/Daylight Saving: To Join The 21st Century Or To Not.

Ok - I will say straight out. I do not support Sunday trading. Having the City shops open is fine, plus markets around the place. But I do not see Perth as having a big enough population to justify Sunday shopping. Many family businesses would be forced to open up due to leasing agreements and probably will not make any more money. It will just be another win for rampant consumerism.
I have now decided that I will vote no to daylight savings for all the reasons that I have mentioned on earlier posts.
Slag me off all you like.

 

[Frodo]

Re: WA/Daylight Saving: To Join The 21st Century Or To Not.

Ok - I will say straight out. I do not support Sunday trading. Having the City shops open is fine, plus markets around the place. But I do not see Perth as having a big enough population to justify Sunday shopping. Many family businesses would be forced to open up due to leasing agreements and probably will not make any more money. It will just be another win for rampant consumerism.
I have now decided that I will vote no to daylight savings for all the reasons that I have mentioned on earlier posts.
Slag me off all you like.

We already have Sunday trading in Perth , Fremantle and Mandurah. All very popular and successful. Also many independants rip us off on Sundays with poor quality food. The rest of Australia has Sunday trading. It's only the IGA lobby that stops us in WA.

Your DLS arguments came from a 'NO' stance. There was never achance you would vote otherwise.

 

[JimDocker]

Re: WA/Daylight Saving: To Join The 21st Century Or To Not.

We already have Sunday trading in Perth , Fremantle and Mandurah. All very popular and successful. Also many independants rip us off on Sundays with poor quality food. The rest of Australia has Sunday trading. It's only the IGA lobby that stops us in WA.

Your DLS arguments came from a 'NO' stance. There was never achance you would vote otherwise.

I voted yes last time. My arguments came from a point of view of changing my mind over a period of time.

Yes, Sunday trading works well in certain 'tourist' areas but for a number of reasons, I do not believe that it should be brought in more broadly. I actually work less hours now than I used to. In the past, I worked 60 plus hours regularly as a bachelor and still managed to get to the shops during normal hours. Forcing retailers to open means less and less family time. Even now, with me working between 46 and 55 hours a week, plus a wife that works, we manage to shop without ever resorting to doing our grocery shopping on Sundays.

As for all those people that think no Sunday shopping is unsophisticated and bad for tourists. Go to Paris on a Sunday. People are in art galleries, museums and cafes. That is what we should be building more of.
I watched Playtime recently, A brilliant piece of satire by Jacque Tati from decades ago that showed his concern about how consumerism was about to take over Paris. He railed against it at the time as did many others.

Change for change's sake is not sophisticated or clever.

 

[Dont be a lemon]

Re: WA/Daylight Saving: To Join The 21st Century Or To Not.

The bad news for all you pro DLS people is that after this current and last trial period it will be all over. The country simpletons and bogans of WA will vote against it just as they have in the past.

Edited for accuracy.

 

[Freo Big Fella]

Re: WA/Daylight Saving: To Join The 21st Century Or To Not.

"And while we're at it, I never got a vote on this new fangled "electricity" business either. That'll have to go."

 

[chook2734]

Re: WA/Daylight Saving: To Join The 21st Century Or To Not.

Not really. My business did suffer pain in the three weeks before DLS here, but 3 weeks before and 3 weeks after is way better than 6 months of 3 hour differences. So the compromise helps all. Remember that WA people hate change, no matter what, and that the last referendum wasn't about whether you want daylight saving but if you thought it would benefit the state. Still, we voted to keep the English queen (descended from Germany) as our head of state too. So what hope is there for change in an intransigent society?

Have you ever considered just starting work an hour early? There's no laws against it, and it doesn't have to bother anyone who doesn't like DLS. I've worked in industries that provide service to people across the country. When DLS started in the East, we'd simply go in to work an hour early. Problem solvered.

 

[Frodo]

Re: WA/Daylight Saving: To Join The 21st Century Or To Not.

Have you ever considered just starting work an hour early? There's no laws against it, and it doesn't have to bother anyone who doesn't like DLS. I've worked in industries that provide service to people across the country. When DLS started in the East, we'd simply go in to work an hour early. Problem solvered.

That most certainly is the case. I have people in at 6am to cover the east. But I think 5am is pretty unreasonable for them.

 

[chook2734]

Re: WA/Daylight Saving: To Join The 21st Century Or To Not.

