Jayprog

An Idiot's Guide for Working for Contractors

2009-06-19T21:39:43+03:00

The truth about Contactors

This is some information that you will rarely get from most people as far as employment is concerned and I thought I would just share it on my blog as an experience.

1. Contractors do not want to pay their employees and will exploit every loophole available to exploit workers.

2. Contractors are like politicians never to be trusted. This trust element applies to both their employees and those they work for. Contractors are always scheming ways of cheating and getting as much profit as they can. In general they are like chameleons; they change colors so often to suit the environment.

3. Contractors never believe in overloading responsibilities. The more you work the more you get work piled on your desk for no extra pay. When working for contractors be very careful to just do the work you are paid for. If you work extra hard you get no reward for it except extra responsibilities for nothing.

4. Contractors break the law all the time and expect to be treated fairly. When you join a contracting company you better be familiar with the labour laws and join legal firms to protect you. Every piece of paper concerning your employment is critically important. Most cheating takes place through paperwork.

5. Contracting companies are never concerned about staff turnover. In all that you do when working for contractors, never fool yourself thinking you will change the culture of a contracting company. You are not the first person to occupy the position you have and you’ll never be the last one to leave. Hiring and firing is an ongoing process with contractors. As a new employee you are a freshman and easy to exploit. By the time you realize what I am writing you will be frustrated and ready to leave the company but the big thing is that you have been used. You go and the next person comes to repeat the same cycle.

6. Contracting Companies manipulate labour laws and use the slow wheels of justice to exploit employees. Never fool yourself thinking that the justice system will protect you, contracting companies know that the court system is bureaucratic and takes long to conclude simple cases. In the mean time their work will be going on. In actual fact contractors know workers are not patient and therefore most cases brought to court will end up with the employee losing out over a long time. It can take up to 5 years to conclude a simple labor dispute.

7. Contracting companies have a spy network. As a rule of the thumb, never trust anyone at work. Keep all your information and intentions to yourself and pretend to be happy all the time. People are busy spying on you so be very sensitive to information and the comments you pass especially about the management and directors of the company. Not everyone likes you anyway and you have to accept it deep down your heart.

8. Contracting companies operate in a cowboy style. You never know when a gun can be pulled and to who it will be pointed. In a cowboy style, the one who pulls the gun first controls the situation. When you decide to leave employment make it so secretive and if possible announce it suddenly.

9. Contracting Companies Invest in projects not employees. Never fool yourself thinking the company needs you so much, there are a bunch of desperate jobseekers that will take your job at half the salary you are getting today. Contracting companies do not care about their employees, what they need are more contracts and making super profits and they see employees as a great expense.

10. Your Service Period is not very important to the contacting company. Never fool yourself thinking that you have been employed by the same contractor for a long time there they will keep you. The more you serve a contracting company the less it requires your service. This may sound absurd but it’s the sad truth. When you serve a contracting company for a long time it means you now know the system and you become a problem in that you now know too much. To make your life easier always leave before you stay longer than necessary.

11. In any organization there is always a Yes Man and you have to identify this person as soon as you can. The Yes Man is a dangerous person at any work place and has to be handled with care to avoid damage to your reputation and career. This person would usually appear friendly and advocate for change when you talk to him. Usually a Yes Man has served and survived in a hostile environment for a long time and his survival is based on other people’s downfall. You plan things together and he changes his mind on the last minute and you are left exposed.

Bush to Obama Transformation

2009-02-13T18:39:43+02:00

This is how American Politics works. From one President to another no major differences. The war in Iraq still continues, foreign policy remains the same.

Welcome to America.

A lost Democracy

2009-02-13T18:31:52+02:00

My views are bound to meet critisism from many circles but I believe it does not matter to conceal the truth when the fact will hurt youn in the immediate future.

The Zimbabwean opposition has lost the battle to Zanu PF and the message is clear on the wall that Mugabe is in charge. Mugabe trashed the power sharing agreement on day one by appointing more ministers than the two opposition parties combined despite the fact that Zanu Pf and Robert himself lost the general elections.

Thanks to SACD for failure to call a spade a spade, Mugabe is a tyrant and very few leaders in Africa can tell him that in his face.

