Category Archives: Of Interest

If there are spelling mistakes are there work mistakes too?

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I am the worst speller in the world — or at least that is what people tell me. I write books that I sell that have spelling mistakes after I have double checked them. But, I am careful in my work. I’m not perfect, but I care! But, part of my job is to detect when someone is trustworthy or reliable.

What I learned is that when someone starts off telling a small lie, or inflating a fact, that down the road they will do a lot of exaggerating. I also learned that if someone makes a spelling mistake, or grammar mistake, that can turn into poor work performance or inaccurate bidding shortly after. It is so hard to know for sure. But, I have seen examples of this in real life. You see a sign — such as a misspelled word, and then you see an outcome such as an error on work that actually matters.

So, the moral of the story is that as a manager or business owner you should not overlook anything. Even a person’s tone on the phone can tell you a lot. If they are a little too solid, they might use that against a weaker player. If they are too smooth on the phone, they will usually use that to get extra money from you. If they are too low brow in their personal style, they might not be that professional. In business, it is the plain, straight, exacting people who will give you the best value in the long run.

Pay attention to the signs. All of the signs mean something!

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Each rep gives a different answer

Outsourcing can save you 60-90% of costs
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/01/01/1120/

When to write blogs quickly and when to take 3 hours / entry

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I used to write my blogs very quickly. I have no particular background in writing, other than the fact that I write many emails, and have written a few how-to books for my clients who appreciate my knowledge, but don’t care for my spelling mistakes! You can’t please everyone. But, in the last few years, I discovered the joy of blogging. It is very fulfilling to me as well as being a huge marketing plus for my various web sites. I estimate that 40% of my main site’s traffic is a result of the SEO benefits of blogging! Huge!!!

In any case, I started working with professional writers recently.
I found that there is a huge difference between occupational bloggers and professional writers. The level of writing is much higher if you get someone with an academic background, or someone who is/was a professional screen writer for television. I started doing what I call collaborative blogging with two writers. I pride myself on my ability to write 2-6 interesting blog articles per hour. That is very fast! But, when I work with the professionals, it takes two people at least 45 minutes together to finish one piece. That is 1.5 man hours. There was one article which was very long about a date between a notary (me) and a girl. This took three hours of two people working together by phone. It was a huge hit, but boy what a lot of time.

So, which is better, writing quickly, or taking your time and making it perfect?
I learned that my quick and dirty style of writing had many spelling errors. I also learned that there was a lot of room for refinement of the ideas, restructuring, and bringing more juice out of each idea. I also learned that refinement takes forever! According to my blog stats, the quick blogs maintained my blog traffic, but there was not much growth. When I had one or two really thoughtful entries per week, we got better overall growth in our total blog repeat traffic. Interesting facts to know if you do analytics. I decided that doing a blend of fast blogs and slow blogs was the best way to populate the daily entries in a blog. But, there is one more thing that I learned.

5 minute blogs teach you which titles do well
I learned that it is not about quantity, or even quality when you do blogging. It is about matching the interests of your readers. If you write a quick piece about something that your readers really want to read, they will click on it, and even like it, even if it is not the best written article. If something quick is popular, you can do variations on a theme next time, and put more thought into them. That way, your future articles will be about topics that are tried and tested, and you can spend an hour or more with a professional refining them and making them a joy to read.

Blogging is lots of fun, but you need to have a keen understanding of the strategical aspects of how to allocate your precious time and the time of your hired help!

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When you talk to others, do you engage them?
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/07/10/1593/

The miracle of blogging
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Twitter & the American Dream: The chance to make it big is possible

Categories: Of Interest, Social Media | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

I am excited about Twitter, because it has offerings similar in spirit to the American Dream. But, it is different as well. The American dream is that if you work hard, you can make it here. It doesn’t matter where you are from, what you look like, or even if you speak English well. If you work hard and take risks, anyone can make it in America — and have the house with the two-door garage, a wife, two kids, and a dog named fluffy. Twitter’s offering is a little different.

Twitter’s opportunity is similar to the internet’s opportunity. The beauty of the internet is that sites around the world compete for placement on Google and for traffic. Only one site in a particular niche can be the most popular. Twitter is a little bit similar in nature to this. On Twitter, you can come out of nowhere, and go VIRAL immediately and gain a MILLION followers overnight. It is possible, although not likely. People always dream of going viral, and marketing managers always talk about it. But, the realities are something you need to think about.

It takes SKILL to go viral. Being viral means that you tweet something, someone else retweets your content, and one or more people viewing your tweet on the network who retweeted you — will retweet you again. Being viral could land your tweet in the inboxes of millions of viewers overnight. In real life, it takes years to build up the skill necessary to be popular on Twitter. Most people do not develop that skill even if they are social media professionals — at least not to the level necessary to go viral regularly. Remember, that people who do social media for a living make around $20-80,000 per year. If they knew how to go viral, they could make millions per year and wouldn’t be working for that dumb social media company anymore, right?

I have spoken to staff at multiple social media companies. Nobody was willing to help me write tweets as a separate job description at any of the companies. None were even interested or had tips. So, I had to learn myself. I network with others to do tweet writing by the way. After almost four years of writing tweets, my tweets are finally beginning to be popular. I have written a few that got four retweets. But, what if I can learn to write material so hot that it gets a million retweets?

Twitter is wonderful because it identifies and promotes hot content. If you know how to write content that people love, you can go viral. I am at the level where I can write comments on other people’s twitters and get retweeted 30% of the time. Maybe with a few more years of hard tweeting (hard twork) I can tweet my way to stardom (Twitterdom). Wish me luck! I’m not sure I’ll make it, but at least Twitter affords the opportunity and a chance.

Imagine what my businesses would be like if I had a million followers on Twitter. I would be rich and would have more time to write blog entries! Yay!!! (and a yacht with internet connection)

Willingness to work should be the high on your list of criteria

Categories: Hiring & Firing, Of Interest | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

If you are hiring a company, look for willingness
 
I had to look for programmers this year, and I had not gone shopping for programmers since 2005.  Back then, I sort of knew what I was doing, but there is always more to know about who to hire and why.  In any case, shopping around for American programming companies was the worst nightmare I have ever had.
 