That most certainly is the case. I have people in at 6am to cover the east. But I think 5am is pretty unreasonable for them.

How is it any different than when you push the clock forward one hour and pretend it's 6am? It's still 5am, you're just pretending that it's not - you'd basically be giving them some extended DLS for free.

 

[Frodo]

Re: WA/Daylight Saving: To Join The 21st Century Or To Not.

How is it any different than when you push the clock forward one hour and pretend it's 6am? It's still 5am, you're just pretending that it's not - you'd basically be giving them some extended DLS for free.

It's different because they would need to go to bed earlier and miss out on all that healthy activity that we are blessed with on an evening due to DLS.

And if I consider my own 6am walk, well that would be out the window, because the stock market opens at 7am without DLS. And the opening and closing times are when the real action happens.

As I say, DLS gives more exercise morning and evening, lower electricity costs, and a much healthier lifestyle.

 

[Rob]

Re: WA/Daylight Saving: To Join The 21st Century Or To Not.

Ok - I will say straight out. I do not support Sunday trading. Having the City shops open is fine, plus markets around the place. But I do not see Perth as having a big enough population to justify Sunday shopping. Many family businesses would be forced to open up due to leasing agreements and probably will not make any more money. It will just be another win for rampant consumerism.
I have now decided that I will vote no to daylight savings for all the reasons that I have mentioned on earlier posts.
Slag me off all you like.

What annoys me isn't people that don't want to shop on Sundays - perfectly fine choice to make. It's that they want to impose their views on shopkeepers that want to open then and shoppers that want to shop then. What the hell gives you the right to tell a shop when they should open?

What is it about Perth that encourages the 'say no to everything' attitude, and even worse the will to impose it on those of us that don't have it?

 

[dugrene]

Re: WA/Daylight Saving: To Join The 21st Century Or To Not.

Not really. My business did suffer pain in the three weeks before DLS here, but 3 weeks before and 3 weeks after is way better than 6 months of 3 hour differences. So the compromise helps all. Remember that WA people hate change, no matter what, and that the last referendum wasn't about whether you want daylight saving but if you thought it would benefit the state. Still, we voted to keep the English queen (descended from Germany) as our head of state too. So what hope is there for change in an intransigent society?

Wrong. The most recent (last ? we hoped.) referendum in 1992 answered the question 'Are you in favour of the standard time in the State being advanced one hour from the last Sunday in October 1992 until the first Sunday in March 1993 and in similar fashion for each year thereafter ?'

It had nothing to do with benefiting the State.

 

[Rob]

Re: WA/Daylight Saving: To Join The 21st Century Or To Not.

Wrong. The most recent (last ? we hoped.) referendum in 1992 answered the question 'Are you in favour of the standard time in the State being advanced one hour from the last Sunday in October 1992 until the first Sunday in March 1993 and in similar fashion for each year thereafter ?'

It had nothing to do with benefiting the State.

I'd say he was referring to the shopping hours referendum, i.e the last referendum held on any subject.

 

[dugrene]

Re: WA/Daylight Saving: To Join The 21st Century Or To Not.

It's different because they would need to go to bed earlier and miss out on all that healthy activity that we are blessed with on an evening due to DLS.

And if I consider my own 6am walk, well that would be out the window, because the stock market opens at 7am without DLS. And the opening and closing times are when the real action happens.

As I say, DLS gives more exercise morning and evening, lower electricity costs, and a much healthier lifestyle.

Wrong again !

Western Power says because daylight saving started in December last year, it was responsible for an increase of point-6 of one per cent in electricity use.

Never let the truth get in the way of good story eh.

 

[dugrene]

Re: WA/Daylight Saving: To Join The 21st Century Or To Not.

I'd say he was referring to the shopping hours referendum, i.e the last referendum held on any subject.

Yeah well it included the words 'daylight saving' in the sentence so I assumed that was what he was referring to.

 

[chook2734]

Re: WA/Daylight Saving: To Join The 21st Century Or To Not.

It's different because they would need to go to bed earlier and miss out on all that healthy activity that we are blessed with on an evening due to DLS.

And if I consider my own 6am walk, well that would be out the window, because the stock market opens at 7am without DLS. And the opening and closing times are when the real action happens.

As I say, DLS gives more exercise morning and evening, lower electricity costs, and a much healthier lifestyle.

