Leslie Dean Brown

Open letter to St George bank

April 21, 2017 — leslie dean brown

St George bank dragon — Illustration by leslie dean brown. © 2017. All rights reserved.

Dear Anthony Mathews,

I‘m writing to you today to let you know about my extreme disappointment with St George Bank. It pains me because I have been a very loyal customer over the decades — I have been with St George since it was a building society.

I was so young on my first visit to the local Hurstville St George branch, that I even signed my name for the very first time, on one of those separate pieces of paper (for one of those little passbooks everyone used to get). I was so young and naïve. I can still remember asking my late father how to sign my name. His reply? “Just spell out your name in running writing”, he told me, somewhat hurriedly. So to this day, that’s how I sign my name.

Yesterday, I checked my available balance and made a bunch of very small purchases under $15. Pathetic little purchases, for art materials. There was also one bigger transaction that went through around the same time. Of course, that went through successfully, even though that purchase was made several days after the other ones.

So what has happened is that a St George Bank computer algorithm has slogged me with fourteen direct debit dishonour fees. All in the same day. 14 direct debit fees that are around half the total value of the purchases! Why, that makes your lending rate 50% daily interest!!

I wouldn’t mind so much, because I know computers can make mistakes. I’ve seen them do it! Humans are different. Humans are more compassionate, right? Wrong.

Because earlier today I rang up St George phone banking to try and sort out the issue. After no less than 10 attempts at dialling 13 33 30, I eventually got through. And I spoke to a young man named ‘Jacob’. I was polite although Jacob said that he could not reverse those transactions.

But really? That seems odd, that a multi-billion-dollar company cannot refund $70 to someone who has been with them for over 30 years. It is my money after all.

Even so, I was very polite to Jacob and he wished me a great weekend. Why argue? Why be grumpy? There are some things we cannot control.

$70 may not be a lot to you. But it is a lot to me right now. That for me is the equivalent of two days’ pay. That is the food on my table. Right now, I am doing it so tough, that I can barely afford to eat the recommended two pieces of fruit per day. So that is more than my weekly supply of noodles while I spend the remainder trying to make better art. Yes that $70 is the paper and other media that I need to remain “a starving artist”. So, no, I’m not going to have a terrific weekend, Anthony Mathews, No.

And I wouldn’t mind so much, except that I’ve been nothing but easy-going and polite ever since I was a small boy. I’ve been principled. I’ve been kind to everyone and kind to the environment as well. I was the epitome of “being a doormat”.

So instead of being angry, I’d like to personally THANK you Mr. Anthony Mathews. Why? Because you’re a tax-paying citizen and you’re effectively helping me to either study, become employed or self-employed. So thanks for that. Other countries do not provide anywhere near that level of financial support.

My point, Anthony, is that’s not even my money that St George bank has taken. It’s yours. It’s your tax money, Anthony! And your employer has taken it from someone that is working very hard to become self-employed (and I’m getting there, too, albeit slowly). How do you feel about that? How do you feel about a bank stealing your hard-earned tax dollars? Eh?

What companies forget is that design is a very powerful tool, but it can only work so well. It can make you seem more professional for example. But customer service has to take up the slack. It’s no use employing fantastic design, and then shooting yourself in the foot when you treat customers like absolute garbage. That is what they have done with me. It’s not good enough. I can see straight through their advertising campaign.

Other banks do not treat their customers this way. Just today, I signed up for a special ING-direct offer. They are giving me AUD$100 to join their bank. Imagine that, a bank that actually gives you money rather than taking it?

Now, I have been with ING before and I was able to save with them. But my main payments still always went into St George. Without exception. And I transferred it from there. I stayed with you all through those “direct saver account” years…

Your staff has always been polite and your branding is good. But today Anthony, what remains of my corporate brand loyalty has finally gone out the window. And being a designer, that says a lot. Because we love brands.

I don’t think I will ever forget my account number that I learned as a kid, oh two five, four two six, oh three two. I still can’t even recall my tax file number correctly. I’ll be sorry to see St George go, really I will.

On Monday 24^th of April, I’ll be driving all the way to Batemans’ Bay branch. And I’ll be closing my beloved St George Account. Right now you would have to give me a hundred bucks just to stay. On top of the seventy you originally took.

Sincerely
leslie dean brown

UPDATE: Eventually, the staff working at the local branch took over and things quickly went downhill. I don’t get angry very often, but yes they actually made me very angry. I would have fired them, if I were a boss.

People are so angry with banks today, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if someone crazy with a mortgage blows one of their branches up. I even told them that, and instead it made ME look crazy.

Oh and it seems I got what I was aiming for, №1 Google ranking for the search term “open letter to St George bank”.

Dear McDonalds,

November 28, 2016 — leslie dean brown

I can’t believe I have to do this…

Illustration by Leslie Dean Brown. © 2016. All rights reserved.

Dear McDonalds,
we want a McSoy burger + McMushroom burger on the menu.
Signed, your future vegetarian/vegan customers.

[please click link to sign the petition]

On creativity. And Space Ace Jase.

October 6, 2016 — leslie dean brown

Nautilus — Illustration by Leslie Dean Brown. © 2015. All rights reserved.

What is the strangest thing you have ever heard?

When I was growing up, by far the funniest, most preposterous thing I had ever heard anyone say was this:

“I can kick a soccer ball to China”.

As kids, I can remember us all standing in the middle of the street. And we simply erupted with laughter.

Air, friction, gravity and power aside… it was the silliest thing I had ever heard anyone say. So forever afterwards, he was known in our circle as “Space Ace Jase”.

