Dear Editor,
Reference is made to the article titled, “Trinidad PM: I never called anyone lazy” (SN August 24). I read with a mixture of amazement and hilarity, The Hon. Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Dr. Keith Rowley, backpedaling on something so irrefutable as laziness. He allegedly said so, and then said it was not so. The things that political leaders do. I share a couple of thoughts.
I must congratulate The Hon Prime Minister and learned doctor from the twin island republic for what he disowned in T&T. No lazy people -public servants? I have always suspected that politicians do not live in the real world. But Dr. Rowley may have achieved the unachievable: an industrious dedicated populace and public service to boot. I must consider living there. Better yet I am considering inviting him here to do a tour of Guyana’s vaunted public service swards. They are green to the gills, and that has nothing to do with the environment or national treasury. Personal economy, yes; national coffers, no. But I stray.
Public servants in Guyana, to a large degree, have made laziness into a hard science, a natural science complete with sloth (cleverly crafted); indifference (Closed)); and malaise (painful to observe, torturous to experience). It is the science of “go back and bring this” (or that). And upon returning “and that remaining component, too”. They look for nothing beyond the cover page (I suspect); they find nothing (unless incentivized). They are neither hurried nor zealous nor focused nor helpful nor inviting. They are there, as in “de jus deh.” I humbly venture to enlighten the Hon. Prime Minister, that reports are pre-valent of those same attitudes, approaches, and related actions of the way things are and the people responsible in his home country. I trust that he will not be offended by this upstart stranger.
In many places here (and there, too), they go through the motions; to many people they unveil the practiced scripts: originals only; rubber stamp and signature. Oh, and by the way, don’t say that you didn’t put on letterhead…. Do go and come back again, please. Long suffering citizens are lucky if they are favoured with a “please” or “come back.” It is just the nature of the territory: unruffled, unavailable, and untouched. What is personal habit become standard practice, and before long settled culture. It is the efficiency of high-performing laziness. Honed. Left alone. Maybe even condoned. Six sigma(s) and black belts in the fine arts of foot dragging, paper shuffling, and stonewalling citizens in search of service. It is well-done discipline; well-populated, too.
I have heard the laments: why was I not told before? Why not everything at the same time? Why only now? Why the royal runaround and push around? Many public servants are so lazy that even a good morning is stubbornly absent from their dictionary. Or “how may I help you today?” Too much effort. Gives people too many ideas. As the ladies say, they could get fresh and frontin. That means work; too much of an invitation. Why ask for trouble? There is so much else to do: what that’s soap opera one, mersocur? De ugly palitiks. The latter is irresistible; like a dog heavily infested with the tick lice.
I say to the skeptical: check the public. The public pays the price. Test their honesty. Decide on who and what to believe. Many times people simply give up (or give over). They just don’t come back. Good! Good riddance. One less pest with which to deal. I call it energy conservation and mental preservation. That is, unless there is, I dare to speak to truth, a li’l sumthin’. Yes, almost always laziness is closely tied to encouraging the hardworking public to engage in some hard thinking. Step up, pay up, shut up, and pick up. As easy as one, two, three, whether document or service. Now who can argue with that? And then, it is back to the normalcy of regular servanthood. Some servanthood. And, to cut a real fine point on matters, this is when supervisors and managers become part of the charade: not available, or in a meeting, or sitting right there and pretending ignorance or disinterest. What a racket!
They do straighten up when confronted professionally and powerfully. No raised voices. Take out a notepad and start writing. Better yet reach out to the frustrated seeker and get the story. That’s when PROs shed their own distancing and come alive. Unfair to not approach first for resolution. Translation: help to keep under wraps; perpetuate the corruption of the laziness in the bone. I need no education; the school of experience suffices.
Believe me, I know laziness when I see it, and unlike the Hon. Dr. Rowley, I have neither necessity nor compulsion to say otherwise. I answer to a single constituency: he lives upstairs.
Yours faithfully,
GHK Lall
