Category: Life and Associated Annoyances

Strata company AGM last night – absolute clattering bag of madness.

Usually only about 12 of us turn up. Since this isn’t (despite what BSG has taught us) a quorum, the meeting is adjourned for a week, at which juncture six of us turn up, have a brief discussion about the issues, and get home within an hour. Last night – thanks to a series of rabble-rousing letters that have been circulating around the complex whining that our strata fees are too high and the strata company are a bunch of despots on par with Darth Vader and Pol Pot combined – about 100 people turned up, all of whom wanted their own chance to yell poorly thought out abuse and idiotic questions at anyone who got up to speak.

The meeting was scheduled for 5:30. It actually started at 6:00 because it took that long for everyone to sign in (people insisted on monopolising the sign in sheet while whinging at the Strata representative) and didn’t finish till 9:10.

Idiocy reigned. There was a lot of yelling about cockroaches, herb gardens, guttering and how a bunch of palm trees have been devastating one woman’s existence for the last five years. Every budgeting decision was held up for prodding, poking, ridicule and demands to get a series of quotes, and every decision made at last year’s AGM was attacked by people who couldn’t be buggered turning up at the time but were now outraged that they weren’t consulted.

The main insanity revolved around the budget. People seemed completely unable to grasp the concept that the budget isn’t a list of what will be spent over the coming year, it’s a list of what can be spent over the next year, should it be necessary to do so. The fact that the total budget exceeded the expected revenue from strata fees by about 5 percent had people in absolute conniptions about how the Strata Company “can’t do maths”. A revised budget was eventually passed that clipped $50,000 from the maintenance budget for absolutely no reason apart from it made some morons feel that they were striking a blow for freedom and financial prudence, leaving me feeling like the transit advisor in Sim City 2000 and hoping that a retaining wall falls on their front doors and can’t be fixed until the following financial year.

Perhaps the most jaw dropping moment of the entire fiasco was when we were informed that problems with the complex need to be submitted to the Strata Manager in writing, rather than via a phone call. A woman – who had just been elected to the Resident’s Council no less – responded by complaining that she “[didn’t] have time to write a f***ing email”. If she doesn’t have time to write “a f***ing email”, where the hell is she going to find the time to serve on the Council? But then I’m probably just making the mistake of thinking logically…

Finally the dates for some levies were pointlessly shifted around and the meeting concluded with a bunch of imbeciles patting themselves on the back about how they’d stood up to the evil Strata Company and got to have their cake while simultaneously gorging on it.

The next year should be interesting to say the least…