Yesterday evening as I was coming back from the Night Market, I came across a distant relative who was running a stall in the market. She said that she had along with six other friends of hers who worked in the same office. They were all from the Sales and Marketing Department of the company.l She said that they got an in-law to get a stall for them and went on trip to Colombo. Of the four who went, two tickets were chipped in by the company. They spent around 40,000.00 Rufiyaa to buy children’s items and household goods. They put up the goods in a house of one of the team.

 

According to my relative, the whole office knew that they were involved in this and showed immense support. Since they could only go home very late in the night (early in the morning), the office did not mind them turning up for work even around ten thirty, where work began at nine o’clock. She spoke very fondly of her employers. She also told me that they were lucky that they got help from a driver of a pickup to take their goods to the market for fifty Rufiyaa and and a hundred and fifty Rufiyaa for the return trip.  

 

Then on Villingili I bumped into one of my midnight tea-cafe friends who was up for something at one thirty in the morning. He told me about his employer of nearly ten years who refused to give him shorter working hours for a lesser salary when he fell ill. He told me how he was one of the most senior five employees in the setup then, which now is a big establishment. He told me several more stories about this employer and his plight and his staff; none of which were positive. I finally got the better of my tea-cafe friend and managed to get home to sleep; but with a much better understanding of why a company like Chevron focuses on human energy on top of all things, integral to everything.

 

We have in our country somehow not yet reached a point where we value human energy or human capital. But some companies have started to focus on their human capital and create ambassadors like my relative I have mentioned at the start of this post. But Alas! Human capital for what purpose / what end? We do not seem to have a formula for creating conditions that would enhance human capital development; the core of which is housing. Our government and parliamentarians seem to be more concerned about tourism development and building resorts than the welfare and human capital of our country.

 

Would that mean that a government and parliament are detremental to our society? Should we do away with our cabinet and parliament as a form of government? Is it the system or the people?