The first tricky point was told to me by one of the programming bosses I spoke to. He was by far the most professional, but too short-staffed to be able to help me out.  He liked to keep his operation lean and mean. He told me that many American companies hire Indian companies to do the work without telling their clients here.  This turned out to be an issue many times.  I told each company I wanted to hire, that I wanted to communicate directly with the programmer. I ran into all types of excuses and frustrations.  Several companies told me that I was not a “good fit” for them, since I wanted to interact more, and since I was not a multi-million dollar company.  Another company told me that it would be frustrating talking directly to the programmers, and had tremendous difficulty telling me where all his programmers were. The story kept changing as we kept talking.
 
I hired a good programmer… but…
Finally, I found a company with a good programmer who knew all the languages that he needed to know.  We signed a contract and started work.  I was to visit them for two weeks starting in October.  After the contract was signed, and right before I was to come, they announced that they would not be available on the Monday and Tuesday of week two.  I came anyway hoping for the best.  Little did I know that while I was giving them time on Wednesday of week two to finish up what we started on week one, that they would completely blow me off and work on someone else’s project since I wasn’t physically watching them…. A lesson to be learned.  Thursday I was there, and work got done, and Friday I showed up late to allow them time to finish work up, but work never began until I was in their office.  The moral of the story is that the minute you stop watching people, they might start slacking off.  Also, don’t book a two week trip with a company with an unknown track record.  Make them prove themselves before you invest your time in them.
 
American companies who refused to work
The bottom line is that I found one company who slacked off, and all of the other companies I talked to REFUSED to work for me.  Americans are complaining bitterly about outsourcing, but when you try to hire American companies, most of them say, “Gee, I’m sorry, but you are not a good fit for us”.  I have come to the conclusion, that if you want any serious type of programming work to happen, you are forced to hire an Indian programming company. 
 
So, I went back to my trusty company who I have been using in India for years.  Communication is hard since calling them is difficult and visiting them involves 36 hours of travel.  Other than that, they are wonderful.  So, now they have started the project and done a lot of work in a short time.
 
Willingness
What I learned, is that skills are an important factor in hiring a programmer, but willingness to work, and availability to work are equally, or perhaps more important.  If you hire a company that doesn’t want to work, or a company with only one programmer who suddenly gets busy, your project will be permanently on hold.   My experience is that if you want any type of serious programming work to happen, hire a company with at least four programmers, and make sure they are willing.  I would not judge a company based on what country they are in, but based on the attitude of the boss and the workers, and how good their work is.  The quality of a company is on an individual basis!

The karmic consequences of war and rebirth

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Not all of us are Hindus or Buddhists. Not all of us believe in rebirth. There have not been that many books written on the subject. People who have studied rebirth often have examples of real souls and how they migrated from body to body and under what circumstances. Unfortunately in the East, there is a lot of misinformation being spread about this fascinating topic. If you are bad in India, you will be reborn as a cow. But, in Thailand that is simply not the case. In Thailand you get born into a mad dog for 500 incarnations. Good god, being a cow once sounds a lot better! The shortage of good reading material on this critical subject is a shame. There are many qualified gurus out there who could write books on the subject, but only touch upon the matter.

Here is some rebirth theory in a nutshell.

Intelligence
If you develop intelligence in a particular life, you bring some of that with you. Research was actually done on rats where parts of their brains were removed. Yet, they still had their routes memorized. Scientists couldn’t figure out why. Apparently, part of their memory was lodged in an astral field around their body. Others feel that rats have a sort of collective consciousness — if one rat makes it through a maze in 30 minutes, the others will make it through faster since they can tap into a larger “rat consciousness”. Science and spirituality often agree on a lot once the scientists have taken the time to research particular issues.

A lot of intelligence is also carried in your soul from one life to the next. My medium speaks to the spirits of gurus, and they are very intelligent. They are disembodied now, but they carry their intelligence with them even though they have no physical brain.

Wealth
If you have the consciousness of wealth, you are more likely to carry that with you into other lives. Additionally, if you were born into a wealthy family, but graduate from college penniless, you are more likely to regain that wealth simply because you might gravitate towards a lifestyle that creates wealth.

Destruction
If you destroy something belonging to someone else, eventually something of yours will be destroyed as a karmic punishment. But, when? Will the punishment come right away, a year later, or 30 lifetimes later? The Rav at Kabbalah center once said that time is speeding up and karmic retrobution is faster than ever now. If you did a bad deed in 4000 B.C. it might have taken 3000 years for the karmic effects to come back. But, if you do a bad deed now, the effects might only take seconds to manifest!

Tything
If you give to charity such as organizations which help the poor, or spiritual organizations that are not for profit, you get a reward from the brighter world. I have found that this reward comes right away — within days and weeks. Some of the effect might be a little more slow. You get back far more than what you gave. This is a nice karmic reward. I like investing $1000 and getting $10,000 back within a month or so. What do you think?

Murder
The karmic effects of murder are never clear. There is no textbook answer, and no fixed way that it is decided. Perhaps the spirits known as the lords of karma decide your fate on an individual basis? It is supposedly common for one who murders another to be required to bring that person back to life. How is this possible? In a future life, the murderer would have to be the victim’s parent. It is also a common belief that in war, if you kill someone with hatred in your heart from another country — you might be reborn in their country and they might be reborn in yours.

Based on a past-life regression, I learned that in my past life I was a small child living in Vietnam. I was killed by a mad-man from America in a helecopter who was just killing everyone in sight. I was reborn in America. My revision showed that he was not reborn in Vietnam, but nearby in Laos into a very poor economic setting. No wonder I love “Summer rolls” so much at Vietnamese restaurants!

Iraq?
So, what is the effect of America’s involvement in Iraq? I feel that karmically we are inviting horrible things by being there. Many Americans are very happy to kill Iraqis. Since many extremists believe in suicide missions, what would happen if an American soldier killed such people?

Let’s look at the rash of school shootings in America. There have been many movie theater and school shootings. There was Virginia Tech, another in Colorado, and a few others I can’t remember the names of. Could it be that these were executed by souls who were extremists living in Iraq, but because they were murdered by American soldiers, that they were reborn into America according to reincarnation theory? We have been in Iraq since 1990. If you were an Iraqi killed in 1990, and were immediately reincarnated into an unsuspecting American woman’s womb, you would be 23 by now. How old was the Virginia Tech shooter? He was born in 1984, so he doesn’t fit the profile of a reincarnated Iraqi extremist. But, at this stage in America’s relationship to Iraq, there could be thousands of souls reincarnated into America who could be anywhere from 1 to 23 years old! It makes you think, is war really worth it?

