Taking Leave may mean the End of your Job - Solutions?

 

 

“It’s like a bachelor party for your career! Or having someone buy you dinner and then assume that means he’s owed sexual intercourse! Anyway, apparently telling people to take a vacation before they come to work for you is becoming a thing now.

Writing this week in Slate, Will Oremus reports on this phenomenon, telling the tale of Jason Freedman, the CEO of a San Francisco-based commercial real estate search engine company called 42 floors. Freedman offers what he calls paid “pre-cations” to new hires, explaining, “It’s like, ‘Yeah, have a great time! And when you get back here, work your ass off.’” The point is, that sounds terrible.

As Oremus points out, we are already a vastly overworked nation. We put in considerably more hours than we did a generation ago — and most of us are doing it while facing what the New York Times last year called “flatlined” wages. A new study released last month revealed that Americans take only about half the vacation time they’re entitled to, missing out on the equivalent of “over 500 million” days off a year. Why? Because they’re afraid of repercussions, an anxiety reinforced by what MarketWatch notes is “company culture and lack of encouragement from management to take time off.” People are reluctant to take vacations for fear they’ll be revealed as expendable.” See more at http://www.salon.com/2014/10/01/the_pre_vacation_is_a_trap/

Well now, what a problem we have here. In the article above you can see how taking paid leave is something that most people simply cannot do, because it could mean the end of their job. Getting a job is a big problem in this world and when you do have a job you will do anything to keep it, because you need the money to survive in this world.

This gives employers power over the employees. There are many people looking for jobs, so if you are deemed replaceable you will simply be replaced. So if it means you have works your ass off every day and not take any leave then there is nothing you can do about it unless you risk getting fired. This leads to bad work situations and over worked, overstressed employees. This will only get worse unless something changes.

A solution that will end this fear and anxiety of losing a job if you take your leave which you are in fact entitled to would be the Living Income Guaranteed. This will give power to the employees and create a dignified work environment. With the minimum wage being double the Living income people will have enough money to live. This will stop the abuse of employees, because they could simply leave and find a better place to work so the employer will need to treat his employees with care to keep them working there.

Workers will feel supported and cared for by their employers, which will result in individuals that no longer feel pressured and enforced to only be a profit-making machine, but will feel happy and content to realize that their work is being truly remunerated and that their time and contribution to the corporation is being valued as the life-time investment it actually is. A well remunerated individual will create a happier and fulfilled society that is no longer afraid of not having sufficient money to feed their family, it will be the beginning of a new era of quality work that dignifies the lives of human beings that genuinely desire to improve their lifestyles.

Day 206: SA Matric Pass rate a shame for South Africans

 

The results came back for the 2013 Matric pass rate. Many articles and newspapers and even the president celebrates the fact that the pass rate is above 75%. This is apparent proof that the government has helped improved education in South Africa. What some may not realize is that over the past few years the government has decreased the pass mark all the way down to 30% - meaning that you only need 30% to pass an exam. So, by lowering the pass rate you increase the amount of people that passes Matric. Yet – even with only needing 30% to pass an exam 25% of pupils failed. About 1.2million grade 1 students were registered, but only about 550000 of those made it all the way to grade 12.

The question is what can you as a student do with a very low pass mark? Who would want to employ you? How are you going to get into universities? It is a big problem.

There are so many factors involved as to why students do badly in school. It could be the actual student not studying enough. It could be teachers that are ineffective or schools ill equipped to effectively teach children. The whole school curriculum across South Africa is not good enough.

The pass rate should be increased to 50%. This means if you do not know more than half of what you study – then you do not know it and should redo it. In the long run it will produce higher educated people. But the whole education system will have to be changed for this to work.

Another big problem is that even with very high matric marks, the chances that you will find a job is very slim.

Now there is a new proposal being suggested where no student can fail a grade more than once. So when you fail a grade a second time – you automatically pass to the next grade. Basically you can pass matric by simply failing twice. This is unbelievable, but this is something they want to implement which will mean we will have many people finishing their education – by knowing nothing.

The education problem is becoming worse – not improving at all. Everything that is being done by the government only makes things worse. It is time we find solutions to bring about higher educated students – and not settle for the bare minimum requirements.

