Mood: Meh 
Weather: 27°C, Showers
Vaping: Vozol 12000 Puffs Pineapple Coconut Ice
Location: Mont Fleuri, Mahe, Seychelles
I had very limited internet access all day yesterday, we found out that internet was accessible using 4G devices. But our router and my iPhone is set to 5G and there was no option for me to shift to 4G. It’s not my forte so I had to go without. Some iPhones do have the settings to shift to 4G but network provider or region have set restrictions. I had to get my sister to hotspot me some wifi for a few minutes last night. It’s amazing how life is so different if you’re disconnected from the internet. It almost feels as though there’s no electricity. It’s like, what the heck do I do when there’s no internet? Couldn’t stream anything online, could read anything online. This is still what many people in Seychelles experience on a daily basis because internet is still considered expensive in this country. So they listen to the radio – using radio devices (as opposed to a phone app).
I feel as though I now spend most of the days ranting, and this is not what I wanted this journal to be about. But I have to be honest with myself, and if I want to rant, this is my platform. On Thursday we were so busy sorting out a consignment that had just arrived. Our staff kept calling non-stop. I cannot comprehend the junior staff’s rationale. If you are going to call your boss a million times a day about silly little things, don’t you think it just makes more sense for you boss to do your job and let you go? Do they not understand that? If we are hiring them to save us time from actually being present at the store, but they keep calling us to tend to 1. the issues at the store and 2. their personal issues, it just doesn’t make sense at a professional perspective for us to hire them. We could just eliminate their personal issues from my life by terminating them. For some odd reason, they believe their problems are my problems so I need to prioritize their problems over my own.
The other day C2 called us saying she has an appointment on Friday (yesterday) so she’ll be a bit late. We told her to take the day off, as that is our rule – if that was the rule applied to C1 when she was late, we have to be fair and tell C2 to take the day off as well. She then raised the issue of annual leave bonus. We told her of course she’s not getting it because if she takes the day off on Friday, she will not be working for 5 consecutive days. She couldn’t understand the meaning of “consecutive”. My sister was trying her best to explain what it meant in Creole, but this girl just couldn’t get it. She said well it’s not fair because C1 received her bonus even if she was absent on Monday. I had to step in to explain that being absent at any point between Monday-Friday or Tuesday-Saturday does not qualify them for a bonus. If they’re smart they’ll push all their little “appointments” to Monday. But with the amount of absenteeism C2 has (once per week) there is a high chance we’re going to have to let her go. Anyway, that same day they sent me this message through Whatsapp:
It’s basically come down to our casuals organizing a meeting. I told them we’ll meet on Monday morning. A few weeks ago when my sister and I went to Kumar & Kumar at Fairyland, we heard their junior staff raising their voices to their Indian supervisors. The same day we went to Kumar & Kumar at Docklands in Victoria and the same thing was happening – junior staff raising their voices to their Indian supervisors. When I say “junior staff” they’re basically the ladies who are supposed to be stocking shelves or helping customers find certain items at the store. This is the kind of sh*t that won’t run with me. But for some reason, Indians will tolerate this BS. In Seychelles, expatriates always fear losing their job. Naturalized citizens always fear losing their citizenship. For this reason, the tolerance is tied to fear and self-preservation, so these types of junior staff walk around their workplace like they have job security and they are indispensable. As a boss, when you don’t make your position clear, your staff will walk all over you. Indians are the best type of boss for Seychellois junior staff. Our casual workers don’t realize that they are dealing with Seychellois bosses. Their overbearing personalities will be dealt with accordingly. Do they have the intellectual capacity to understand that they survived in this sh*tty public school system where we thrived?