I don't think you get it. If they get up at 5am instead of 6 am (which equates to 6am DLST), if they usually go to bed at 8pm, you are saying they have to go at 7pm (which would be their usual of 8pm in DLST). It is physically and literally the same time, the only thing that is any different is some numbers on a clock. All you are doing is having your own DLS, without imposing on those who don't want it.

All you seem to be saying is that the number on the clock controls your life. The pro-DLS argument seems to often centre on it being 'only an hour', but I wonder how many pro-DLS people are actually capable of changing their lives by 1 hour without changing the clock?

 

[YOTC]

Re: WA/Daylight Saving: To Join The 21st Century Or To Not.

The only argument he could have is they miss out on more primetime tv shows. Hardly the argument pro DLS's want is it?

 

[Docker Clint]

Re: WA/Daylight Saving: To Join The 21st Century Or To Not.

And if I consider my own 6am walk, well that would be out the window, because the stock market opens at 7am without DLS.

What time (WST) does the stockmarket in New York open? You do realise that the earth is round and the sun will rise at a completely different time when you're 3500km away?

If the stock market is our major concern, then campaign for a singular time zone right across the country that is calculated from the geographic centre of the continent.

Of course we should be adjusting our lifestyle to the whims of the stock traders seeing they bring the rest of the population so much joy.

At the end of the day, there wasn't this level of agro without DLS. It was accepted. Now that it's been forced on us like a child asking the same question over and over and over again hoping for the answer it wants, we will get to vote once again. Imagine if the nation voted Labour and we were told we would have another 3 years of John Howard forced on us just to see if we would change our minds at the next election? Charming.

If the will of the people at the next referendum is against the introduction of DLS, we can only hope this democratic decision will be accepted this time.

 

[Eagle87]

Re: WA/Daylight Saving: To Join The 21st Century Or To Not.

I don't think you get it. If they get up at 5am instead of 6 am (which equates to 6am DLST), if they usually go to bed at 8pm, you are saying they have to go at 7pm (which would be their usual of 8pm in DLST). It is physically and literally the same time, the only thing that is any different is some numbers on a clock. All you are doing is having your own DLS, without imposing on those who don't want it.

All you seem to be saying is that the number on the clock controls your life. The pro-DLS argument seems to often centre on it being 'only an hour', but I wonder how many pro-DLS people are actually capable of changing their lives by 1 hour without changing the clock?

Well apart from the dislocation of life in general caused by going to bed earlier than everyone else in your family because of a very early start time its manageable but it doesnt actually solve the problem. Assuming you also have customers in Perth, they still expect you to be able to service them during normal business hours - which equates to starting an hour earlier but finishing at the same time - it extends the normal business day (the client contact hours) by 1 hour when we are out of sync with the East Coast....

Starting earlier is not really an option as people in Perth wont tolerate a sign that says

For the next 3 months we will close at 4 instead of 5 to compensate for the fact we are starting an hour earlier due to the non-adoption of DLS

...

But you arent interested in logic, reason and years of experience.

In fact lets turn it around, if you are so against DLS, just get up an hour later....

 

[crackerjack4X4]

Re: WA/Daylight Saving: To Join The 21st Century Or To Not.

The myth of evening leisure

Ask a pro-daylight saver why they like/would like daylight saving and a common response will be 'It gives me more time in the evenings'.

This overrated benefit comes under the dubious paradigm that extra daylight equals extra time. Strangely, I have never seen the logic of this paradigm put under any scrutiny. It is simply accepted by the mainstream as psuedo-fact — the same mainstream that ridicules daylight saving opponents for supposedly thinking it confuses cows.

Alternatively, people may claim that daylight saving gives them the opportunity to 'do more in the evenings’ or ‘get more out of the day'. If you drill deeper to find out what they do (or get) more of, the usual examples follow — a round of golf after work, gardening, time with the family, trips to the gym, a walk in the evening, going out without fear of being attacked, a twilight chardonnay on the deck, more chance for children to play, not having to go to bed early … and variations on the same theme.

The scenarios differ but the fundamentals are the same. More daylight after work means more leisure, more relaxation, more freedom and generally getting more out of life. When SOCOG (Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games) first announced that daylight saving would start two months early in 2000 to prepare for the Olympics, a reporter covering the story on television told us it meant ‘more fun for everyone’.