He had said something that none of us had ever heard before. What he said… he had said the impossible.

Looking back, you have to hand it to this kid – he was certainly creative.

And I can remember wondering, how did he think up such things? Kick a soccer ball to China… that’s ridiculous! Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

But then later in life, we realise we have lost a lot of that creativity we were inherently born with. It has been slowly eroded from us.

We are taught what to say. How to say it. When to say it. Why to say it. Where to say it. Which people to say it to. So we eventually lose that sense of silliness.

I think it’s because people seem to assume you dont need to be ‘clever’ to be creative. It all starts around high school. All the nerdy, intelligent people do maths and science to get a higher tertiary entrance tank score. And science, engineering and maths don’t at first appear to be very creative, do they? They always rank higher than music, literature and art.

I used to get paid quite a bit but I found it all rather boring after several years. So you need to ask yourself: what does compensation matter if you /really/ don’t like doing it?

And then sooner or later we want to get some of that creativity back again…

So how do we become more creative?

I think creativity is simply doing something in some new way with something that has never been done before. Creativity is after all… simply creating something new!

Creativity simply means taking two things that have never been put together and just… whacking them together.

First off, have you noticed that parents often tell their children: “don’t be silly!”? They say something completely new and then they are promptly told it is silly. “Don’t be silly” you hear parents say straight afterwards.

Well I think in order to be creative, you have to be prepared to take risks like that. You have to be prepared to say something wrong. Just like kids. They are always making mistakes, but they are naturally very creative.

For me, being creative, maintaining my creativity —or better yet boosting it— usually means doing something differently. And doing something completely different each and every day.

Going somewhere I have never been. Seeing something I have never seen. Listening to sounds that I have never heard before. Or reading something I have never read before. Even feeling things I have never felt before. I’ll skip the sense of smell just to throw you off my sense-track-pattern.

So my best advice to you, if you want to be more creative, to do that, is to start doing things differently. If you have a choice, choose the option you don’t normally choose. Don’t go to the same old cafe. Don’t walk the same route.

Why do creative careers pay less anyway?

Being creative uses your intelligence in a different way. We should all be paid the same. The same as ‘clever’ people. Because I’ve noticed that clever people can actually be very uncreative. That’s why nerds are drawn to all sorts of comics. Becuase they can’t come up with that shit themselves. Am I right? Of course I’m right.

I am slowly becoming more creative and it has taken about 1-2 years to build that skill. I could argue that there is much more actual work involved in creating one of my illustrations than pressing a button and getting the results from a scientific experiment. What I mean is that there are many more minute decisions that have to be made. I should be getting paid more for illustration. But I get paid much, much less.

Unfortunately the world doesn’t seem to work that way. “Like anyone can be creative.”

I would say that if there is a theoretical basis for undervaluing creatives, it is because to be creative, sometimes you have to be prepared to make mistakes (you can’t please everyone). And people that make mistakes are sometimes not seen as being ‘creative’, they are seen as being ‘wrong’. And being wrong or silly doesn’t pay.

So creatives always get paid less. Or do they? If you think about it, professional actors and musicians are some of the most highly paid people on the planet. I’m talking way, way more than 200k salaries.

Well that’s it from me today,

Take care,

Les.

Development is not progress

September 20, 2016 — leslie dean brown

I believe we cannot save the world by simply buying things all the time.

Illustration by Leslie Dean Brown. © 2015. All rights reserved.

Even if we all bought 100% eco things 100% of the time instead of the plastic crap that everyone buys today, they are still ultimately things and it will mean that the demand for timber and other eco fibres will go up further, leading to further deforestation elsewhere (more plantations of whatever crop, be it corn for renewable plastic, bamboo or hemp for fibres, etc).

Personally I think the only real ‘solution’ for the entire human civilisation is … to do nothing. And by that I don’t mean “don’t change”. I literally mean: do nothing. For people to simply work less. Work a four day week. Work a four hour week.

We should be more like the Aborigines! We should look up to the Aborigines! The original (and best) custodians of this land.

More sleep and more meditation. That’s the only hope for humanity, for people to be more mindful. And that is the best that I can think of (after several years of thinking I might add).

And I can tell you first hand that it’s very hard to live with less, because we have all been brainwashed with “more more more”.

Of course it’s a huge problem because half the global economy is based on blatant overconsumption. I think one of the best things I ever did was to live in Spain — it taught me to be happier with much less.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t all try to be more eco, but what I am promoting these days is simply minimalism. So I would rather buy a wooden broom than have a vacuum cleaner (for example). Because I see the broom as being much less wasteful over the long term.

Unfortunately, when you begin to look at where all of our starting chemicals come from, the industrial processes used to get them, and where everything else is mined from, you realise how big the problem is.

People don’t want mines in their own backyard. And so the ONLY other place to get them is the natural spaces that are left. That is a very big problem. If only because “accidents happen”.

From my point of view as a former materials scientist, I find that life is so special, we should be fighting for every shred of biodiversity on this planet. We couldn’t even hope to artificially make anything like near as complicated as a fly or a worm from first principles using artificial methods (without cheating using genetic engineering etc).

[Read more…]

What children can do to stop being bullied.

June 17, 2016 — leslie dean brown

First, have a read of this. Then my response below may start to make sense.

Hello Tayla,

Definitely don’t ignore that kind of behaviour, no.

I was bullied too at school. A lot. To the point that my life was starting to be endangered.

The best advice I can give you is this: “people treat you the way you let them”. [Read more…]