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I found a friend recently who is an avid reader and a fan
of many things, amongst which are research and
reading: two things that require a lot of patience
and are time-consuming and exhausting. He, who is
also an avid worker, just began running a business
that has a weekly deadline that must be met at any
cost. Considering his abilities, this is not
something that would be too difficult for him were
it not for the simple fact that the business relies
mainly on him and one other person of the team.
I respect that he is able to maintain such a high-pressure
work environment week-in and week-out, carrying the
load of research and writing that he does, while
still being able to play a managerial role. But as
commendable as his actions may be, if he were not to
show up for work one week, everything would stop. It
would come to a complete and screeching halt, and
that it turn would affect thousands of people.
For someone as vain as myself, I am sure that knowing that
something relies solely upon you and your well-being
would be a flattering reality to live in, but the
fact remains that having a single person as the
foundation for an entire institution spells a recipe
for an impending disaster.
This could all be attributed to the fact that he perhaps
did not have a choice with a new business, were it
not for about 15 other people that are working for
the business. Each has a certain amount of
responsibility that is delegated to them, and yet
even those may not be met to the fullest ability of
the person that they have been assigned to. This
simply means that the pressures of the managerial
work mount trying to make sure that the work that is
supposed to be done is getting that way.
Sadly, as has become the norm in the Ethiopian work force,
none goes out of their way to excel in their work.
Certainly none goes out of their way to step out of
their requirements and try in whatever small fashion
to ease the burdens that he may have to handle. This
is a truth that can be applied to many work forces
of businesses across the city. It is very rarely
that you find people that are willing to take on
responsibility.
My question here is how long these sorts of systems can be
sustained. This is not the only such situation, if
you were to take a close look at the private sector
or even the public for that matter, you would see
that there were many areas and businesses that
depended single-handedly on the existence of one
person. Although the work ethics of these people may
be commendable, this is certainly no way to sustain
businesses, or anything else for that matter.
But the issue of sustainability is one that is slightly
more worrisome when applied to the public sector. We
hear it thrown around a lot in the public media,
although I am not sure how sustainable many things
in the public sector are. How sustainable for
instance is the war in Somalia? How sustainable are
the subsidies that are being applied to fuel prices?
How sustainable is the private banking sector? How
sustainable is the soil in this country with all the
deforestation, irrigation and fertilizer that is
going into it? The choice of vocabulary in this
particular instance does not suit me too well.
This is an issue that applies to every individual and as a
result, the larger whole. Each person is responsible
for maintaining whatever responsibility they have at
work, in social circles, and whatever other circles
that they may be a part of in their lives. If the
individual does not do this then the burdens fall on
the shoulders of someone else that has to maintain a
larger role to make up for it. The more that this
happens, the less likely that whatever the
undertaking may be would be able to be sustainable.
But the issue here is that people are not willing to take
on that responsibility and are leaving the workload
in the hands of the people that are. The people that
are will not last forever and having to carry the
burdens of others. And what happens when that person
falls apart? Everything else just crumbles with
them. |
