Sri Lanka It's Happening

August 10, 2005

The bus strike has unfortunately ended with the government bowing before the bus owners (again). That's just too bad. Had the strike continued the country might have made giant leap forward but that is not to be.

Productivity in Sri Lankan factories, offices and estates is very low. The average office worker would get to his seat only at 8:45 in the morning even though he should have been there at 8:30. Then he will spend at least half an hour reading the newspapers and catching up with the gossip. Then it's time to make lengthy personal phone calls using the office phone before finally settling down to work. The work is soon interrupted by the tea break.

By lunch time your average employee has spent about half an hour on the job. For good measure he takess half and hour more than alloted for his lunch. This is followed by the second tea break.

After tea it's time to go out to meet a client. The meeting is usually finished in 10 minutes. The report to the boss next will say it lasted and hour and mention heavy traffic enroute. All this so that he can go straight home instead of heading back to office.

Of course not everyone has such lousy work ethics. According to 20-80 rule. 20% of the staff will do 80% of the work. And this 20% of the staff will hitch rides from friends or hop into a three wheelers to get to office even if buses are on strike. That means less money is spent on air conditioning, phone bills or even tea!

Add to this the fact that we import all our petrolium and each day that buses are off the streets there is a massive saving in foreign exchange without any harmfull side effects on the economy.

Posted by raditha at August 10, 2005 8:14 AM