Japan
There are some spiritualists who noticed that in the 1980’s, America’s corporate culture stressed “workaholicism.” Japanese souls killed in World War 2 would be in their 30’s and 40’s if they had been reincarnated into America. People in their 40’s lead corporate culture’s middle management as a rule. Could it be that people reincarnated from Japan in WW2 are responsible for America’s sudden affinity with over-working? Additionally, baseball suddenly became very popular in Japan at roughly the same time. Perhaps many “American Souls” became reincarnated into Japan and still loved baseball.

Given all of this reincarnation theory, I think that if we engage in war with a country, we should pick an enemy with attributes that we absolutely love. That way when their souls are reincarnated onto our beloved soil, we will be benefitted from that.

Tweets:
(1) There is a lot of misinformation about reincarnation. Read the realities here (in this life)
(2) If you give to charity, God will reward you in this life, within days in many cases!

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Do men feel more capable after meeting with higher level people?

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According to The Daily Stat, men who interact with a high powered executive even briefly will feel even more powerful, confident, and wiling to take risks. An interesting statistic. But, this effect doesn’t happen with women who are less keen on becoming powerful.

I have learned through personal experience that everybody I interact with rubs off on me. If I am with someone good at creative thinking, I become better at creative thinking myself. If I am around great technical thinkers, I make better decisions when I am sitting next to them — especially the really complicated decisions. Being around people who constantly complain has a really bad effect on me. I get very irritated. I am not brought down by the specifics of what they are complaining about, but by the fact that the complaining never ends, and that there is no relief.

I feel inspired to even read a book by a higher level person. Reading about Warren Buffet gets me closer to that mindset of a Billionaire. I learn to think about the types of things that he thinks about, and in the way that he does. Sure, it takes a while for it to sink in, and a single exposure is not enough. But, just being around someone smart or powerful can have a huge effect on you.

The interesting fact here is that women are less interested in power and therefor being around powerful people doesn’t rub off on them as much. Does that mean that if I am around a great football player, that they will not rub off on me because I don’t have the internal desire to be good at football? Maybe we can say, that if the spark is not there within you, that external influences will not influence you that much. That is a very spiritual type of a thing to say!

Is Southeast Asia where it’s at in business these days?

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Is Southeast Asia where it’s at in business these days?

I was watching a youtube video of Scott Eddy a few weeks ago. He is an American who likes living overseas. He’s lived in Spain, Michigan, Miami, a few other places, and now in Thailand. He is a serial entrepreneur, master Twitterer, marketing aficionado, and very inspiring as a motivational speaker as well. In any case, he is of the opinion that Southeast Asia is the best place to be in the world from a business standpoint. He sees a different mentality there, fast growth, and excitement.

India & Taiwan
I agree with Scott on this point. I see it in my own way of course. I have not lived in Thailand before, but I spent some time in Taiwan and India of all places. I have witnessed the economic growth, and I have seen the passion for business growth. Taiwanese breathe business. It is not something they do — they live for it and die for it. In India, every time I went, there were visible signs of economic improvement.

There were better cars, newer buildings, and people were trying new types of cuisines and even wines. I didn’t see the passion for business in India. India is divided by caste, and it is more the Gujaratis and Sindhis who are talented at business. I didn’t meet that many people from those communities as I was mainly with South Indians. But, in India, the quick rise in standard of living, prices, and the quick change in lifestyle was all around me.

America — the land of lost enthusiasm
What I will say, is that I see America as a place where there is not much burning passion for business. I meet a few people once in a while who have the love, but most people are just getting by and thinking small. People’s goals here are to grow their business, buy a nice house, and fly to Vegas for the weekend. Thinking big and being willing to sacrifice doesn’t seem to be an American way of existing.

The quality of the work in America has really gone down too in the last few decades. I don’t see America being a wealthy country for that much longer. The government will go belly up soon, and the people don’t have the drive to really recover from what is going to happen to us.

Dubai & the Arab World
The Emirates is a very unique part of the world. The Northern Arab countries like Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq are divided by religious sects and their countries have been ravaged by genocide and war.

Meanwhile, the Gulf Arabs all have countries with huge expat communities from around the world. Instead of dividing themselves by sect, they seem to unite the world under their Halal umbrella. Although the Saudi’s are not quite as welcoming to their foreign guests, expats in the Emirates (which is where Dubai is) and other gulf countries report having a great lifestyle.

The think that attracts me to Dubai is that there is an atmosphere of business exuberance. There are many people with lofty goals who are passionate about growing their business to heights unheard of. The architecture of Dubai reflects this passion. The tallest building in the world is in Dubai. The Sheikh made sure it was much taller than originally planned so that they could out-do everyone else. Their airport is

one of the busiest in the world. New buildings are popping up all over the place. Those who are not financially responsible have to abort their construction half-way through which is disastrous. But, at least the passion is there. When I look around America, there is not much new going on other than what Apple and Samsung are doing — and a few new frozen yogurt places perhaps. There is always a new social media site that is hot, but that is about it.

Summary
Basically, Asia is bustling throughout the continent. Each country is growing and dreaming their own way, but they are almost all growing. America seems to have lost its passion and is going further into debt. I want to travel and spend more time in the countries where the action is. That spirit of business is contagious and it can rub off on me. Maybe I can rub off on them in a good way too!

As far as answering the question of whether Southeast Asia the best place to be in the world for business right now — I’d have to say that it is one of the better places. It really depends what industry you are in and where you gel the most. But, I will say that as far as business inspiration goes, America is definitely no longer the place.

Should oil companies create their own nations?

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I always fantasize about having my own dictatorship somewhere. I could create a beautiful tiny country, have gardens everywhere and a booming economy. People from around the world would want to live in my country and obey my bizarre laws. I like order and safety, so my laws might be similar to those in Singapore or Dubai for example. The public would be safe, but drug dealers might get their heads chopped off faster than they can say “illegal transport”.

But, I am a simple guy with modest savings. I can’t afford land to build a country, let alone the military power to secure it in this crazy world. But, a multi-billion dollar oil conglomerate could easily buy their own turf — and why not?

Oil companies seem to have a heavy hand in manipulating the US government. We fight wars partly for our perceived national interests and partly to defend or secure the assets of these oil giants. It is true that the US wouldn’t function too well without oil, so there is a reason for this madness. But, what if these oil companies had their own countries and their own militaries?

