I am slowly coming to terms with the degree of intellectual ineptitude in parts of the corporate world.
Don't get me wrong, there are many highly qualified people with mind-boggling intellect in the office floor. Most of these guys have backgrounds in mathematics, engineering, physics, accounting and economics. They do their work with squeaky clean professionalism and I hold them in high regard for that.
However the world of literature and the arts, as well as general knowledge, is a gobbledygook- an alien concept- to many of the guys I deal with on a regular basis. Some of them don't even bother to read any materials outside their professional domain. Books that have nothing to do with their work is usually considered a distraction that should be avoided at all cost.
The pursuit for excellence in the art of number crunching, financial modelling, writing sophisticated technical reports and the occasional wild parties seem to be the sum total of their existence.
They live in a parallel universe where the highest form of intellectual satisfaction is sitting in front of the laptop perfecting spreadsheets or tracking the performance of financial markets.
The real joy of intellectual discourse and literary adventures in the real world is neither required nor encouraged in their daily livelihoods.
This lifestyle of self-imposed narrow-mindedness in my view is the worst kind of poverty.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Fifth Time Lucky?
It is interesting how certain straight forward transactions in life can be turned into unattainable feats by the bureaucrats who have been employed to serve Joe public.
I drove my superior half, BOS, to one of the Motor Vehicle Licensing Departments for her to confirm a booking for her driver's test in two weeks time.
It is ridiculous that, this is the fifth attempt to obtain a document which merely proves a competency that she has demonstrated for all who care to see long time ago. If only these tests were objective as they are supposed to be!
Many are the instances where an examiner will ask the driver about to be tested how much dough he/she is willing to dole out in order to smoothen what could be a bumpy drive on the test ground. Those who decide to trust in their own competence are damned then and there to instant failure. Such is the frustration, that many would-be drivers simply go and buy the license without even showing up for the test. Is this, perhaps, why there are so many accidents on our roads?
A persistent woman that she is, she is confident that this time the urge to do what is right will override the pursuit for personal financial gain in the mind of the examiner.
I really want to believe with her that, this time, it will be fifth time lucky!
I drove my superior half, BOS, to one of the Motor Vehicle Licensing Departments for her to confirm a booking for her driver's test in two weeks time.
It is ridiculous that, this is the fifth attempt to obtain a document which merely proves a competency that she has demonstrated for all who care to see long time ago. If only these tests were objective as they are supposed to be!
Many are the instances where an examiner will ask the driver about to be tested how much dough he/she is willing to dole out in order to smoothen what could be a bumpy drive on the test ground. Those who decide to trust in their own competence are damned then and there to instant failure. Such is the frustration, that many would-be drivers simply go and buy the license without even showing up for the test. Is this, perhaps, why there are so many accidents on our roads?
A persistent woman that she is, she is confident that this time the urge to do what is right will override the pursuit for personal financial gain in the mind of the examiner.
I really want to believe with her that, this time, it will be fifth time lucky!
Thursday, November 20, 2008
The Taming Duet
He: an elusive hunk with a serious knack for hit-and-run game.
She: a femme fatale with a mission to tie down serious game
On the hunting ground, the bet sounded clear.
Hoppity-jump, jumpity- hop,
terrain prepared to thrill
the best must outwit the rest.
Hippity-swing, boobity-boo, the bait laid about
hooks concealed to trap.
Dippity-bang, hippity- wham, the will to win unleashsed
the brain tossed about.
Today unhunked, he has a burgeoning abs.
And la femme?
A Black widow with a set of three.
She: a femme fatale with a mission to tie down serious game
On the hunting ground, the bet sounded clear.
Hoppity-jump, jumpity- hop,
terrain prepared to thrill
the best must outwit the rest.
Hippity-swing, boobity-boo, the bait laid about
hooks concealed to trap.
Dippity-bang, hippity- wham, the will to win unleashsed
the brain tossed about.
Today unhunked, he has a burgeoning abs.
And la femme?
A Black widow with a set of three.
Hoodlums in Uniform
The VIP protection Unit of the Police Service is a specialised branch mandated by law to escort and protect the ruling elite of the land.
