Dignity and importance of Blue-collar work

It still sends shivers down my spine when I remember my barely-walking daughter grabbing hold of my leg and refusing to let go as I tried to get into the car to head off to a trouble spot.Two days later, having had three guns pointed at me on different occasions, I knew when I was pushing my luck and told news desk: Fire me if you want but I am done here…

That’s by way of saying that, unlike many desk-flying white-collar workers, I do know that it can be traumatising for a family saying goodbye to Dad (or Mom, these days) as he or she heads off to a risky job to keep food on the table. Sadly, it took me far too long to realise it, but that’s another story…Seeing that touching moment when a daughter says goodbye to her dad – in the latest ad for Dromex protective gear – I could instantly identify.

She carefully hands him something packaged in Dromex packing and then he – the Safety Supervisor – gets in the bus to head off to work. Arriving at the factory, he finds his daughter has included a note, which says: “We love you baba. Come home safe.”He removes his respirator mask and puts it on and we see him in various places around the factor, being protected from the noxious fumes. There’s even a little time to explain the technical virtues of the respirator and its replaceable filter cartridge.

#Orchids&Onions: Outsurance’s community care scores big, Eskort’s rib campaign sizzles

Brendan Seery  17 Jun 2025

Dromex and its products bring him safely home to his family. The ad follows the theme or other Dromex ads, which focus on the workers they will be saving – or the workers who will be wearing their protective clothing.It’s a great showcase for the products and underlines what they do: they get people back to their loved ones.It’s also done in a way which shows the dignity, and importance, of blue-collar work, which is often done in dangerous, dirty conditions.An Orchid for Dromex.

Bad AI job

If you didn’t know it, that awful time of the year has come around again – when you have to file your tax returns. I have been doing this willingly for decades and, even when I have had to pay the SA Revenue Service (Sars), I have done so without complaint (even when there has been some pecuniary pain present).

That’s because I am one of those who believes you have to “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s”.

Tax money makes the country go round and, as someone who is among the fortunate to actually have job, I am privileged… but I also know I have an obligation to pay something back to make the country a better place.

That doesn’t mean I at all condone the way money is wasted – but that is really an different conversation altogether.In its latest little video – doing the rounds mainly of social media, I think – Sars is taking the principle of saving taxpayer money to the extreme… by using free, AI-generated imagery and video.

SARS auto-assessment notices will be issued from 7 to 20 July 2025. Disagree with yours? File via eFiling or the SARS MobiApp.No notice? File from 21 July 2025.#TaxSeason2025 #SARS #eFiling pic.twitter.com/mySkePFzgM— SA Revenue Service (@sarstax) June 12, 2025

Fair enough… except that, whoever put it together appears to think that any city and any highway and any beach is the same. It’ll do is not an attitude I expect in the custodians of the public purseI did a double take when I noticed the cars on the highway were travelling on the right side… not South Africa, clearly. Then, I noticed a massive, Soviet-era type statue dominating the city skyline. Certainly not South Africa.

Doing a quick bit of reverse imagery tracking, I discovered the image was from… Kyiv in the Ukraine. Other clips were, similarly, clear not shot in South Africa.

How difficult would it have been, Sars, to send someone out with even a cellphone camera and get better, more relevant, footage?However, if you paid an agency to do this for you – and they don’t come cheap – then you have been scammed.

Audit them…Sars – you get an Onion for missing an opportunity to produce a genuine South African ad, which might make people feel a bit better when you raid their bank accounts.