Imagine if Mobil purchased some land off the coast of Canada or Washington State. Maybe they might prefer the Caribbean so their executives could live in style. If they looked around hard enough, for a few billion, they could get a comfy piece of land or a few nicely sized islands. They could spend some more and get some of the US’s cutting edge military hardware and might be able to lease some top special forces as well. Think of the possibilities. They could have a population of several hundred thousand. They would have their own tax base, based on income from selling oil worldwide. That tax money could be used to live in style, and have a nice military to let the Iraqis and Iranians know who is in charge! If the cost of defending their rigs got too expensive, they might seek greener pastures somewhere else and sell their property to someone else. The oil companies could have the power and freedom to solve their own problems without dragging the US into the equation! Wonderful — perhaps.

For those who say, “No blood for oil”, these oil companies could pay the market price for top notch mercenaries. How much is a human life worth? You could look online to get hourly bids for what people would accept in salaries to risk their life fighting for oil. It would all be much simpler — much more cut and dry. Can you think of a system that would be more honest than this?

It might be fun to live in such a nation too. Your income tax would likely be very low, and there would be lots of ex-patriots to keep you company.

Tweets:
(1) I always fantasize about having my own dictatorship somewhere! I want my own country!
(2)… the public would be safe, but drug dealers would get their heads chopped off…

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What is a microvacation?

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What is a microvacation and why you should take one.

There are various types of vacations that a person could take. You could stay at home, go to a resort, go

to a foreign country, or just camp by a lake. These days there are more innovative types of breaks called “Workations,” “Twittercations,” and now there are “Microvacations” (not to be confused with Nanovacations.

It is hard for busy working people to get away.
You can’t take a one week or two week break whenever you feel like it. You need to be all done with your work and your meetings before you can seriously take time off. But, what if your work load just doesn’t end? There needs to be a system for dealing with that. Stress can pile up, and the stress doesn’t care if you have time for a break or not. You need a microvacation.

What is a microvacation?
A regular vacation could be a week or more, generally in a far away and hopefully relaxing or rejuvinating place. Or, it might be an interesting place with lots of sightseeing which could be refreshing albeit tiring. But, a microvacation is something that lasts only a few hours. It is not even as long as a mini-vacation or day trip. No, a microvacation is only a few hours at best.

Recommendations for quality microvacations?
The beauty of a microvacation is that they are low in cost. You don’t need to book hotels, and you don’t need to pay for expensive cabs, or airfare. Since a microvacation is so short, they are by definition nearby where you live. By my personal definition, a microvacation could be taken anywhere from thirty minutes to three hours from where you live. You simply drive to your destination, and then enjoy your activity. The point of a microvacation is to take you away from your regular stressful environment into a refreshing place. What you actually do is secondary providing that it rejuvinates you. Natural places are what I would recommend for a microvacation.

Where do I go for my microvacations?
I like the coast at sunset. I’ll often go for an hour or two. I will read blogs on my i-phone, or enjoy a quick meal at a coastal restaurant. The ocean vibration refreshes my mind and body, so that when I go back to work, I can function better with less stress. Sometimes I’ll visit the desert for a few hours as well. That is a longer drive, but it does miracles to boost my energy. Or, I’ll visit a local forest that relaxes me and boosts my energy. Use caution, because not all natural places will have the same effect on you. Choose places that you notice a definitive change in your mood or energy after you go there. Take notes on how you feel before and after each place, and go more than once to document your average net boost in energy or lowering of stress.

How often should I take a microvacation?
I would recommend a microvacation two or three times a week if you want to be able to work at optimal performance at your job. The weekend can be used for a longer microvacation that might require eight hours away from home. Shorter trips can be done after work during the week.

Attachment to a particular outcome will destroy you

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After engaging in a spiritual practice for two decades, I learned that attachments are bad. The problem is that I had a few attachments. If you have been working with someone for ten years, it is not so easy to let them go. If you have been living in the same place for two decades it is not so easy to just pack up and go. If you have been driving the same car or doing the same job for a long time, it is natural no matter how spiritual you might think you are to have an attachment.

What I learned is that spiritual knowledge really helps in business. India is the world capital of spiritual knowledge. Unfortunately, the ones who are highly evolved don’t work, and those who work, are generally at a very low level of spiritual attainment or non-attainment. If India would apply its spiritual knowledge to business, they would be superstars. Maybe in another four decades. I will keep my fingers crossed.

I wanted to have one of my assistants handle all of certain types of tasks. She did part of it but not all. I didn’t have enough work to hire and train another assistant — or at least so I thought. So, since she didn’t do everything, then I started working overtime to get all of the tasks done that I wanted done. I just tired myself out. The problem originated from an attachment. I was “used to” using a particular person for tasks. I was used to doing things myself. I was not used to training new people to do new things. After all, that is time consuming, and “what if” they don’t do a good job, or “what if” they quit.

So, I trained someone new to do the work, and they learned to be better in many ways than the original person I was using. Wow! So, I got over my attachment to a particular way of doing things, and the result was better. Of course, the result could have been worse as well — and that is why we try things before we commit to them.

Next, I was having issues with a service provider for another task that I outsourced. I had been working with her for seven years. I had very little experience with others on the particular task she did. But, I had trouble with one of the people in her office who always was rude to me. It got to the point where my patience was running out — and they were no bargain either. So, I found others who could do the work she did equally well. Of course, they didn’t have the technical skills that the original person had, but they were good in other ways that I never thought of which made up for it. Additionally, the price was much lower.

What I learned was — whatever you didn’t think of could be very valuable. New people might be good in ways you never imagined. As a manager, your skill lies in your ability to explore and nurture the hidden potential in others! So, don’t get attach to individuals, or particular ways of doing things. Be flexible and learn to explore!

The story of Jacque DeLonge

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Back in the 1800’s in France, there was a man named Jacque DeLonge. He was from a long line of people whose job was to clean the sewers. But, Jacque was a very lazy guy. His boss couldn’t get him to do his job cleaning the sewers. They paid him good money, but he would spend it mostly on alcohol and then go home and beat his wife. The administrators in his part of France were furious. They were trying to run a clean province, but with guys like Jacque, how could they? Should they clean “Les Sewers” themselves? This is not real French, but for the entertainment purposes of English speakers we can imagine that it means “the sewers”, imagine the administrator Stephan saying this with a thick French accent throwing his hands in the air!

