The brass is up there on the podium with all their smart suits, shiny shoes, twenty-thousand birr wristwatches. Good for them. There is no need to wish others bad just because you don’t have what they do. So forget the looks and all the unnecessary mini dramas which do nothing except wasting precious minutes and even hours. Why are up there. Well, you can a call it the day of reckoning for the staff. It is make or break event for which the staff waited for a few months. The staff’s demand for better pay and other administrative issues would be solved in ways they will never resurface. A couple of previous meetings so the issues failed and the brass promised it was going to be that day or never. Quite a stand in times when the brass mostly chooses to play it safe rather than throwing their feet into unchartered
The meeting starts with all the repetitive and frustrating activities which have nothing to do with the actual agenda. Ok when things finally start rolling and the brass starts speaking about the pay issue the collective hush is a so deep you’d probably hear the noise the buzzing fly a good fifteen or so makes. That is one of those times when complete silence also means the loudest of noises. The screams of the internal anatomy of the two hundred or so people would drown out the loudest and fiercest shouts in stadiums holding eighty, even a hundred thousand fans.
The director of the board of directors clears his throat, wears the wildest and still soulless smile and starts with what he and the whole board members must have thought was the happiest news since Adam and Eve were pardoned. (They were ‘pardoned’ weren’t they? Don’t you ever quiz yourself as to if and when we’d be pardoned, because what we need is a big pardon!) “The board of directors has carefully been looking into your demand for better pay.” Bingo! That does it! The fellow would have said the things he said if they didn’t decide on real salary raises! Sorry, but can you just cool it down and give the fellow the space he needs. In case you have been away from all that has been happening and you have lost on important info. Things aren’t as you’d expect, even like them to be. And also you’d be making a fatal mistake if you believe everything people say these days. Things changing with such speed that it is even difficult to write them in your diary.
Then the time of reckoning comes in ways even you darkest dreams didn’t torture you with. The good old Director then goes into narrating the financial condition of the organization telling the audience they were highly constrained when it comes to budget. He goes on telling the crowd that they should have bought many items which were essential for the work of the organization but couldn’t because of the financial straightjacket they were in. It sounds so bad and you wonder where the hell the funds came from for the purchase of three shiny multi-million dollar four-wheelers! You wonder where the hell all the funds came for that flamboyant Persian rug the CEO’s office. You wonder where the hell all the funds came to send three management members to Europe on a weeklong experience-sharing visit.
After talking for what seems eternity he draws nearer to the most important part of the day. First he has to soften hearts and those people could sometime be experts in such things. He appreciates the amount of work and working hours the employees were putting in to increase the productivity of the organization. He said goes into an Oscar material type melancholic mood and continues with the softest voice anyone could imagine was possible; “But…I’m sorry to tell you that at this time we couldn’t fulfill your demands for all the reasons I just told you. However, I assure you that in the next budget year we’d do our best to answer your demands and give each one of you the raise you deserve.” Believe me just because they heard the term ‘raise’ few probably unconsciously start clapping and stop abruptly.
It was not the first time from the same fellow to promise you that in the next budget year everything would be solved. How could you trust someone who repeatedly promises things he never delivers! How could you put your trust an organization that always seems to be in the red whenever the staff as demands their right and plead for the long-frozen raise to be released from whichever dungeon it has been locked in.
There is this story in one place I used to work in quite a while back. This man seeing others getting raises demands he, too, should be given a raise, He doesn’t get it. He keeps on asking for a raise every time the opportunity arises. However, he was always given the same reason; “How could you ask for a raise when the country’s bleeding?” Then one day he asks his own question, “Why is that the country always bleeds when I ask for a raise!”
We’re in an age when trust is in critically short supply. The why and such questions are for the professionals. However, when it comes to the rest of us we don’t need to delve into scientific literature because we are in it and the whys don’t matter. The sad part is that because of the loss of trust in this chaotic and unpredictable world, many of us have repeatedly been take for a ride, backstabbed and left out in the cold. At least for us mortals in the streets this is something that you couldn’t try to retrace as to where it all started. And maybe the professionals might be able to do it. But it’d largely be stuff for the archives as the real drama of the age is being played out with no end in sight. It’s indeed astounding as to how we could have reached at this stage; governments don’t trust governments; politicians don’t trust other politicians and groups; individuals don’t trust other individuals. There is also of mistrust in households between couples, parents, siblings and what have you.
I think that until this world of ours could roll back time and restore some measure of trust among and between all levels of society it isn’t
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD SUNDAY EDITION 20, July 2025