To Tsvangirai I say you have betrayed the trust that people had in you because you are not patient and can not wait any longer to take the high office. But the sad thing is that Tsvangirai settles for number two when he won the race. This reminds me of the bullies at school when i had to limit my potential in sport to avoid conflict with the big boys who could not stand being beaten by a young boy.

We now need a new struggle in Zimbabwe, may be the NCA should transform into a new opposition because MDC is dead.

SADC No Solution to Zimbabwe Problem

2008-12-23T19:23:05+02:00

Some SADC leaders operate like a gangster and will not give solutions to the Zimbabwe situation. The fact is that some African leaders are so afraid of democracy that they cannot afford it a chance to exist.

Some people think Zimbabweans are so docile and will never rise against an African regime that is terrorizing them and displacing people in masses. I think Zimbabweans have grown up to realize that war is not the only solution to this catastrophe. The next question then is how come the people of Zimbabwe managed to free themselves from white colonial rule and are now in a situation worse than they were 29 years ago and cannot free themselves again?

The answer to the above question is found in what I call collective effort from not only the people of Zimbabwe but the neighbors also. The war against colonial rule was won because countries like Zambia, Mozambique, Malawi, Botswana etc made great efforts to squeeze the colonialists and isolate Rhodesia regionally, this led to the Ian Smith regime failing.

The effort of neighboring countries is very important in correcting a humanitarian crisis. Even in our social lives we need good neighbors to live peacefully with our families.

In my entire life I’d never heard of a country that closed a hospital but thanks to Zanu PF I’ve witnessed it. Things that are happening in Zimbabwe are horrible and very soon it is going to be worse than what is happening in a war zone.

The situation in Zimbabwe could have been resolved after the March 2008 election in which Zanu Pf lost to the MDC- T in all elections. Zimbabweans will remember Mr. Thabo Mbeki as a man who spoiled their future by telling the world that there was no crisis in Zimbabwe. Mr. Mbeki has always been a careless and biased man when it comes to the Zimbabwe situation. I correctly predicted that this man would leave office before the end of his term and surely he did. It puzzles me then why SADC puts trusts in such a man who was rejected by his own party and country to lead South Africa. Mr. Mbeki has failed and there is need for him to be relieved of his duties as a mediator.

When the Rule of Nature Takes Control

Embracing Communist ideas in a modern world is one challenge that needs total madness to survive. When a tyrant government is faced with numerous failures on the tables and its bag of short term solutions is empty, the masses can expect to hear anything.

The above situation depicts the Zimbabwean situation in which Zanu Pf has run out of ideas and solutions. Blaming to Western countries for the cholera epidemic that is currently ravaging the poor people of Zimbabwe is one shocker that the geriatric gerrymanders in Harare have pulled.

To those who left Zimbabwe long ago they will remember that this type of propaganda is not so new in Zimbabwe. During elections some people in rural areas were misinformed by Zanu Pf that Morgan Tsvangirai is a white man with a Shona name trying to take back the country. Another propaganda claim that Zanu Pf also made was during the 2002 drought. America and Britain were blamed for the drought as the two nations were said to have directed rainfall away from Zimbabwe.

When a dictatorship is about to fall, it is first overwhelmed by catastrophes which rapidly deplete its limited and stretched resources, failure to cope with this leads to blaming external factors. It is followed by dissatisfaction within the echelons of the repressive system. This in essence is an unstoppable cocktail of an uprising that sweeps the dictatorship from power.

In studying dictatorship and tyranny I have realized some common trends exhibited by all dictators who have ever lived and fallen down, Hitler, Kamuzu Banda, Milosevic, Idi Amin, etc, in their ruling years, dictators, all think they will rein forever. They never see the wave of change until it is on their door step.

Dictators never seem to get the truth on the ground, they believe in what they want to happen and so people tend to exaggerate facts and tell the dictator what he wants to hear. In most cases no sane person would want to raise the fury of a tyrant by telling him bad news. Dictators live in an isolated world from the people the rule. In most cases they rule a vast poor people who rely on the dictator to provide food, while on the other hand the dictator lives a plush life and cares little about the people. Little I say because he only needs the people to justify his power and monopoly over the resources of the entire nation.

