The next decade....what's in store?

Lawks dem lazy sah!

On my way to the hairdresser this morning, circa 11:15am, I passed a bunch of men (and possibly women but was driving too fast to notice!) sitting around chatting on the side of a road they had just bushed.

You Jamaicans know that road work programme? It's probably a feature in most Caribbean islands. I've seen people doing the same thing in Grenada.

Anyway, I passed them liming at that time. I finished at the hairdresser and would you know they were in the same position? How long it took me at the hairdresser? Probably an hour or so.

But of course, we still behave like slaves some of us. We don't work hard unless someone behind us cracking the whip.

I am a whip cracker myself, but in a nice way. My nickname at work was 'The Iron Lady' after Margaret Thatcher (I found this out long after). I was Night Manager, working on shifts from 11pm to 8:30am. Unlike the other Night Manager who, everytime you called him he sounded as if you had just awakened him from a deep dream, I used to actually patrol the property, check up on the staff, do my check list etc.

I could count on one hand, the amount of times that I fell asleep and I usually would let my GM know. "Wasn't feeling well Sir, so took a room and slept for an hour."

So the employees knew that I was out and about. And I wouldn't just walk around and say "move it". I'd help out, I'd chat to them about what was going on in their life etc. So we had a good thing going.

But my point is, that I feel that if you are being paid to do 8 hours work, then that's what you must do, unless the boss tell you 'tek a break mate'.

But, we probably will never get this lazy slavery mentality out of our system will we.

Posted by yamfoot at July 27, 2005 06:21 PM