“Les Sewers!”

So, finally by the end of the 1800’s, the French administrators had had enough of these lazy French guys who commanded huge salaries, but did almost no work cleaning “Les Sewers.” They needed some desperate people to clean “Les Sewers.” They thought long and hard and came up with nothing. This problem that they had had for over one hundred years was getting worse and no solutions came to mind until one day came a knock on the door.

(knock knock knock)

The Solution — for now
Stephan said in his thick French accent: “Ooo is eet?” meaning who is it? A scrawny and desperate Algerian man who hadn’t eaten for days said he would do anything for a baguette and some meat — but, not pork as it was not Halal. Then Stephan said, “If pork is good enough for us, it is good enough for you!” Then, Fuad said, “I would rather starve with dignity rather than even touch this forbidden food!” Stephan was not impressed, and said that was all he had. Then Fuad said, “Fine, in that case you can find someone else to clean “Les Sewers” and slammed the door loudly.

Stephan realizing that he was going to lose a huge opportunity and chased Fuad for blocks through high snow drifts, ice, and other hazards. Finally, upon catching up to Fuad, he offered him some chicken, vegetables and lots of bread in a huge basket to take to his family. From that day forward, they hired Fuad to clean “Les sewers!” Fuad worked so hard and did such a good job that Jacque DeLonge was immediately fired. Stephan the administrator found a way to bring all of Fuad’s extended family over from Algeria and had them do all types of hard jobs that the locals wouldn’t do. But, one generation later, Fuad and his cousins’ children refused to do this type of work. They wanted to own gas stations or be rap artists. Okay, perhaps my story is a little historically inaccurate since we are still in the end of the 1800’s, but imagine 1800’s gas stations and 1800’s style rap music in French if you can.

But, the problem continued
Once again Stephan was in a bind. Nobody would clean the sewers. But, he had a solution. He would import another several thousand Algerian immigrants to do the hard work. The children of the first round of Algerians were even lazier than Jacque DeLonge, the lazy French sewer cleaner. Once again, twenty years later, the immigrants who came to do difficult jobs had each had ten children per family, none of whom wanted to do any type of hard work. Many were unemployed, many strived to be rap artists or drug dealers, and many did easier indoor jobs, but none would clean “Les sewers!”

A third round of immigrants & ethnic tensions
For the third time Stephan had a serious problem. He needed someone to clean “Les Sewers,” but his cleaners had retired, and their children didn’t want to do this type of work. Stephan was getting old now, so his son Gabriel took over his job. Gabriel gave work visas to tens of thousands of new immigrants from North Africa to do the tough jobs as the descendants of the earlier immigrants and the local French wouldn’t touch those jobs. So, the new immigrants came, the jobs got done. But, now they were experiencing a new type of problem. The first round of immigrants were few in numbers, and hard at work. There was no problem having them around. The second round of immigrants were more in numbers, and hard at work. The children of the first round of immigrants were few, and only a handful made trouble. But, now there were more children, grandchildren, more drugs, more rap music, more unemployment, and lots of tension between Christians and Muslims. The tension became eventually unleashed itself in violence as Muslims were tired of being segregated by society and Christians felt threatened. So, what’s the solution.

A fourth round of immigrants.
Once again there were more people in France by now, and more sewers, but nobody wanted to clean them. So Gabriel, let in the fourth round of immigrants to clean the sewers. But, now the Muslim population of France was about 10% and with their fast birth rate and high rate of immigration, statisticians believe they would be 50% within a generation. This would be okay if the Christians and Muslims could live in peace together, but they never enjoyed each others company and terror attacks were on the rise making it unsafe for anyone to live in France. Once again, after round four of immigrants retired, someone new needed to come to clean the sewers.

A fifth round
A fifth round of immigrants came to clean the sewers. They were escaping starvation and political unrest in Libya, Algeria, and poverty in Morocco. They were happy to be away from their problems. But, the more of them who came to France, France inherited the type of problems that existed in the old country. The only thing that happened is that their problems became geographically transplanted — but didn’t go away. Gabriel’s son Maxwell’s administrative problems didn’t go away either as he once again ran out of people to clean the sewers. By now the Muslim population in France was 20%, and it was clear that they would take over if more came. So, the white French tried to slow down the inevitable by changing who they let immigrate to France. Even after changing who the immigrants were, the Muslim population grew quickly due to their high birth rate and due to illegal immigration as well.

A change in immigration strategy involving Russians
From then on, they decided to let in people who were less prone to extremism, and more compatible with the indigenous French population. They invited Filipinos and Russians to come to clean “Les Sewers.” Anatoly was a Russian sewer cleaner, and one of the best they had seen. He worked tirelessly and gave France the cleanest sewers that they had seen in five hundred years. He did his work with pride. Maxwell, the grandson of Stephan gave him gifts, showered him with praise, and invited him for dinner regularly (providing he took a shower and changed clothes of course.) Until one day Anatoly came late to work. Maxwell tried to figure out what happened. After a long conversation, the answer was revealed. Anatoly was going to school and was studying for his final. He was going to be an Orthodontist. Maxwell thought that was wonderful, but if Anatoly becomes an Orthodontist, who will clean “Les sewers?” So, Maxwell let in more and more Russians to do labor. The Algerians lasted a generation doing horrible jobs, but the Russians only lasted 8-10 years before they became Orthodontists, shop owners, or something else. On a brighter note, they didn’t add fuel to the Muslim Christian riots that were now regularly happening. So, Maxwell worked harder at helping Filipinos come to France. His first round of Filipino immigrants lasted a generation. But, their children all studied night and day. When Maxwell asked the Filipino-French children what they wanted to do for a living, they all answered, “I want to be an Orthodontist or own a flower shop.” That is wonderful — but, once again, for the 200th time, who will clean “Les Sewers?”

2050 — the year of the great persecution
By this time, the Muslim population in France had grown to 80% of the population and the extremists had made it so that Christian residents and other infidels were forbidden from polluting Paris or most of the rest of France with their presence. The Christians were banished to Normandie, or they would face death. Twenty years after that, the Christians were forced into refugee camps on the coast of Normandie. It got to the point where the Christians were forced into futuristic inflatable boats, and eventually were being fired upon by extra-terrestrial looking phaser guns by the extremists. Most of the Christian French died in this persecution. But, not all of them. At last, a boat from heaven came to save the survivors. It was a futuristic levitating boat from Iceland that looked more like a UFO than a boat.