SADC Afraid of Mugabe

2008-11-12T04:48:04+02:00

An Open Letter to President Thabo Mbeki

2008-04-12T17:12:12+02:00

Dear Mr President,

We Zimbabweans who are living outside Zimbabwe because of the atrocities being committed by the man you so much want to protect (Robert Mugabe) really feel you are letting the whole of Africa down.

It is time you put your friendship aside with the Old Man and start to tell the whole world the truth. Zimbabweans are tired of your efforts to make us suffer more and remain under the grip of this dictator. On several occasions you mislead the world.

Right now there is a crisis in Zimbabwe and you chose to take the issue casually by telling the whole world that the situation is manageable. It really does not make sense for the rest of the world, except you that ZEC cannot release the presidential results more than 2 weeks after the voting process.

The truth of the matter is that Robert Mugabe is denying the majority of Zimbabweans their right to choice and information which South Africans are enjoying in your country. We urge you to rise above friendship and your so called quiet diplomacy and realise that Mugabe is now the SADC's major risk.

There is no need for you to be afraid of Mugabe, he is an old man and the world will not condemn you for saying the truth that the old man should respect democracy and allow it to operate in Zimbabwe. Tony Blair, John Howard, Gordon Brown, President Bush and many other world leaders have said their concerns about Mugabe.

President Mbeki we beg you to keep quiet if you are afraid of offending the old man (It is quiet Diplomacy in the right way). Right now your comments have given Mugabe a new zeal and vigour to massacre more in-order to remain in power.

Because of your actions the world is starting to have a different view of the SADC region, you are generally promoting dictatorship by condoning a regime that butchers its own people. The Zimbabwe situation has already started affecting the Region's economies and We as Zimbabweans now feel that you find great pleasure in our continued suffering aswe are displaced from our families looking for jobs and food.

What goes around comes around and very soon it is going to bite South Africa as you have startd to feel the cracks of your system through Load shedding.

President Mbeki, have you ever spent a week without food and see inocent children die of hunger and HIV/AIDS? I guess you have never experienced it closely, this is the normal life of a Zimbabwean whose home land you say has no crisis. What level do you call a crisis when people are dying like flies on a daily basis.

Our hearts bleed for our bloved country as we toil and are exploited to develop other people's lands. God help us find peace.

God will surely judge you for all that you are doing to deny us the innocent souls of Zimbabwe.

Yours

Vana Vevhu (Children of the Soil)

Zimbabwe Election Statistics

2008-03-29T15:42:03+02:00

Just a little one. With 8,998 polling stations and a voting rate of 5 min/voter, this translates to 107, 796 voters per hour per booth per polling station.

Assuming that each polling station has 5 booths. It means 539,880 will vote across Zimbabwe in just one hour.
If the polling stations are to open for 10 hours then a total of 5,539,880 voters will cast their votes today if all goes well.This constitutes 93.35% of the registered voters.

From the above analysis it is possible to vote in one day.

The population of Zim is made up of the following;

FACTS

Zimbabwe has a total of 5,934,768 registered voters from a population estimated at over 13 million.
15-64 years: 59.3% (male 3,663,108/female 3,641,519) Meaning approximately 54.5% of the Zimbawean population makes the effective political decision.
Those in the age 50 and above make only 15% of the entire population (these are Zanu people in most cases).
This leaves 85% of registered voters being the young effective generation badly hit by inflation and unemployment.

Analysis:

Zanu Pf will have to use other means to rig this elections because the numbers are not on their side this time. The election is complex in that it is a 4 in 1 event and kind of difficult to manage.

Overal Prediction

Presindetial

Zanu PF 36.8%

MDC 51.8%

Makoni 10.2%

Independent 0.57%

Spoilled 0.63

House of Assembly and Senotorial

Zanu Pf may have seats close to 50% due to gerrimendering but the politics of numbers will ultimately make the decision.

If the above scenario shifts a bit such that there is a run off, a tactic that Zanu Pf would want to employ on the pretext that they will gain Mkaoni's votes, MDC would still win as Makoni's voters would rather vote for the opposition.

Matebeleland holds the key to tis election and Zanu Pf has little support there.