Dealing with the government - I

The conventional, and rather inexperienced, perspective portrays the government personnel as cogs of this highly inefficient machinery rife with corruption. This does help us assign a reason to an unsuccessful attempt but doesn't lead us anywhere towards taming the beast or, at the least, knowing the beast.

First of all, corruption is not all about money and bribes only. Corruption is about every deviation of intent from the presumed "ideal" in execution of a policy or principle. It is almost impossible to be not corrupt by this definition. Simply because the intention behind a certain process or system does not get laid out well enough and there have been little efforts in the ways of measuring fidelity to the intending intent. Cutting a long rant short, corruption cannot be a reason. Corruption doesn't mean that there are no ways. It just means that there are ways that you find hard to deal with. Change yourself or do something else.

Second of all, the inefficiencies in the machinery are more by design than by violations. There has always been a learning from every scam ever that has led to the idea of a systemic change that can ensure that the scam doesn't happen ever again. Now, why wasn't the idea put in action before the scam commenced? I strongly believe that the government machinery performs super fantastic, the role its designed to play.

Its the design of hell. And, boys and girls, out here, every respected government servant is dutifully trapped in this vortex of confusion, indecision and subjugation. They deserve our pity, not antipathy.

We, the lame and tame, never get to get the design. That's why we curse and sigh. Those that do, ride and glide or stay the hell out.

Its rather simple though - there is very little that any one of them can do for you but every single one of them can aid miracles. Think of a peon in a public works department office. The peon can salute you and not force you to make an entry in the visitor's book at the most in the general case but the same peon at his best can be your man and messenger in the office.  The same applies to the secretaries of the central ministries and every other member of the bureaucracy in between. You have to understand their capabilities and limitations.

What I have realized is that every human, "corrupt" or "clean", appreciates the difference between right and wrong. I keep some loonies out of my definition of humans but government personnel are some of the best people, civil and all. So, that applies to them as well. You gotta capture that line and stay well on the right of it. And the cliche to remember is that the greasing is, most often, only required for an overload of expectations.

Also, most of us fail to properly account the expected time to the job for different costs, if you get the drift. There is always a relatively predictable pace to the movement of files in any bureaucratic setup. It may not be as claimed in papers and official bulletins and it must not be estimated on the words of the officials. It can be best guessed by discussions with people. Others who have done it or are doing it can be your best guides when it comes to the timeline guestimates for the models in excel. The point not to miss in any such exercise is the cost. There may be a good range of delivery period at the same office for the same work but at different costs. And the sample size of your observations is another thing to think of too.

If you don't want to do all this thinking and doing, there are always these agencies or consultants that can get things done for you, at a cost of course. They are the cleanest way to deal with the government for most of the mundane. For levels beyond you may not have a choice.

The miracles in the lap of the government can only be spun with a complete understanding of the machinery. Every piece of detail. Its a jig-saw puzzle. Once you know the picture, you gotta be able to place the pieces together. These dreaded personnel are but pawns. There's a way to move them and there's always a place for them. If you know that, the democracy guarantees you power almost everywhere.

Dealing with the unskilled labour - I

There's something very pure about winning bread by the sheer physicality of your being. The moment it gets cerebral, the work loses its innocence. The higher up one goes, the lower gets the job at hand.

And, just like all the other pure things in this world, say, a mother's love for example, there's a great deal of inherent irrationality in such mindless and mechanical approach to making a living. However, I have always believed in a 'sense' in most of the irrationals, like, pi, for instance. The ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle is a fixed number that's irrational. A constant ratio that can never be fully comprehended, and is doomed to be approximated, by the best of efforts. But it makes total sense once you don't think much about it.

And so it applies to the vast unskilled labour force in my country - forever irrational. Don't think much about it. Do it the way its been done. And, if you understand that much then you don't need to go any further in this piece. And, in the rare extreme case, if the methods to this madness seem to have a conscience-level problem with you then the cure is simple - stop using them. Figure out a way such that every job at your work is a skilled job. Automate the heck out of your system. Invest in computers and electronics to soothe your conscience - plain and simple.

Some of the ways that it is done today are -

DON'T PAY MORE THAN THE NEIGHRBORHOOD. You will attract loafers and thugs who have left their homes in some remote corner of our great nation to make a quick buck and see the world before they run back to their filthy swamp to wallow in relatively subdued happiness.

Neither carrot nor the stick works. The vast pool of labour resources in our country don't live in the past or the future. The sole reason that they are able to survive is because they live in the present. This makes such doubly pure. Spiritually very high-level but on the floor a serious pain in the ass. A reward in the future doesn't strike chord with them just as a reprimand for a mistake in the past. If you want to manage them, manage them in the present.

Create a system to control the churn. The unskilled labour is not looking for a career. They just need a job. The job at your wonderful and super unique organization, neck deep in the ultra sophisticated process of changing the world, is as good as the drudgery 500 kms away because of a number of trivialities such as a third cousin from the mother's side of your noble worker. They will leave for reasons less understood than divas and superstars. They roll in hordes and they are capable of turning your bustling vibrant factory into a ghost stable overnight. This is not a scary scenario from a fantasy tale. This happens way more often than commonly understood. So, there always has to be a system to check the churn. From delayed payments to brute force - the spectrum is largely murky. Guess what, ladies and gentlemen, there is absolutely no clean-cut way of ensuring a low churn of unskilled labour. So much for all the management philosophies, theories and practices. This is especially true for start-ups when you can't afford to grant them super awesome hostels (hence confining them to premises under your control).

Much better playing legal when it comes to labour licenses, provident fund, employee insurance etc. Its a huge hassle given the state of our inscrutable bureaucracy but you need to play the ball just because you need to cover accidents at your workplace. Your unskilled workforce will have a serious proportion of very dumb and unskilled types who will create trauma out of the thin air. Don't be surprised to see the helper convulsing with his fingers in the plug socket. The way it works is - unless you have set aside a huge pool of money to take care of such nuisances that are bound to occur, you will need some sort of insurance. Now if you go to the private insurance guys, the bloody babus keep a constant tap on those. Next you will realize that you will have different inspectors - from labour to ESI (employee state insurance) knocking on your door and fixing their monthly rents. So better be legit and keep these suckers at bay. Downside is that the executor of your unskilled tasks cares only about the cash they receive in their hands. You cannot expect them to always appreciate how their forsaking a small percentage of money in the provident fund also attracts a contribution from you and is deposited in a government secured account that attracts interest.

The alternative to all this is a much more serious approach to business which my require dealing with the voice inside and possible unrest and lots of chaos.