The notebook
Blog
Notes on supply chain, procurement, and building things from scratch — written the way I'd actually say it to you over coffee. Filter by topic below, or just browse everything.
September 4, 2026
Turns Out You Can't Self-Host Your Way Out of Big Tech
I built the private server thinking I'd found a way around handing my data to big tech. A 2am conversation with a friend talked me out of that too — and neither of us had a better answer to offer.
August 28, 2026
The Program That Only Existed Because a Lot of Companies Said Yes for Free
Government wouldn't fund it. So an industry that's barely five years old built it anyway — out of its own pocket, with no guarantee anyone would follow. Over 500 patients later, that's still the part worth telling.
August 27, 2026
My Home AI Setup Costs More Than Four Claude Subscriptions
I spent a weekend building a private AI server so no conversation would ever leave infrastructure I controlled. It works. It also costs more than just paying for Claude, and a conversation with a friend made me realise why that's actually fine.
August 24, 2026
Reading Fire Season Like a Forecast
Those fires affected all of us. I ended up digging into how fire season is actually managed and procured — and found a pattern I already knew from somewhere else entirely.
August 16, 2026
It Runs in the Family
I spent one afternoon in 1992 watching my dad run past our block in Jhelum. Thirty years later, he's seventy-one, and I finally got to run next to him instead.
August 8, 2026
The Judgment I Made Before I Knew Anything
I built an entire opinion of a stranger's parenting in about four minutes, standing at the edge of a kids' race. What actually stuck with me isn't the judgment — it's that I still don't know what I'd do in their place.
August 2, 2026
Top 5 Moves That Actually Get a New Supply Chain Graduate Noticed in Australia
The fundamentals haven't changed since I graduated. What's changed is that AI now makes them faster to execute — if you're the one driving it, not waiting on it.
July 31, 2026
Walmart's AI Is Already Negotiating. My Local Council Is Still Deciding Who to Trust.
Two ends of the same story — one about a company already letting AI negotiate thousands of live deals, the other about a local government just trying to work out which AI vendors are even safe to let in the door.
July 30, 2026
What Ten Years Gave Me That I Didn't Have at the Time
I called Pakathon self-interest dressed up as community building. Rereading a colleague's old post about why she joined, I don't think that's true anymore — and I think I know why I got it wrong.
July 27, 2026
The Test I Can't Confirm I've Passed
Everyone talks about integrity when they're the one without power. The real test is what you do once you're the one with it — and I'm not sure I know the answer for the people I learned from.
July 25, 2026
I Said No Before We Talked Price. Walmart's AI Wouldn't Have.
Walmart's negotiation AI closes deals with 68% of the suppliers it approaches. It still couldn't have run the one negotiation that actually mattered to me.
July 17, 2026
Skipping the Internship to Start a Clothing Brand Instead
University required an internship. I argued that one department for two months taught you a fraction of what running the whole thing, start to finish, would.
July 10, 2026
Nobody Notices Supply Chain Work Until It Breaks. Managing That Is Your Job.
When the shipment arrives on time, nobody says anything. When it's late, everyone does. That's true — and it's also not the whole truth.
June 16, 2026
How I Cut Our Logistics Costs by 90% Without Losing a Single Shipment
Our starting freight rates were never our best rates — they were what we accepted when we had no leverage at all.
May 27, 2026
Why We Built Our Own Inventory System Instead of Buying One
We integrated the best inventory software on the market — and then hit its limits fast enough that buying wasn't the whole answer.
May 20, 2026
The 485 Visa Doesn't Guarantee a Job — Here's What Actually Worked for People Who Had One
I got my PR before I ever needed a 485 visa. But a sponsorship promise still collapsed on me over three uncertain months, and I watched friends fight their way past the exact filter graduates are hitting right now.
May 6, 2026
How We Got Australia's First Fully Electronic Medicinal Cannabis Licence
There was no pathway for what we were trying to do — so we built one with the regulator, instead of around them.
April 17, 2026
1,000 SKUs, 30 Vendors, and a Team That Needed More Hands
I joined an under-resourced accessories supply chain team and learned that the real problem was never the vendors — it was the mismatch between how fast phones sell and how slowly the parts to make them arrive.
March 30, 2026
Starting Pakathon Melbourne From a Newspaper Article
I built a movement to bring Pakistanis back home. Then I realised the whole premise was wrong.
March 12, 2026
Coordinating 80+ Store Refurbishments Without Missing a Delivery
Fixtures and fit-out materials for more than 80 stores, on schedule, with no room for a supplier to be casually late.
February 23, 2026
From Under 20% to Over 90%: Fixing a Warehouse That Couldn't Find Its Own Stock
The picking team wasn't slow because they were bad at their jobs. They were slow because the warehouse's own records didn't know where anything actually was.
February 4, 2026
Why I Chose a Two-Year Supply Chain Master's Over an MBA in 2013
I nearly moved to Germany instead of Australia, and I chose a specialist degree over an MBA on the belief that supply chain was about to stop being an afterthought.
January 14, 2026
What a Master's Degree Taught Me That Five Years on the Job Hadn't
I came into a Master of Supply Chain & Logistics Management already having worked the floor. That combination changed what the degree was actually for.
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