This week, two or three members of this unit, cruising on their own in a super-charged Golf V escort vehicle on a highway in Pietermaritzburg ( the capital and second largest city of the province of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa) decided that a Mazda 3 car carrying 5 young people did not give way to them on time, which obviously to them was an unpardonable sin, and so they shot at one of the back tyres.
Their uncalled for action sent the Mazda3, spinning out of control, unto on-coming traffic.
8 people- 5 from the Mazda3 and 3 others from the car into which they collided - in total are in critical condition in hospital.
The hoodlums did not even bother to ascertain the outcome of their evil action, cruising off to nowhere in particular.
This is just example of how these misfits have been terrorising innocent drivers on the roads.
The good news is that the retard that fired the shots is behind bars.
I hope he remains there for the rest of his miserable life.
What a jerk of an officer!
This week, two or three members of this unit, cruising on their own in a super-charged Golf V escort vehicle on a highway in Pietermaritzburg ( the capital and second largest city of the province of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa) decided that a Mazda 3 car carrying 5 young people did not give way to them on time, which obviously to them was an unpardonable sin, and so they shot at one of the back tyres.
Their uncalled for action sent the Mazda3, spinning out of control, unto on-coming traffic.
8 people- 5 from the Mazda3 and 3 others from the car into which they collided - in total are in critical condition in hospital.
The hoodlums did not even bother to ascertain the outcome of their evil action, cruising off to nowhere in particular.
This is just example of how these misfits have been terrorising innocent drivers on the roads.
The good news is that the retard that fired the shots is behind bars.
I hope he remains there for the rest of his miserable life.
What a jerk of an officer!
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
The Nuances of Mismatched Expectations
X is a beautiful, sweet and intelligent woman: one of the few who are endowed in all departments!
Despite all of her obvious blessings, she is enormously unhappy in relationships.
Like the sumptuous dinner that is left untouched, she is wondering where the fault line lie.
I wish I could tell her that the matter is the high jump expectations.
If only she would lower the bar a little bit sooner!
Despite all of her obvious blessings, she is enormously unhappy in relationships.
Like the sumptuous dinner that is left untouched, she is wondering where the fault line lie.
I wish I could tell her that the matter is the high jump expectations.
If only she would lower the bar a little bit sooner!
Failed Education: A Growing Evidence
Even though they have always been there, lately, I have noticed a steady growth in the congregation of abled-bodied young men; many standing, some squatting and other sitting or even laying, by the sides of the arterial roads and streets of the western suburbs, near where I live.
They appear almost always desperate and are always on the rush to the windows of drivers, who in a moment of time, look in their direction. Jostling and pushing, they try to outmanoeuvre each other to get the attention of their potential clients.
Any guesses?
No. These are not sex workers. They are not beggars, neither are they hawkers.
They are unskilled labourers for hire: any piece job one may present to them is probably the only choice they may have for the whole day. A rare opportunity to tidy up somebody's garden, in most cases, may be the only difference between those who go to 'bed' hungry and those who do so with some nourishment.
Unskilled and realistically unemployable, they are left with no choice but to feed on the crumbs that fall from the tables of those who care enough to give them a chance to hope for another attempt tomorrow. Is there hope for them? Are they a lost generation? I wonder. I hope their plight is addressed so that it doesn't become the plight of the entire society.
The world may be a very inhospitable place for many people, but many of the wreckage and misery we see around us are preventable. Many simply need a little help to help themselves!
I firmly believe that the best way to avoid the episode described above is to provide a sound education for ALL our citizens, especially children. When we fail to provide the quality education expected in this day and age, we are inevitably preparing our people, societies and nations for a monumental failure!
A failed education system, without question, is the mother of all failures!
They appear almost always desperate and are always on the rush to the windows of drivers, who in a moment of time, look in their direction. Jostling and pushing, they try to outmanoeuvre each other to get the attention of their potential clients.
Any guesses?
No. These are not sex workers. They are not beggars, neither are they hawkers.
They are unskilled labourers for hire: any piece job one may present to them is probably the only choice they may have for the whole day. A rare opportunity to tidy up somebody's garden, in most cases, may be the only difference between those who go to 'bed' hungry and those who do so with some nourishment.