Like most dreams, however, the ‘more daylight equals more leisure’ and the 'more daylight equals more time' fantasies fade in the cold light of day. No matter how much daylight is shining outside, an often dreary, stressful and tiring domestic routine dominates the early evening hours and cannot be put off. In both summer and winter, commuting time is usually between 5 and 6.30 pm. Most dinner preparations get underway between 6 and 7 pm, and then dinner has to be eaten, cleared away and washed up.

Then there are dozens of miscellaneous after-work chores that vary from household to household — food shopping for dinner, picking up children from social activities and after-school or day care, housework, children’s homework and bath rituals, feeding animals and generally preparing the household for the next day (on daylight saving, you lose an hour for such preparation in the morning). Even in one-income households, the day’s most labour-intensive period for the full or part-time homemaker, falls between 5 and 8 pm.

Over many decades, clever marketing of the long, leisurely daylight saving 'twilight' has soaked down into the water table of public consciousness. Yet, having lived in Sydney for fifteen years, I observed little anecdotal evidence of people regularly using their last hours of saved daylight for daylight-related leisure.

Whenever I drove through Sydney suburbs after 7 o’clock of a daylight saving evening, the streets were sunny but deserted — the only consistent sign of life being the glow of televisions through living-room windows. Would-be gardeners were missing from their yards, perhaps too tired or too busy indoors. Parks were devoid of children, perhaps in fear of stranger danger. Women who claimed daylight saving made them feel safer seemed reluctant to venture out alone after 7 pm. A rare power walker, dog walker or cyclist could be seen, but far more often the people using the streets at that time were either returning home late from work, going out early for the evening or engaged in some form of shopping activity.

Even in the harbourside and beach suburbs, hardly anyone was engaged in a leisure activity that directly required daylight. While there was usually some life on the beaches, footpaths and walkways between 5 and 7, these were all but empty by 7.30. On the other hand, restaurants, pubs and shopping centres were usually full, but this was also the case during winter.

For part of our time in Sydney, we stayed at a mid-northern coastal caravan park each Christmas holidays. Again, it was the same story. The spectacular January beach sunset at about 8 pm was watched by a trickle of isolated fisherfolk and occasionally a child or two collecting pippies.

Meanwhile, in the caravan park about 200 metres away, hundreds of families huddled around their televisions — even the tent dwellers who had brought their TVs from home. Those who weren’t watching TV were usually sitting indoors talking around the table after dinner. If ever a communal game of twilight beach cricket or football got underway, it occurred before dinner, i.e. 6 to 7 pm, when people were more available.

Wherever you live, daylight saving does not seem to make much difference to how people spend their early evening hours. Yet daylight saving takes the credit for recreational activities that, on closer inspection, are really the result of a naturally extended summer twilight. Each summer in New South Wales, TV stations report a drop in early evening ratings, which is put down to daylight saving. Yet, the same drop also occurs in the standard time states. With or without a clock change, and with or without a drop off in viewer habits, the 6 pm TV news bulletins still boast the highest summer ratings.

Whether on daylight saving or standard time, the advent of dinner usually disperses outdoor social leisure activity by about 7 pm as people withdraw into their homes. By the time dinner is over and cleared away, only the very long twilights experienced on latitudes over 40 degrees S (which, except for Tasmania and to a lesser extent Victoria, do not exist in Australia) are likely to motivate people to come out again to engage in a ‘daylight’ leisure pursuit.

Even on high latitudes, there is a limit to how much daylight related activity can encroach into the evening without compromising what is, for most people, the main purpose of the late evening hours — winding down from the day and preparing for sleep. Using extra evening daylight to ‘cheat’ on time — by putting off dinner or staying out late — has a way of coming back on you in the form of stress and sleep deprivation. When living in London, I found that people had well and truly stopped doing daylight related activities by 7.30 pm, even though they still had at least another two hours of daylight to enjoy.

Still, Queensland’s daylight saving lobby pushes the evening twilight leisure fantasy for all it’s worth, vigilantly reminding us of what we are ‘missing out on’. A few days after the 2000 clock change in the southern states, the Brisbane Courier Mail gave a front page spread to the subject of ‘Our sunshine city left in the dark’. In this article a Brisbane restaurateur wistfully commented on how nice it would be to play tennis after work or have a wine on the deck on 'your day off'.

