Saturday, May 31, 2008

Pushing a bus uphill wishing people were more responsible!

Damn I am so frustrated!
Today is the end of the month but we haven't met our targets and it seems the loss is going to be pretty large. Thankfully we have a large volume of work at hand which if converted to money would help to cover up this months losses next month.
But sadly it seems that I am the only one who is interested in making this happen.
Today we have lots of work. But most of my team players are not performing to their full capacity cos they got drunk last night. I walk in this morning to realise half of them are not there which means all the work I plan to get done today will happen half heartedly or not at all. One of my senior team members did not even bother to inform that he was not going to come. Even though he has a lot of important stuff to finish.
Right now it seems that I am the only person here who is interested in protecting these guys jobs. I wonder if they realise the seriousness of the economic situation in the country. That all hands have to pull together if we are to make it work.
Right now at this moment I feel i am pushing a bus uphill and those who are in the bus are my staff who are enjoying the ride and think its a party going on.
As I started this operation it was fun to employ people and see how they develop and there was a joy about being able to contribute to the lives of people along with the members of their families in a positive manner. But right now I wish I could just reduce my outfit to a bare minimum get rid of the dead wood and be able to work on projects which I love. Instead of having to now work on projects purely for the financial benefits cos I have to pay the salaries of nearly fifty people at the end of the month.
I was reading on rajaratarala's other blog how the biggest problem in Sri Lanka is the fact that there are not enough people with proper skills in working. This is absolutely true. I was talking to another CEO the other day who said one of his friends has shifted his entire software development operation from Sri Lanka to England because he found the workers there were far more responsible. I agree with him absolutely. I find our people are so lazy and unproductive and having to work with the creative types makes this worse by a factor of ten.
Can some one make a responsibility pill please. I need to huge dose of it to be given to my so called team mates.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Doing Bad with good intentions!

It was Wesak... I was looking for four days of rest... complete rest of mind and body. Alas I forgot that though Wesak is a time for peaceful reflection on the teachings of Lord Buddha it is the time when the religiously inclined in our country go Mad over Dansals.
Actually I should have been forewarned.
For the past few months we have been hounded by groups of people who come into our house with a file and ask for donations in a menacing manner. It is absolutely amazing how generally the thug in the area along with some of the most unsavoury characters in the area always take the lead in such a project. Sometimes I laugh my self to tears at the irony of all this.
Once the hunt for donations stopped then the other signs of things to come began to come up... Sheds began to come up taking over the road space as if it was someones own personal property. Who gave a damn about parking or blocking of the road? After all this was done for the larger good? Nails were spilt leaving them to puncture tyres of some sorry souls car.
And then the hangers on hung around... (guess you cant expect anything more from them) blocking the road and making sure that vehicular moment came to a stand still. You had to beg of them to move off the road. And even after all these ominous signs I did not realise what was going to happen on Wesak Day.
Chaos my dear friends! Absolute Chaos. All these people at the Dansalas thinks its their god given duty to stop all traffic without paying scant regard to any road rules or any rules of civility for that matter. Cars stopped all over the road. Traffic jams people in the middle of the road walking nope not walking strolling as if they were on a beach and there were a few cars who had stopped on the middle of the road and were eating without moving their vehicle? I know us Sri Lankans are a selfish bunch. But how selfish can one get. Why do temples encourage this kind of behaviour in the first place? Don't tell me this is in keeping with the teachings of the Lord Buddha. In fact later on into the night you can see all these so called organisers drunk and dancing to loud music outside the dansalas.
I feel its such a crime and an abomination that when a sacred ritual such as a dansala has been brought down to this level.
But hey then again this is Sri Lanka after all.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Sleeping your way to the top!

You will not believe it. I never thought this would be possible in this day and age... but yes if you dont have talent it helps you to spread your self out to the boss and move up in life. There is this person I know. Who holds a very powerful position in one of our countries top companies. But doesnt have a clue about what she is doing. Apparently the only qualification she has is being quite beautiful... and ofcourse sexy... so it seems she has decided to make the best use of the talents she has been blessed with and has mastered the art of using sex as a tool to get to the top. And the amazing thing is the top guy does not realise the damage which is being caused by her not only to the image of the company. But also to the brands which they are custodians of. The sad thing after all this is over and done with it is the brands which will finally suffer. Guess one can only learn from their mistakes.

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Its been a long time but I am back...

Well it has been sometime since I had the inclination to post on here and the best reason is I don't know why I didn't feel like it... it wasn't that life was that boring.... it wasn't boring but it wasn't interesting either... he he guess the oxymoron in me is surfacing....
Well the last few weeks have been pretty cool and hectic at the same time... Ive been bored stiff and working my butt off... one of the worst situations I had to face was I had to terminate someone and ask that person to resign... and amazingly he took it pretty well... he was doing sweet nothing here and getting paid far too much for it. I do believe he knew that as well and was expecting this moment to come a long time back.... I must say its quite a relief now that I have got it out of my system. Because it was really frustrating me. Well anyway he got a lot of notice and it galvanized him into action to get a project he was sitting on started and now it seems that he might end up earning more money through that than he was earning with us. Well thank goodness it ended in a win win situation otherwise I would have had to live my life with the guilt and shame of it hanging over my head.
Well that's it for now but I do hope to be writing more frequently once again. So to my non existent readers online keep your eyes open. You never know what might happen