Dear Editor,
Many Guyanese workers have it good here, and should consider themselves lucky. They have a 40-hour work week, and if their employers actually get half that number of hours out of them, then it was a productive day. The sharp winds buffeting Wall Street powerhouse Goldman Sachs on its grueling work week led me to share this reality with locals.
I put before my fellow Guyanese the unthinkable: the 100-hour work week. I have been there, and after a few months of that, there is increasing difficulty in knowing where there and anywhere is. Bloodshot eyes like a smoker or drinker. A body so numb that there is no sensation of pain anymore, which I chalked up then to a fallout of fatigue, and sleep deprivation; that is, when I had the luxury of thinking. Now add no sense of time, where Sunday and Friday has no distance, no meaning, since both blur. That is real life, the American Dream, where have been, while paying dues. I have. I still wake up when Guyanese curfew beaters are going to bed.
Editor, it is why I overflow with scorn with the hours our leaders keep; the quantity and quality of work that our parliamentarians present to the public; and the standard of inconsistency and entitlement that the regular Guyanese worker displays when on daily duty. When we do have a Guyanese worker that is dedicated, and of which there are too few, and putting in long candlelight hours, he or she is mocked in the form of “like deh mek wuk.” Or “she waan fuh dun wuk.” In fact, it is extremely difficult for numerous Guyanese to do any quantity of work during the day, that holy weekly 40-hour interval that is worshipped fanatically. The average Guyanese worker is so good at this, that I nominate as prime candidates for the coveted jobs of Olympic timekeepers, since our citizens are such superb clock watchers.
As should have been gathered by prior writings, I have little regard for all this hullabaloo over local content. Big local content businesses will lead in prospering; hungry upcoming entrepreneurs will find a joint venture local content place, even if it is as a silent partner, or a dumbwaiter. But as to the rank-and-file, we can’t even get them out of bed before 10 o’clock; and when they had accumulated enough beer or smokes money, it is off to the races. On a good short day, the Guyanese public is fortunate if it can get a long answer from our public servants who believe that they are our masters. And when a trade union is around, everybody fancies himself a shop steward or lawyer. I have observed my share of grievances, human ones. It is 8 to 4, and nothing more. On Wall Street, the 80 and 100-hour workweek is the ticket to big bonus cash that is earned in blood; promotions trickledown the same way. It is deliver or depart. Give or get going.
Sincerely,
GHK Lall