Considering Brisbane’s summer standard time sunset allows full or partial daylight until about 7.00 pm, both tennis and wine-sipping are not only possible, but regularly engaged in during the early evening hours. Even so, no matter how much daylight is up their sleeves, sooner or later all twilight revellers have to go home, or indoors, and meet the demands of the evening domestic routine.

Yet quotes like these, accompanied by images of much more 'fortunate' families living in southern states, emotionally bonding on their sun-drenched decks or at the beach after 7 pm, have been appearing regularly in the south-east Queensland media for decades — with no counter-arguments to question their validity. They create a false sense of deprivation that is totally at odds with the reality of recreational life in Brisbane and the rest of Queensland. No amount of darkness would ever deprive a Brisbane resident of the chance to enjoy a glass of wine on the deck — or a beer on the verandah — either before, during or after sunset. And, if it is on one’s ‘day off’, what possible difference does a clock change make to when, where or how, we enjoy our glass of wine?

So too, this rhetoric ignores the fact that, unlike in temperate climates, many Queenslanders welcome the onset of darkness to relieve the build-up of heat and humidity throughout the summer day. In fact, much summer social activity is left until after the sun goes down. For the most part, Queenslanders prefer to conserve the mild, early morning hours — the most pleasant, and least mosquito-ridden, time of day.

Some pro-daylight saving arguments attempt to portray extended evening daylight as throwing off the restrictions of winter. Liberating as this may sound, it’s a little misplaced in the context of Queensland’s seasonal daylight patterns. Brisbane and the rest of Queensland enjoy among the longest, sunniest and most pleasant winter days of anywhere in the world. For most Queensland residents, the overall transition from winter to summer conditions is about as liberating as taking off a cardigan.

Rather than being an object of derision for not having daylight saving, as is commonly portrayed in the media, Brisbane’s relaxed, sub-tropical culture is the envy of southern capitals. To say that we don’t allow ourselves the luxury of social or leisure interaction, simply because we don’t change our clocks, is absurd.

As a final consideration as to why daylight saving's 'evening leisure myth' retains such a powerful hold over our thinking, one has to consider who or what drives it. Contrary to popular belief, daylight saving (either its introduction or its extension) has never been the result of a grassroots lifestyle movement. Rather, throughout its century-long history, it has been overwhelmingly driven by the business sectors of the developed world — and Queensland is no exception.

One does not need sunglasses at 7 pm to see that daylight saving extends the daylight hours of the working day, which in turn obliges people to work a longer average day, particularly the self-employed. What's more, extended daylight after work induces people to go out and spend money, rather than stay home and relax. One could very well argue that daylight saving's true agenda is to stimulate productivity and profit — neither of which have ever been the natural companions of leisure.

Sadly, however, far too many Brisbane residents have been educated by the media and the daylight saving lobby to believe otherwise. According to pro-daylight saving rhetoric, it seems that Brisbane and the rest of the state is doomed to spend our summer evenings huddled miserably indoors in the dark, or worse, ‘behind the times’, until we finally ‘see the light’ and put our clocks forward.

In an increasingly time-impoverished world, daylight saving gives us an illusion of extended time and leisure. But an illusion is all it will ever give us. No amount of clock changing will grant us more hours in the day.http://www.nodaylightsavingqld.com/night.htm

 

[chook2734]

Re: WA/Daylight Saving: To Join The 21st Century Or To Not.

Well apart from the dislocation of life in general caused by going to bed earlier than everyone else in your family because of a very early start time its manageable but it doesnt actually solve the problem. Assuming you also have customers in Perth, they still expect you to be able to service them during normal business hours - which equates to starting an hour earlier but finishing at the same time - it extends the normal business day (the client contact hours) by 1 hour when we are out of sync with the East Coast....

Starting earlier is not really an option as people in Perth wont tolerate a sign that says ...

But you arent interested in logic, reason and years of experience.

In fact lets turn it around, if you are so against DLS, just get up an hour later....

If you actually bothered to read the post I was replying to you, rather than just my post in isolation, you might have been able to understand it. Frodo has already said his business caters for the East due to the 2 hour time difference by having people starting at 6am, but believes it is unreasonable to ask people to start one hour earlier to cater for an extra hour due to DLS in the east. Given that it's fairly unlikely that he has the people who start at 6am working through to 5pm to cater for WA clients, I'm going to assume he has more than one staff member. All that needs to be done is to stagger shifts, so some people start early and finish early and some start later and finish later - pretty simple really, and most staff would probably be happy with a bit of flexibility in the work place.