Day 85 - Change with assistance from Desteni (part 1)

 

Here i am going to write about one of the many ways i have changed with the assistance of the Desteni Tools.

Before i became a part of this group I was a ridiculously lazy person. In school I never really read books  so for my book reports I always used the same book - which i read when i was a child. I always finished homework the night before or the morning at school and sometimes i simply did not do it. The same with assignments: we get like a month to do it, but I did it the day before usually.

At home i did not really have any chores to do except take out the trash once a week and maintaining the pool - and I always had resistance towards doing it. And within everything i did i always did it to the bare minimum and quickest way to get it done so that I do not have to put much effort into it.

All this was about to change with the tools I learned from Desteniiprocess 

When we first got to the farm I faced this laziness head on - because living on a farm requires some hard work, but it actually started to become fun. It was enjoyable, because everything i did mattered. I could see the results and everything accumulating and where there was once a crappy rusted fence there was a new one and it will last for many years. Where there one was an open piece of land there is now an orchard bearing fruit. All that hard work - digging and planting trees - they were very tiny trees when i planted them and no they are big and fruit bearing trees.

The resistance i felt before regarding work went away, because I did not see it as work. It became something that needs to be done - I understand the need for it and so i do it.

This is a reason why people believe that an equal money system will never work, because people are lazy and would rather sit on a beach all day. But what people are doing now is slaving long hours doing mundane work where the actual job does not contribute to anything that maters and that is not necessary in terms of practicality, but they do it because they need money. And that brings resistance. That all will fall away, because we will be doing practical things that matter and contribute to the whole. And like i did we will come to understand the necessity  of what we will do - like producing food for everybody or cleaning the oceans.

 

If we all work through understanding we will have a better world. Vote here for a better world - www.equalmoney.org

Day 79 - I'm Doing the best I can

 

Since being on the farm we have worked on many projects - and within those projects you leant a great deal about yourself - you can see how much work has been put into a certain project and depending on how effective the project is when its done reflects on the person.

Its really awesome to do something physically yourself - like fencing or building a nursery and laying down a concrete floor - its stays there for a very long time. You can look back and say to yourself '' I did that''. And with every project I did I always looked to become more effective so that when i do this particular project again - i will do it better. And with lots of practice, research and assistance i found better and more effective ways to do things.

Every time When i was finished with project I told myself i did the best i can, but i did it better the next time - so then ''doing the best I can'' got better, which indicated that 'my best' back then was not in fact my best. At the moment with I my knowledge and ability that i had it was the best i could do - but i also had the ability to do better and i proofed it later

The point im making here is that when someone say that they are doing the best they can it is usually related to a point they did and did not do good enough. So they get defensive and try to justify their limitations by saying:'' I DOING THE BEST I CAN!!!'' . I had a few projects where i did not in fact do the best I can where I believed I did,  and then someone would bring the point out and after being pissed of and throwing tantrums to try defend and justify my work i then did realize I was slacking. 

I remember a time when we started closing a hole in our dam wall so that we can have a dam with lots of water  - we had to take wheelbarrows of sand bags and loose sand to the wall which was very difficult. The hole in the wall was  about 2 meters  wide and 4 meters long( this is an estimation - thickness of the dam wall). We only closed it up about a third of the hole - it was a shit of sand and bags to do that and i thought that was good enough  - it will hold. A while after that the flood rains came and the bags were not nearly enough to hold the pressure of the water in the dam so it broke and got washed away - loosing all the water in the dam.

I really felt like shit - the first sign that i did not actually do the best i could - because if I did I would not feel like shit. That is where I learnt about consequences - that when working n the physical you can see in real time the consequences of your actions - I learnt that my actions have REAL CONSEQUESNCES so i saw the reason why you should do things PROPERLY - rather make sure by doing MORE instead of risking not doing enough - no matter how i feel about it.

You do it once and proper so that you don't have to do it again. (We did then later fill that hole completely and hammered in steel rods. Then we even made the wall thicker with more bags to ensure it hold the water and not break.)

 

It is to do the best you can - to the best of your ability and then to find way to improve your best so that you can become more and more effective so that the ability gets better and better. Do not accept that you are doing your best - do better every time 

 

Learn to become and effective human being - www.desteniiprocess.com

Join others in the quest of becoming effective: www.desteni.org

Lets create a world that is effective : www.equalmoney.org