Mood: Irritated
Weather: 27°C, Clear
Vaping: Vozol 12000 Puffs Pineapple Coconut Ice
Drinking: Good Hope Low Fat Soy Milk
Location: Mont Fleuri, Mahe, Seychelles
My mother was given a SCR 500 STC voucher so my sister and I went to STC Hypermarket to help her with some shopping. It’s amazing how expensive things are when meat is a huge part of your groceries list. She purchased a whole chicken, packets of ham, and sausages. That already ate up half of her budget.
My sister had to replace her car’s battery this morning so we pushed the meeting with our casual workers to this afternoon. My sister called them to ask them if the discussion can’t be made on the phone and they said they’d prefer a face-to-face discussion. We finally got to the store close to 4pm, and we allowed them to talk. They had a few talking points:
– They wanted clarifications on how their bonus is tied to their performance
– They feel we belittle them in the way we talk to them
– They don’t know why we said we don’t trust them
Those are the few that I can remember. First, I told them that their “bonus” is an annual leave “bonus” that we are required to pay them according to Seychelles employment law, and that it is in no way tied to their performance in the store; that it is tied to their attendance. She couldn’t remember being absent at all. In the 4 weeks she’s worked for us, she could only remember being absent once – she was absent 3 times already. Because she has never worked for 5 consecutive days in the 4 weeks, she has not been eligible to receive her annual leave payment. Her peer C1, has already received her annual leave payment twice.
Here’s where it gets frustrating and I ended up telling her off. I told C2 that we caught her on camera leaving the store as soon as she arrived one morning. She was away for 15 minutes to purchase her breakfast. She then leaves immediately after dropping off her breakfast and spends another 15 minutes of working hours in the bathroom. I then continue by saying we also caught her taking a bathroom break 5 minutes before her scheduled break, and then she takes another bathroom break when she is supposed to be done with her break/lunch. Her response? “I’ll just pee my pants.”
I have fought hard for C2 to stay. My sister who is a co-owner has been adamant about keeping only one of them while I’ve been insisting that we needed C2. This kid is ungrateful. She doesn’t understand half of what’s happening behind the scenes. She feels disrespected by us, but I wonder if she is aware that we really don’t respect them because we have felt completely disrespected by them as soon as they started working with us?
I can’t go through this grief every single day, I can’t deal with the same sh*t every week. I should have listened to my sister – we should have just told them that we don’t need a meeting and everything they have to say can be discussed through Whatsapp. We gave our first employee months to adjust. We gave the second one a few days. We gave these 2 casual workers half a day. The next employee will be given minutes. That’s how fed up we are with these junior staff. Now tell me, how can the Seychelles government believe that people at this level are even remotely employable? I’m at my wits’ end with this level of staff.