It's all well and good to say the anti-DLS people lack logic and the ability to reason, but we are actually light years ahead of the pro-DLS people, in that we embrace flexibility, but we don't require a clock to tell us what to do.

 

[Docker Clint]

Re: WA/Daylight Saving: To Join The 21st Century Or To Not.

words

I thought you wrote that until I got to the end, but it's brilliant none the less.

 

[dugrene]

Re: WA/Daylight Saving: To Join The 21st Century Or To Not.

http://www.nodaylightsavingqld.com/night.htm

Bravo bravo ...
Especially the part about people spending more time at work. I noticed last summer during our trial, people where still going home from work in greater numbers later in the evening.

 

[Eagle87]

Re: WA/Daylight Saving: To Join The 21st Century Or To Not.

If you actually bothered to read the post I was replying to you, rather than just my post in isolation, you might have been able to understand it. Frodo has already said his business caters for the East due to the 2 hour time difference by having people starting at 6am, but believes it is unreasonable to ask people to start one hour earlier to cater for an extra hour due to DLS in the east. Given that it's fairly unlikely that he has the people who start at 6am working through to 5pm to cater for WA clients, I'm going to assume he has more than one staff member. All that needs to be done is to stagger shifts, so some people start early and finish early and some start later and finish later - pretty simple really, and most staff would probably be happy with a bit of flexibility in the work place.

It's all well and good to say the anti-DLS people lack logic and the ability to reason, but we are actually light years ahead of the pro-DLS people, in that we embrace flexibility, but we don't require a clock to tell us what to do.

Wow ... stupidity and arrogance in the one post, well done!

I am not talking about some mickey mouse public service operation but rather something that requires intellect and the clients like to deal with those who actually know whats going on - advisors and the like - such businesses cannot have their key staff leaving to go home at 4 under some flexi-time system and pissing of their clients - but this would be obvious if you had ever worked in any real business in which advisors actually had any worthwhile skillset ok?


As I have said before the management of any and all issues to do with DLS can be done - sometimes its more difficult than re-rostering staff (does everyone on BF have jobs that have set hours and a boss - it seems to attract the terminally employed..) but apart from some possible costs impacts it can be managed. There is no compelling argument for DLS i.e. no argument that requires it, similarly despite the protestations of the nay-sayers there is no compelling argument against it. The arguments for, do seem to be supported by the vast majority of folk in Australia and the rest of the world sharing similar mediterranean climates, however it is fine for us to take a different view....

I mean we are the state that is against everything (we all know the list) and we are plainly better for it - I mean there isnt anything wrong with WA, its perfect and cant be improved - anyone who disagrees with that view is clearly an idiot, from somewhere else and they are free to piss off "back there" anytime....

Have I got it now?

 

[chook2734]

Re: WA/Daylight Saving: To Join The 21st Century Or To Not.

Wow ... stupidity and arrogance in the one post, well done!

I am not talking about some mickey mouse public service operation but rather something that requires intellect and the clients like to deal with those who actually know whats going on - advisors and the like - such businesses cannot have their key staff leaving to go home at 4 under some flexi-time system and pissing of their clients - but this would be obvious if you had ever worked in any real business in which advisors actually had any worthwhile skillset ok?

I'm not quite sure where I mentioned anything to do with public service, but I do know of your superiority complex (wow, and in a weagles supporter too, who would have ever guessed ) so I won't bother with your attempts to derail the argument.

I'd suggest such an operation is suffering from having insufficient people with the 'worthwhile skillset' that you deem so important. That's got naught to do with DLS. Even without DLS these people are entitled to holidays and sick leave, gee, some of them may even take a lunch break occasionally, or even be unavailable in a meeting . If the business can't survive without them for one hour a day, how do they cope if the have an extended (ie 2 weeks) period of leave?

As I have said before the management of any and all issues to do with DLS can be done - sometimes its more difficult than re-rostering staff (does everyone on BF have jobs that have set hours and a boss - it seems to attract the terminally employed..) but apart from some possible costs impacts it can be managed. There is no compelling argument for DLS

I stopped reading after that bit. Good to see you've finally worked it out 87