Salary and the Open Drawer..!
Was just reading that the municipal corporation of one of our cities while presenting it’s budget yesterday revealed it had no money for development work, no road concretization, no beautification schemes, no bridges, no flyovers as the bulk of the funds other than being used to meet the city’s water crisis would go towards the pay hike their employees were demanding.
Which led me to think, why are they being paid at all?
I’d visited a municipal office last month, and found every now and then the sound of a drawer opening and shutting, you know the drawer just below the desk where these guys rest their files and pretend to work. Like I said every now and again a drawer opens and bangs shut! I slowly walked over to a man who was having a conversation with an employee, their was laughter, slightly forced, then the drawer opened, and as if on cue the visitor threw in a bundle of five hundred rupee notes; the next moment the drawer banged shut.
The sound of opening and closing of drawers continued throughout the time I was there and I didn’t even dare to guess the moolah they had all made that day.
And now they demand a pay hike!
Many restaurants pay their waiters very poorly but allow them to pick up all the tips which turns out to be a substantial sum, while some hotels add ‘service charges’ to the bill, which is the tip you are supposed to give to the waiter and which I’ve heard a portion goes to the owner:
“So municipal worker here’s a suggestion!”
“Wait let me close my drawer, what’s it?”
“You decide: No salary only bribes! Or take your salary and we also get a part of the money you make in that drawer!”
“No!”
“No what?”
“We want both increase in salary and the money in the drawer!”
“But that ain’t fair!”
“You want your building to be passed? Garbage lifted? A new water connection, here!”
“Here what?”
“My open drawer!”
Which leads me to think of another solution; lets give them a salary hike, a good one at that but…
“But what?”
“We take all the money you make in the drawer!”
“Why?”
“So we can build flyovers, concretize the roads…”
“Sir, with the money in there, you will be able to make Mumbai into Shanghai, Chennai into Washington and Kashmir into another Switzerland overnight! You want us to give all that money to you? Ha, ha, ha!”
“So why the salary hike?”
“We should get paid no sir for opening and shutting the drawers?”
Please do give your response to this article in the ‘comments’ section below
Three cheers to you Bobby for your boldness. I would like to offer one suggestion from the sidelines. Let the BMC charge a service fee in all their bills raised on the users of the facilities provided by them, like some of the hotels. And then such collection by way of service fee can be equitably distributed between all employees. In that case remove all drawers and no pay hike. And since Shanghai is far far away, for God’s sake, never stop the developmental work. I know what ready answer you have for this — new drawers will surface!
hmmmmmmmmmmmmm
well written
really well written