I Don't Trust You

Ryan

While I was looking for work in Ilsan, I was approached by a local teacher and offered an unusual contract involving higher pay but at a lot of different schools. The guy offering the work turned out to be staying in the same building as me, so we met up and he gave me the books and directions. I was sick and staying home for that reason (I'd just quit CDI because of my health), so was not eager to embrace this work. I did say that I needed to know what the hours were, be shown a contract, and a monthly salary. He said he couldn't provide any of those details. I said I would give it a try, but with the proviso that I got paid there and then, at the school, immediately once the lessons were done. It didn't happen.

I sent a few follow up emails asking him to pay me the W70 000 that was owed to me, and he promised to bring the money, later to slot it in the correct mail slot. More time passed. A few more emails, and no responses. Finally I wrote a make or break email. I basically suggested that I fetch the money myself at the school, and wrote a very middle line email which could be construed as righteous indignation, but not unfair, (I suggested for example that a good business depends on a good reputation) but was middle of the road enough so that if someone was reactionary and paranoiud that they might respond to it with emotional venom.

The subject of the email was: 'bit of a shitty memory eh'.
To be honest, I was expecting venom, and a 'go to hell' response. Obviously when you are asking for money, even money owed to you, if you really want that money, it pays to be sweet as sugar to the last grain.
But I got an email apologising profusely, and a commitment to pay W100 000 (W30 000 more than I was owed). The money was still paid late, but W100 000 was paid.
Later that evening, he spotted me at Don't Go and bought me a Budweiser. It's good to see that people can still surprise you, and go beyond what you think is even owed to you. I'd like to meet Ryan for lunch and get to know him a bit better now.

My Director

My director tends to look from me to the clock whenever I walk by him. Today when I returned from the shop carrying a cup of coffee, he glanced pointedly at the clock. He doesn't seem to know that on Mondays I have a half hour off after my first class.
Last week he sat in almost all of my classes. In a way it is good business practise to make sure good work is being done, or that you understand your employees and their difficulties.
But you can tell, as an employee, when your boss understands and trusts and relies on you, and when he is spying and checking up on you.
I was somewhat surprised today when I tested his pennypincher reputation by inviting him into a sweatbox classroom and complained of the heat. He pointed to a fan, and the kids nagged on cue. He quickly went to where he was hiding the remote control, and turned it on. To his enduring credit, he left it on for the rest of the day, and I got through the day with my underwear only partially soaked with perspiration.
My personal experience hasn't been that bad, except that he has not been prepared to consider when I needed to do my VISA run (a completely random date, one day is as good as another), and I've seen how he kicked up a furor when one of the other teacher's quit, arguing with her parents until after midnight.
Today when I left, the look in his eye and the sound of his voice said everything. With someone like that as a boss, he should not expect too many favors from me.

A Company that is your friend

I am reading The World is Flat, by Friedman. In it he describes, more by analogy than anything else, the company that I dreamed up in 2001, before I left South Africa. It is basically an 'in-sourcing' type company, which flattens the world, and in particular helps smaller companies globalise and compete with the bigger ones. It is basically the real world equivalent of google. If you want to know something, in terms of information, you google it. If you want something delivered to your door, what do you do?
Well it depends what sort of product, but UPS basically handles Nike orders, as well as Toshiba notebooks, and countless other companies (inlcuding pizza). What few people tell you is that they fix the Toshiba's themselves (because shipping them to the factories takes too long). These and many other countries trust UPS to transport their stuff chiefly, but also to do a bit of nipping and tucking too. Companies trust other companies only reluctantly, so you have to be a great company to earn the trust of a host of other companies.
It was my intention to start a company which is essentially your friend. Trust seems to be the thing almost all of us are finding harder and harder to do in a world that is all about wysiwyg, but where seeing in the end, and believing in the beginning, don't prevent post purchase dissonance. Those pictures of hamburgers aren't the same as the real thing.
It's the company's that keep these basic sort of promises, the company not motivated by models of pure greed (ie a pile of money with the sole and primary purpose of making that pile of money a bigger pile of money)that I would like to invest in, and even more, would be prepared to work hard to create.
In a way South Africa's Pick 'n Pay and America's WalMart are examples of companies that have helped their consumers save. They have put their consumer first. I am not talking about that, because these companies drive a hard bargain with their suppliers, and have driven their local merchants out of business. I am talking about a collaborative mechanism that helps make all other companies more efficient by helping them. A 'help me, help you' company.

It's interesting to read about some of the ideas I had 4 years ago in a book coming out now. It makes me want to go back to the drawing board and re-invent, reproduce it. Question is, do I trust myself enough to do it myself?