A new chance for the French refugees in Iceland
The great great great great great grandchildren of Stephan the city manager and Jacque DeLonge the lazy French sewer cleaner from the 1800’s were amoung the survivors on the boat. They were so happy to be alive.

SURVIVORS: Thank you so much for saving us from persecution.

ICELANDERS: We are happy to save you.

SURVIVORS: We are so happy to have a chance at a new start in life. But, we have no jobs, so how will we make a living. Is there anything that you might need us to do?

ICELANDERS: If you have experience raising farmed baby sharks, we need a lot of help in that department as we like to eat the meat. It is a Viking tradition. We eat it raw! Oh, and one more thing.

SURVIVORS: Yes? What is that? Anything…

ICELANDERS: We need someone to clean what you in France call, “Les Sewers.”

SURVIVORS: Ha ha ha ha… Gladly. We are just happy not to die. But, the irony is that the whole reason we lost our country is because we let dangerous people become the majority in our country solely so they could relieve us from the task of cleaning our own sewers. And look at us now. We are doing exactly the one thing that we refused to do that got us in so much trouble. So the eighth generation descendant of Jacque DeLonge who was born in Lyon in 1852 was once again doing the job of the caste they had belonged to in France, but in Iceland.

2070: France in Iceland
The French Icelanders by now had found better employment. Many chose to own shops, make croissants, own flower shops, become rap artists, or become orthodontists. Now, the Icelanders had a problem. Nobody to clean “Les Sewers.” The Icelanders wanted to let in some Muslims from France (who were now starving after a huge civil war between Shiites and Sunnis in France that destroyed almost everything) to clean “Les Sewers” but, the descendants of the French all said in unison, “NOOOOOOO!!!!” So, Iceland went with really dirty sewers for ten years until a miracle from God happened. A man from Japan showed up who wanted to get some shark meat sashimi. He wanted to eat it with raw ginger and wasabi sauce like they do in Japan. He tasted it and said, “Wow, it is so fresh — oishee desu ne!” He was pleased with how delicious and tasty the shark was and texted his family back in Tokyo. His family was having trouble with their flying car as the altimeter was off by a few nanometers which caused them to be harrassed by local police. But, they were pleased he liked their shark. Finally, the Icelanders asked him what to do about their problem with the sewers. Mr. Kato scratched his head for a moment, and then reached into his wallet. He handed them a business card from a robotics specialist with both hands and bowed respectfully.

2080 Robots From Japan in Iceland
So, the Icelanders called Zatoichi Robotics in Tokyo. They flew over in one of their newest models of flying cars, or what they called, “Frying caws.” They supplied the Icelanders with lots of robots and a maintenance contract that was to last ten years. The Icelanders were ecstatic and signed immediately. For the first time in human history the problem of the sewers had finally been solved.

2090 A civil war in Iceland.
Then, some very serious problems broke out. The descendants of the French and the Icelanders had never gotten along. They didn’t marry with each other, and they rarely socialized together. There was peace initially since the French were so happy to be alive, but now, the French took their new home for granted. Additionally, the French were having genetic engineered children which the indiginous Icelanders forbade which led to a huge conflict. Since the birthrate of the French descendants was more than of the local population, eventually, the French grew to be 90% of the population. Since the French felt persecuted by the anti-genetic engineering laws and the rigid enforcement of these laws, the French decided to make the Icelanders live in the corner of the island and take the rest for themselves. A few years later, this long standing conflict over genetics led to an all out war, and the French pushed the Icelanders into the sea. Luckily, a boat from France run by moderate Muslims came to save them in a mission of mercy. By now, the extremists had all killed themselves and the survivors of the civil war in France were all very peaceful nice people who practiced charity to the poor as Islam calls for.

2100 The Icelanders take refuge in Islamic France
The Icelanders were very happy to be admitted into Islamic France. They found the religion to be a bit odd, but the Islamic French agreed with them on their most important political view which was that bio-genetic engineering was wrong, or as the Islamic French put it — “Haram!” So, the Icelanders and the Islamic French lived together in harmony. However, the Icelanders had no jobs, and the Muslims didn’t like shark meat which was the local specialty for the Icelanders. So, what were they to do? The Muslims said that they had many jobs that they needed done, but there was one job that they couldn’t find anyone to do no matter how hard they looked. They could not find anyone to clean — “Les Sewers.”

Who will fix “Les Robots”
Meanwhile in Iceland, the descendants of the Christian French were enjoying their conquested land. This was the first time in three-hundred years that French had done anything aggressive. They had robots to clean their sewers and life was good until one day. The robots started breaking down, and the repair people in Tokyo were all young people as the older people were working on other projects. The young people only knew how to fix the newer models of robots. The Christian French had nobody to fix “Les robots!” After several years of dealing with disasters, and French people trying to learn robotic programming, the situation was out of hand. A few French were able to learn this task, but not enough to get the job done. They tried to make a deal with the Japanese. They would offer generous terms if some of the older robotic programmers could live in Iceland and keep those robots running. The price for the robotics programmers was insanely high, and the programmers required the best flying cars, the best apartments, and fresh raw shark meat in large quantities. Since the indiginous Icelanders had left, there was nobody left who knew how to raise farmed baby sharks anymore, so they were in trouble. So, they had to let some of the children of the Icelanders who they kicked out to come back and raise sharks for them so that they could keep the programmers from Japan happy. After many years, the programmers from Japan finally died of old age, and from the toxins in the sharks. The weather in Iceland got much worse, and the Christian French had to find a new place to live that would be inhabitable. Since they had good relations with the Japanese, they were invited to live in a part of Japan.

2110: The French Moved to Japan
The Christian French were happy to have escaped a slow death due freezing weather from global climate change. They were happily living in Japan. They were segregated on a peninsula of an island, but they could live, enjoy their language, their culture, and not freeze to death. The only bad thing is that there were not many jobs. The Japanese had long since back abandoned using robots to clean the sewers because the cost of fixing the breakdowns was cost prohibitive. Everytime they found a good robotics programmer, they would quit after a few years to chase after a more exotic programming job. The sewer cleaning robot programmers lasted only about four years. After this period, they all wanted to program for robots who would work at flower shops or do orthodontic work. The French started laughing, because this was the exact situation they had had with the Filipino immigrants children. None of them wanted to clean the sewers, but they wanted to own flower shops or be an orthodontist leaving nobody to clean the sewers. Although Japan had a very unfair caste system that was horrifying to Westerners (especially the French,) they had no problem finding indiginous humans to do sewer cleaning tasks as they didn’t like relying on immigrants to do anything — hence the reliance on robots. The French, although segregated, were very popular with the Japanese as they ran some of the best restaurants in the entire country. The Japanese for over six hundred years had professional restaurant reviewers and they liked nothing more than high quality French cuisine and some hybrid Japanese-French cuisine as well. But, then, there was a terrible earthquake in Japan. This generation of French once again had to flee the only country they knew. But, where would they go?

