You are in the Army now

One of our old helpers visited us yesterday. Her son joined the army a few months ago. She is going to see him in a few weeks, where she will see him for four hours. She says she spoke to him over the phone.

“than eye issara wage nevey. Surthal gathiya gihin”
(now he is not like those days, childish (loveable?) nature has gone” she says with sadness, but perhaps also with pride.

He will pass out soon. The entire village will hire a bus to see one of their sons pass out.

Soldiers: they are our guardians. There are a few bad eggs, but the majority do a very difficult (and good) job – staying in the sun, with dust going up their nose and faces. It is easy for us to find fault in the way they check our vehicles, and issues such as them not wearing gloves when they check our bags. A few of us are thankful – others, they complain. This guy had a job which paid more than what he currently gets now – but joined the army as it was his dream. I hope people like him will someday get to visit places like Dartmouth and return to the battle field when their political masters demand so.

This is the last post for the year. All the best for 2008…

Bars Cafe

Went there for lunch. Lovely place. This is down Duplication road neighbouring Dialog, about 500 metres or so from Liberty Plaza. I suspect that this is run by P&S.

Food was great – taste and presentation (presentation didn’t mean stupid meaningless, inedible, wasteful things – but nice and tasteful) . I had a mutton Godamba – it was great. The Mango juice i had was fresh – and guess what? it didn’t seem to be diluted with water or any such cheap trick like that!

It cost 1,800 or so for five people (of course, two ladies did share their meal….).

Attendance bonus

Santhoshi commented “Whats your suggestion on attendance bonus for the people who don’t take leave?” in “Bonus and Salary increase” (link).

The options are:
1) Pay something for the leave that is not used (in LK its 14 annual and 7 casual)
2) Don’t pay anything: You don’t get anything if you don’t take leave
3) Allow the employees to carry forward un-used leave to the next year
4) Charge the employee for not taking leave :’(

In an ideal world, it would be number 2 or even 4: everybody needs a break (and everyone need to be forced! For example, if others don’t take leave, but if i take leave (say if i have a family…) then i would get penalised for taking time off. However the other guy who didn’t take leave perhaps is inefficient or could be efficient but leading to burnout. Neither is good for the person, the company, nor the society at large.

So, people should be forced to take time off. However, in LK it is easier said than done. Most casual workers rely on Over Time – so there will be a back lash even if we try to limit the normal working day (to 8.5 – 9 hours) with a cap on maximum working hours per week.

Moreover, I have friends in certain companies who work round the clock – who cannot even take leave on certain public holidays because of the workload!

In short, if an organisation truly genuinely valued its employees, they will care about their health and make sure that the employee will take time off (and will not give incentives for not taking leave).

Bonus and Salary increase

Its that time of the year – Reviews, Bonuses and an increase in Salary. I would say that the following is the minimum amount we ought to get from the company we sell our labour to.

Bonus: If you got your last salary increment in Jan ‘07, then it should at a minimum be = annual salary * 20% (inflation (link)) so that we have maintained our salary- so if we look at in terms of months, it should be 2.4 months.

Salary Increment: again, a minimum 20%. Note, a 25% increment would actually mean that we get only a 5% increment which again will disappear within about two months.

If we do not get at least the above, its time that we look out for other places that perhaps come close to the number, or give better non-taxable perks, or reduced working hours.

PS: the above scale is applicable only to those who earn only a basic salary. For example, if you get a company maintained car – well, that sure adds at least LKR 50,000 to your package – and automatically adjusts for inflation.

Year end office party – things to remember

* Don’t skip it – one of the few chances to meet people of different departments
* Stay away (or limit alco) – you don’t want to be too tipsy: don’t know who you will run in to
* Go speak outside clique – the only way to get to know people
* Enjoy!

PS: people are often good at giving suggestions – but not good at following them: including yours truly. I was going to watch my alco, but I didn’t. I am nursing a badly bruised ego at the moment after passing out for every manager / colleague to see. There will be enough cannon fodder to last 2008.

You have known X longer than Y: therefore

Some people think that the longer you know someone, the better you will know them and that stronger the relationship will be. And when you meet someone new, and enjoy their company and start hanging out with them, you get accused of liking someone new and choosing them over old friends. They could use the Sinhala saying “the horn that came later, is better than than the ear that came earlier!” (uhm, for us males, i vouch that it is true! – go figure)

Things change.

Friendship in the twilight zone

I miss two of my closest friends. One of them married about an year ago, and the other will get married next year. Both their time is tied up with work, husband, fiancé and family. And yours truly is tied up with his work.

The few times that i have tried to get through to them, i have not succeeded. It has been the same story for those in the clique. They haven’t spoken to these two for a long time.

Silence grows. “silence like a cancer grows” (from sounds of Silence, Simon and Garfunkel). And it is really sad when each other no longer knows first hand what is happening in the others life. Then, we merely become “facebook friends”.

Dialog reduced tariffs – web site stale

The price war continues – Dialog to Dialog SMS is now down to LKR 1.00 (+ taxes). Peak rate outgoing within the network down to LKR 3.00 (+ taxes for postpaid) and LKR 4.00 (+ taxes for prepaid); these are the numbers that they have on the front page of their site. Sadly, the website design is poor and i cannot link to the particular page (they use Jave something). Moreover, these prices are sadly still not reflected under the tariff section of the site.

The next worse thing than not having a site, is have a site with old information. I would have expected Dialog to have been a bit more proactive and to have updated the relevant sections in a timely fashion.

The Dilbert Blog – shortens the feed :’(

I have read a few of the Dilbert books and i love the truthful cynicism in most of it. I look forward to the Dilbert cartoons. About a few months ago, i found Scott Adam’s Dilbert Blog and read whatever i found interesting in the reader (Google Reader). I found most of it interesting – and some – not so; but i could see everything in one glance in the reader and that was great! no adds, a clean lay out, and importantly i could quickly skim read the first line of each and every paragraph before i decided to actually read it.

The thing is, now he has done something and i can only see a few sentence in my reader. So, i have to actually visit his site to read it. So he really has to get me interested on what he writes by a) the title and b) the very first words. Lets see.

To be fair, he makes money from adds – and if people do not visit his sites, he will make less money. However, it is a sad day. I will probably read less.

I read a number of blogs on the reader and visit the actual site only to comment. But most the the blogs i read are not of commercial nature.