getting things done

In the movie Office Space, the main character complains about the lack of motivation in working harder. He doesn’t see any extra money if the company does better. He decides he only works hard enough not to get fired. That, and not wanting to get hassled by other employees. It’s a rather cynical view of work and it’s meant to be.

For a lot of other people, you could add your own intrinsic value placed on doing a good job as motivation.

Getting things done is about the request and the follow up. The request is made (e.g., get me that file) and the other person’s follow up (e.g., getting the file). Ethiopia appears as some strange vortex where the link between A and B can vanish for various reasons.

The response to “get me that file” could be any of the following:

- "The file cabinet has been moved and I don’t know where.”

- "We’ve run out of paper for that particular file.”

- "Zzzzzzzz”

- "I was talking with So-and-so and they claim that Another-so-and-so took the file home to secretly copy information to leak to another company.”

- "Oh I thought you said to make a copy of the entire file so I’ve been doing that instead.”

- "Sure no problem, here’s the file.”

Frustrating? Yes. Joking? No.

My theory is a “top-down” one. Let’s take a look at Meles. The request was made by the World Bank (among others) for Meles to engage in a true democratic process or suffer donation cuts. Meles’ follow up involved shuffling paper. The result? Money and lots of it. What lesson can we learn here? There is little or no accountability in Ethiopia.

What does this mean for the average worker?

If you’re caught sleeping on the job, will you get fired? No.

If you have lots of three hour lunches, will you get fired? No.

If you steal from the company, will you get fired? No.

If you punch a fellow employee, will you get fired? No.

If your negligence causes someone else to be hurt, will you get fired? No.

If you do only 15 minutes of work in a day, will you get fired? No.

If you’re “absent” for one month, will you get fired? No.

Motivation here is lost in a mess of disorganization, gossip, unhealthy competition, mismanagement and shuffling of papers.

In response to Tobian, yes. Ethiopia needs Ethiopians with a positive work ethic to be an example for all those that get away with so much. Opportunities can be created. Things can get done.