2120 Meanwhile in France.
The Muslim French who now had been residing in France for over two hundred years felt bad that their ancestors had been so horrible to these peaceful Christians. The current Muslims in France were very peaceful as the extremists were all killed in their civil war long time ago (as we mentioned before.) So, the ethnic French were readmitted into their country. They went back to the old neighborhoods where their great grandparents once lived and cried. They didn’t even recognize the neighborhoods from the pictures as everything was so modernized and Islamicized. The French said Thank You a million times. There was just one thing. The Muslim French had nobody to clean “Les Sewers.” So, the ethnic French had to do all of the dirty jobs in France for a generation. I guess you could say it was their retribution according to the laws of “Le Karma!” After that, the Muslims started leaving France. Their countries of origin had become prosperous, and besides, the weather was nicer in North Africa. France once again became the exclusive property of the ethnic French who had all returned. But, there was one problem. Nobody wanted to clean — “Les Sewers!”

The French tried to think of all of the possibilities to solve this problem. They could go back to a 1400’s type of a feudal caste system. They could try to teach more robotics in school so that they could fix sewer cleaning robots. They could have immigrants from Fiji come and clean the sewers for a generation until they too became Orthodontists. They finally agreed that there would be a law in France that nobody could attend college until they had done two years of “Sewer duty.” This system worked for a while, until the law was repealed twenty years later by some well meaning liberals who thought that the law was “inhumane”. Once again, the French had nobody to clean, “Les Sewers.”

2140: The Moon People
Finally, another miracle happened. Some French had gone in a spaceship to the moon. They found some creatures who lived underground who had no eyes. Their entire existence was experienced in the dark. They used some psychic means to communicate with these creatures as by now the French were very spiritual and psychic. The creatures said that life on the moon was not so easy. There was not enough gravity, and they wanted a new place to live. There was only one problem though. They couldn’t stand living above ground — and they would work very hard if they could be given a safe home underground with good food. There was only one other requirement. Their employement would need to be exclusively underground. They asked the Frenchman Jacque (who incidentally was the 12th generation descendant of the famous Jacque DeLonge) if he could think of a solution. Jacque said, “You can clean our sewers — that is completely underground!” The moon people were so happy. They got in the spaceship and came to planet earth where they worked every day cleaning “Les sewers.” They were in the news, on the intraplanetary web, and the entire galaxy came to know about this. Unfortunately, these moon people started getting weird diseases that they never got on the moon and died off. Once again France had nobody to clean “Les Sewers.”

2160: 123outsource.net provides a solution
Finally, another Jacque, (son of the other Jacque we talked about — yes, this one was the 13th generation descendant of the famous Jacque DeLonge who was so lazy about cleaning the sewers.) came up with a solution. He visited 123outsource.net and found sewer cleaning outsourcing services. They would come from India to France, do their job, and go back home on flying saucers they called “Vimanas”. They didn’t have to become citizens and then have their children become rap artists and flower shop owners only to require the French to have another round of immigrants, and so on, and so on. They would do the job, and go back home on a craft called “Pushpaka” to have chapatis. The French loved this. So, for 20 years, France had a solution to their sewer problem thanks to 123outsource.net. But, eventually, the Indian guys running the service went into spaceship repair and moved to a different planet where the wages were higher. Rahul commented, “These days it is hard to get a good marriage if you are not willing to work on a different planet for a MPC (multi-planetary company.)”

2170 Rejoicing in Muck!
The French all got together for a long discussion. The same type of discussion that they had a generation ago. They needed a permanent solution to their sewer problem that would not lead to them losing their country, or becoming dependent on unreliable robotics professionals. Finally after two months of daily discussion, a man by the name of Jacque (yes, another Jacque) came up with an idea. “The only solution that will last in the long run is that we need to stop being lazy and clean our own sewers. We have seen how laziness has led to us losing our country, being economically enslaved by our commitments to robotics engineers, and relying on 123outsource.net which although was pleasant, made us reliant. We need to clean our own sewers and enjoy it.

So, for the next two hundred years, the French learned to rejoice in doing the most unpleasant jobs. They found a sort of fulfillment in it. They molded their culture so that difficult jobs were seen as “Freedom jobs” as doing those sorts of jobs ensured the long term economic and physical safety of France from people from other cultures who had different values, sensibilities, and religions. Finally, the French had figured it out. In fact, this concept of connecting the idea of freedom to cleaning sewers became so popular that everybody wanted to be a hero and clean sewers. There was only one problem. Now, France didn’t have any orthodontists. Nobody wanted to be an orthodontist, because they were all getting degrees in advanced sewer cleaning as that was the new passion of the French.

2180 The Filipinos return to France to be Orthodontists.
So, a few years later, they let 10,000 Filipinos fly over on a vessel called “The Gallactic Pinoy.” The Philippines by 2180 had far one orthodontist for every twenty members of the population. There were too many dentists and not enough teeth. They were so happy to have a home in France where they could eat Halo-Halo every day and enjoy their passion of straightening people’s teeth. But, the children of the Filipino orthodontists, no longer wanted to fix teeth. They too wanted to be heros, and clean sewers.

So endeth the story of Jacque DeLonge, the lazy French man who inadvertantly caused the downfall of France merely because he was too lazy to clean — “Les Sewers!”

The End!

Maid in Dubai: A sensible solution to a controversial reputation damaging problem

Categories: Management, Of Interest | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Dubai is famous worldwide. People love the business climate, the amazing architecture, the sheikh with his passion for life and his Kentucky bred horses. Dubai is a place that just doesn’t quit, and they love trying new and outlandish ideas, especially if those ideas are expensive? So, how do they do it?

Dubai started out as being a desert. Oil money was what got Dubai going. But, they were smart. They didn’t just decide to live off their oil money for the rest of their lives. They decided to invest in all types of other businesses and banking and build an economy like nobody ever dreamed of. Only 6% of their revenue these days is oil based which is good, because their oil is due to dry up in about a decade!

