(It is more likely to be right if you plan for contingencies!)
(For my overseas readers:
The phrase “She’ll be right” meaning ‘don’t worry over it’, is widely used and understood in Australia and New Zealand, reflecting the laid-back and optimistic attitude often associated with their cultures.)
I was talking to my daughter on our Father’s Day outing and we had a conversation about promoting her husband’s business, Elscomm. They do computer support for small to medium sized businesses.
We were talking about getting more customers and we discussed direct sales and promoting through other people’s clients, like accountants. She spoke of offering a free service to attract the interest of prospective clients.
I suggested offering a security audit to discover any vulnerabilities to ransomware since it is a growing and expensive problem for even smaller businesses.
She surprised the heck out of me by saying they had already extensively surveyed that and it was a topic of almost total non-interest to business owners and managers.
She figured it was because people were so focused on running their business, so totally immersed in the production area they spent too little time managing their business. I think some people refer to it as the difference between working ON your business rather than working IN it.
I was thinking about it later and it occurred to me that it is probably symptomatic of a fairly common Australian attitude of, “She’ll be right mate.” said with an ever so slight pause after ‘right’ and before ‘mate’. Not enough of a pause to warrant a comma but not grammatically perfect without one.
This is an Australian/New Zealand expression commonly given by one bloke to another to encourage or support him when he is facing a challenging or difficult situation.
A shorter form of the encouragement similarly expressed elsewhere in the world as, “It’ll be all right in the end. If it’s not all right, it’s not the end.” (Aussies and Kiwis have a habit of shortening things.)
It is also used to encourage someone contemplating an act larrikinism or bravado. Sometimes heard in video compilations of blokes doing stupid things, just prior to something breaking or failing. I was reminded of that this week when I saw a meme that said, ‘When someone says, “She’ll be right mate.” It won’t be!’
Not the same as but in a similar vein to one bloke saying something can’t be done and his mate responding with, “Hold my beer!” as he accepts the statement as a challenge.
Like any characteristic, the laid back attitude of ‘she’ll be right’ can be over applied. With disastrous consequences. Merely hoping that things will turn out all right in the end without giving any thought to planning or preparation is a sure way to put yourself in what should have been an avoidable situation if circumstances deteriorate below what is normal or expected.
In fact I once came across a great concept that an emergency only becomes an emergency when it is not predicted and planned for. So spending a little planning time contemplating what could possible go wrong and working out what would keep the fat out of the fire in those situations is potentially a very good use of your time.
“What if interest rates go through the roof? How would I pay my mortgage?”
“What if rents went sky high such that I could not afford to live where I am?
“What if I lost my job. How would I earn a quid?”
In fact, I often use the “What if?” question with myself to query or challenge myself or the story being promoted in the media. As in,
“What if nearly everything we heard on the TV was merely propaganda in support of an agenda?”
“What if they leave out the bits that do not fit their agenda?”
“What if standard medical advice has nothing to do with helping the patient attain optimal health and everything to do with conforming what the higher ups have decided is best for their sponsors?”
And the more I read independent reports of various scenarios in the world that conflict dramatically with those in the main stream media, the more I am of the mind that these are some of the more important questions we should be teaching our kids to ask.