Unskilled and realistically unemployable, they are left with no choice but to feed on the crumbs that fall from the tables of those who care enough to give them a chance to hope for another attempt tomorrow. Is there hope for them? Are they a lost generation? I wonder. I hope their plight is addressed so that it doesn't become the plight of the entire society.
The world may be a very inhospitable place for many people, but many of the wreckage and misery we see around us are preventable. Many simply need a little help to help themselves!
I firmly believe that the best way to avoid the episode described above is to provide a sound education for ALL our citizens, especially children. When we fail to provide the quality education expected in this day and age, we are inevitably preparing our people, societies and nations for a monumental failure!
A failed education system, without question, is the mother of all failures!
Monday, November 17, 2008
A crude Attempt at Scenario Planning
******************************************************************************
Scenario planning is a discipline for rediscovering
the original entrepreneurial power of creative
foresight in the contexts of accelerated change,
greater complexity and genuine uncertainty
--- Pierre Wack, Royal/Shell, 1984
*******************************************************************************
Let me start by saying: I am no Futurist. Seriously, I have no time for this prognostication mambo jumbo. It is challenging, time-consuming and engaging enough being a Quant.
That is why the question of scenario planning and those sorts of issues that float in one's mind when in cloud cuckoo-land should not, as a matter of fact, be rumbling through my mind at a time when I am supposed to be busy coding and modeling the structured products on my desk; at least, not at the rate at which it seems to be toing and froing across my cerebral hemispheres.
Bear with me as I can't help but blog about it in order to stop it from encroaching on my personal and professional turf.
Seriously though, there is no doubt that a skillfully executed scenario planning is beneficial to Corporates as well as Nations, especially at times of great uncertainties such as the one we are currently experiencing. For us Ghanaians, it can help us to analyse and scrutinize the assumptions about the way Ghana has worked over the past years so that we could align our socio-economic policies and development paradigms closely with expected realities.
I present 3 plausible scenarios in Ghana for the forthcoming Republic.
Let us name the 3 scenarios: Alpha, Beta and Zeta.
ALPHA
A visionary leader is elected as the president of the Republic after a free and fair elections in December who has the support of the legislature and the goodwill of all Ghanaians. A conducive environment is created for the private sector, public enterprises and FDIs to thrive thus, propelling GDP growth to 8-10%. The oil money is spent judiciously to diversify the economy. Corruption is tackled seriously. Booming tourism and commercial activities propel Ghana to become the de-facto business hub of West Africa. Challenges in education, health, housing and infrastructural development are successfully tackled. These successes lead to greater export earnings, peace and prosperity across the whole nation. MDGs successfully met. Rapid improvements in living standards . Ghana thrives.
BETA
A mediocre leader is elected. Less or no improvement in economic growth. Corruption is unchecked. Oil money siphoned abroad. Potential investors move elsewhere,Capital flight, increased armed robbery. Few super rich and massive poverty. Increase divide between the economic development of the North and the South. Foreigners own the large chunk of Ghana's wealth. Reduced remittance, less money in fiscus. Education, health, housing, infrastructural development is half-hearted . Few doctors in hospitals, Professionals agitated,Skilled Ghanaians emigrate elsewhere. Discontented populace. No peace, neighbouring countries surpass Ghana. MDGs totally unmet. Deterioration of living standards. Ghana remains in the woods.
ZETA
Crisis is sparked by violence after the December election. A coup d'etat brings back the army. The economy shrinks. Skills and expertise move out. Corruption is entrenched. FDIs and private remittances cease. Growth prospects completely curtailed. 'Niger-delta' scenario repeats in Ghana.Ghanaians begin to flock to neighboring countries. Civil war . Ghana on her knees.
CONCLUSION
This is a crude attempt to design some plausible scenarios. Even though unscientific, any of the three scenarios are capable of occurring if the 'appropriate' conditions are present. The ultimate purpose of scenario planning, of course, is an attempt to streamline our decisions to match a much more probable future.
Let me know what you think, folks!
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