Dubai also is smart about getting labor. While the United States has a wall to keep illegal immigrants out, Dubai welcomes immigrants in, providing they have a job or employment contract. This is a sensible system because it allows Dubai to get lots of inexpensive labor from around the world. In the 1970’s, workers in the Arabian peninsula were mainly Arabs from other countries. After a while, the Arabians began to have a preference for the more docile cultures from the East such as Pakistan and the Philippines in particular. They don’t argue as much with their employers. Additionally, there is no minimum wage that I am aware of in Dubai, so they can get all the labor they need at pennies on the dollar. Why is it that they are so smart, and Americans just don’t get it. I think that America needs to learn from Dubai and have a free economic zone with low taxes, free immigration and no minimum wage! But, I digress!

The problem of hostage workers
Almost anyone can go to the United Arab Emirates if they have a job lined up. This is a great system for having a low unemployment rate. If you lose your job, you leave the country, and you become someone else’s problem. Another smart attribute of Dubai. For middle class folks, this might be an inconvenience, or a heartbreak for a few, but not something that will ruin your life. The Emirates doesn’t dish out citizenship to its endless supply of foreigners. They are temporary, and when they are done there — they leave! That way the locals keep complete control of their country which is once again – smart!

Low wage workers who are often construction workers or maids from Pakistan, Ethiopia, India, and the Philippines for the most part come to Dubai with a work contract as a general rule. Their employer holds their passport which makes it impossible for these workers to leave. Unfortunately, these workers are in a sense held hostage. As an employer myself, I realize that people these days are very flippant and have a very questionable work ethic. It is common for people to quit in the middle of a critical project. If you are not holding anything over their head, they can just leave. Dubai understands this which is why they like to once again have the upper hand by holding the worker’s passport for the duration of the contract. It used to be common for employers to defer part of the worker’s payment as well to make sure they didn’t try to leave. I agree that the employer needs to have the upper hand, but this methodology of holding people as virtual hostages is not ethical regardless of what the law says.

Some of the maids in various Arabian countries are abused or sexually harassed by their employers. It is unclear how many of them are maltreated, but it is enough of them to warrant concern. The problem is that they often don’t have the money to return to their country. If they run away from their contract, they will be put in jail. These maids are virtual hostages. They agreed to these conditions before they came to Arabia because they were desperately poor, but still, there needs to be a better way.

The solution
Rather than withholding part of people’s paychecks without a prior agreement, putting people in jail, or holding people’s passports, there should be a cleaner way to enforce employment contracts and prevent people from quitting prematurely. In regard to the workers who are put in jail (there are only a few hundred of these,) because they can’t afford a plane ticket home.

(1) Return Flight Bonds
It would make more sense if they are prohibited from entering the Emirates unless they post a bond with the local government to cover their return flight. The government could guarantee a return flight at the price of the bond even if the market price went up.

(2) Contracts with 10% withholding clauses
Rather than holding people’s passports, it might make sense that work contracts stipulate that workers will have 10% of their monthly pay deferred until the end of the contract. Sure, they could leave two weeks after their contract began, but they would lose the money on their plane ticket which would be punishment in itself. If they lost 10% of their pay by leaving early, they would at least have a way to make it back home to see a dying relative without losing everything. Additionally, the employer would be reasonably compensated for their loss as well. This seem like a system that is fair to all parties involved.

(3) Worker pools
It doesn’t make sense to hire someone for a job so personal like a domestic helper in your home who you have never met. It seems like a dangerous idea for all parties. It would be easier for all involved if the UAE government created a worker pool. Prospective maids could be flown in from various countries, and the government could provide dormitory lodging for them while they wait for a placement. This solves several problems at once. This system allows the government to test these ladies out to see if they are any good at vacuuming, folding clothes and taking care of screaming babies. Additionally, families who might want to hire these maids could meet them in person and see which maids they liked most rather than hiring someone who they met on web chat. Such a system would negate the necessity for multi-year contracts as well. If a maid was not happy with a family, they could return to the dormitory. And if the family was not happy with the maid, they could fire her on the spot. Contracts could be week by week rather than for two or three years. If a maid quit or got fired, they would go back to the dormitory.

(3a) Who qualifies for the dormitory?
If a maid came to Dubai on a government program, the government could pay the initial airfare as part of the worker pool system. In Dubai, everybody wants to get paid back naturally. The government program could extract a percentage from the family who wanted to hire the maid as payment for the airfare and dormitory expenses. The percentage might be 30% the first several weeks, and then 10% for additional weeks or months, or some other system with an up front fee, and a residual percentage. If a maid was fired or quit, they could return to the dormitory. However, if a maid was in the dormitory more than several weeks, or if they quit or got fired too many times, I think that we all agree that they should be sent back to their country of origin courtesy of the government for being “too much trouble!” I think it would be very nice of the government to provide such a system for their citizens. Part of the agreement should be that if a maid quits or gets fired, they can get an all expense ticket back to their country paid by the government at any time. Yes, this would be expensive for the government, but after all of the residual income they would get from the labor of high quality maids, they would make the money back, and every body would be happy.

Summary
I think that it is very clear that my three simple solutions would greatly improve the one area where Dubai’s reputation is in question as well as greatly enhance the satisfaction on both sides of the table in the labor market. Also, on a karmic note, you never want to have a situation where one group of people is severely oppressed. History has many examples of how the oppressed often become the oppressor, or vice versa after several decades or several hundred years. By allowing any type of repression in a country, that sets the stage for karmic retribution. Blacks were enslaved in the US for a very long time. The karmic reversal of this situation is that in 2014, many whites can’t get jobs or get into college because of affirmative action quotas. Now, whites are the ones being discriminated against. Women were subjugated in the US for years. Now, if you are married and get a divorce, your wife can take most of your money and all of your children. The women have much more power now. I’m not sure what the karmic turnaround for Dubai might be, but it might be so hard to find workers in Dubai in 2025 that the workers demand to hold the employer’s passport, otherwise they would just quit and leave the Emeratis high and dry. I’m just joking about that, but in America it is almost impossible to pin down workers and get them to do what they agreed to do. Dubai could karmically end up in exactly that situation several decades from now. So, now is the time to create balance in the universe to prevent any bad karma from accumulating.