Poetic-Verses
INDUSTRIAL STRESS SPIRITS
DEDICATION
Corgoita Egusom (#Aphekhians: Some rats have folded their muscles, ready to exchange blows)
The man had a "half finger", the other, a palmless hand. They and their wives and Children, relatives and loved ones had beseiged the gate of the Lebanese company. They were victims of industrial accidents who were forcefully evicted, retrenched and not paid a dime. The place was Lagos, Nigeria. "So, we create the hazards, and create the wounded or create the hazards, and the hazards create the wounded?"
Industrial Stress spirits involve having a company or workplace, employing people, either using or over-using, with relevance to or outside the boundaries of their job description, exposing them to compressed work loads, or even over natural or over time work or commitment, paid or unpaid for, while still exposing them to health or job or professional hazards, and rejecting, replacing, denying or abandoning them when they have encountered problems, are in trouble or have had accidents or even lost their lives or valuable properties, while constituting a nuisance to humans and the environment. The men I spoke about in my introduction had their finger and entire palm cut off by a fan belt in a jaggered company producing nylon. Why did the Lebanese do this? Simply because they could have and hire cheap labor in no other place than a confused country like Nigeria which has no value for its citizens nor yet, human lives. The truth has it that some devious police men came and drove them away, while the owner of the company falsified documents about not ever employing them. Why did the Lebanese do this? Were they right? Could they do this to Americans? There are good Lebanese, but who were these men whom the Nigerian Government could grant license to come into their country to perpetuate havoc in the guise of investors? Well, Been Murray Bruce says "it's a Nation of beggars, whose worth of a university degree is one-fortieth of that obtainable in the west" (Paraphrase). So, we beg about what to eat. We beg about what to wear. We beg about who to approve budgets, our own money. We beg about appointments. We beg about admissions. We beg about who to marry. We beg about how to obtain grades, learn or graduate out of school. And finally, beg to have jobs or establish businesses. Forgetting that just being sincere, doing your best and arriving at a reasonable end could grant you success with security, even without having to beg anyone. Because, in hell, they beg, and can do nothing more than helplessly beg.
When we treat human beings less than what they deserve as investors, employers of labor, or keep the environment offensive, we are constituting an industrial Stress spirit. Noisy, loud steaming generators, risky engines and machines or equipment constitute industrial Stress spirit, just as sewage, industrial refuse, stress, threat and intimidation do. It is good to have good products and services around, but never at the expense of human lives and dignity. What of those girls in companies in Lagos, Nigeria or Abuja, Nigeria, whose bosses ask to go to bed with people in order to get paid, at times, very meagre amounts, in the name of offering customer services, while pushing up targets yearly, forgetting that the human mind, body or mode of operation is not similar to those of a contractiile system of machines. You may literally tear off a human arm, while wanting them to super perform or super produce. You may set them into very horrible states of minds, with attendant health impacts with threats of meeting up with unnecessary yearly targets. While humans control machines they are not one, and deserve care. We may pay them for a job done, but never for a broken mind, life or body. We should review, starting from our consciences, how we treat fellow humans, then the functionality of our equipment, or simply quit investing, where we cannot keep to both, or simple safety standards. I know companies in Nigeria, especially banks, who openly, without no pride of having to keep and maintain at least one faithful staff till old age, clearly and without fear, hire the best young peoples, then compulsorily retrench them in two to four years as a standard, an offence called THE PICK AND PACKER METHOD OR AS THEY OFTEN SAY, "USE AND ABANDON" STYLE OF EMPLOYMENT, SO THAT THEY LEAVE THESE JOBS STRANDED, HAVE TO TOIL AGAIN TO REACH SOME HEIGHTS, IF AT ALL, WHILE WE PRIDE OURSELVES IN VAINLY DECLARING ASSESTS AND PRINTING "ANNUAL REPORTS" AND GLADLY KEEPING ROI'S AND SHARING PROFITS WITH PEOPLE'S BLOOD AND WELL-BEING. AFTER ALL, WE MADE THE LAW WE COULD BOLDLY DO SO.
We should sincerely and intrinsically show dignity for the human person like we'd have shown to us, don't mismanage, intimidate, use and dump or abandon people, and care for our environments. Or the consequences, downstairs or upstairs could be too grave.
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INDUSTRIAL STRESS SPIRITS
INDUSTRIAL STRESS SPIRITS
