Kenji’s Blog

This is the first post of this OFFICE HOUR category. Actually it is not about the daily office yet, i just want to share something in my past. I just found an old image from my mobile phone, just take a look down here…

That image represents the lunch I had almost everyday on my house when I still worked at home. let me describe it:

a small bottle of kecap bango (sweat soy sauce)
home made chili sauce
two kind of tempe goreng (fried soybean cake)
steam cassava leaves
ikan cuek/kembung (long jawed mackerel)

do you know how much i paid for that one? I paid Rp 50.000,- (about 5 USD) to my maid to cook up the meal everyday. That number excluded the rice, cooking oil, gas, and spices which I bought personally each month from Carefour.

if I went to nearest warung tegal (some food stand beside road), I could get maybe 4-5 times a lot more fancy luxurious dish compared to what I had those day. It could cost me only about Rp 6.500,00 (less then 1 USD) for each person with the same dishes.

I just could not believe if we made the dishes was much more expensive than buying the already served one, So one day I decided to take a whole day off (even i was working at home) to find out where those money flew to… and I found where they went.

My maids never took that money, but she made a lot of dishes, sometimes she made 2kg of fried tofu. the other day I found she’s making 3 bowls of oxtail soups. Once I found she bought almost 2 whole chicken then fried them… many more of those dishes bought from money, and never came out on my dinner table.

after 4-5 times I caught her in actions, I delivered the findings to my mother. she got extremely mad, and …. I did not know what happen next. That time I just went out to my friend’s place because I hate seeing my mother angry.

So after that incident my dishes seems to be upgraded, but only a little. So a week later I had words with my maid… “I know you have two sons who are jobless, and they have a bunch of children, your grand children, need to be feed. but this is not the right way you help him. I know this 50k is nothing for me but it means a lot for your family, but if you keep doing this, I can not guarantee if next month you still be able to work here or not”.

since that words flew off, she stopped cooking meals and dishes for her family. although sometimes I still caught her doing that, but the intensity has greatly reduced. oh by the way, she’s still working in my house now.

This story is similar with I found in my office, perhaps in your office too.

Everyday people stealing something but it can’t be said stealing. After 8.00 am, the absence machine singing, my co workers go out again to have breakfast. if I said why they having breakfast after 8.00 am, they said their houses are 20-40km away so they won’t get in time if they are having it in their house.

The lunch time is not different… people should get back before, not after 13.00 pm. They say if they go lunch directly, they will have to fight to get a sit in and feel like pushed to having lunch quickly. So some of them having lunch at 13.00pm after everyone from other office get back in works.

Later after 16.30 I find my coworkers gather up and making a line in front of absence machine. dooh… ~

But there is one major different between my maid stealing and my coworkers’. If I scold and punish my maid, she stops it and I get better dishes… but If I scold and punish my coworkers, they stop it and the office efficiency still the same, they will have other runaway and absolutely they hate me for sure…

Until today I haven’t solve this kind problems at my office. I’ve talked to my friends and some of them having the same problems. I set several rules, but it only making them look like getting discipline but their performance still the same. Starting 16.00 I see them making a lot of movement, nervous and impatiently hoping the absence machine to sing a song.

I come to office at 9.00 and get back at 16.30… on papers calculation I should have been stealing about 1 hour and 30 minutes everyday. but actually I found my self doing things more than my coworkers who are on the schedule / the right office hours. that’s funny, isn’t it…

maybe thats just a kind of employees I have as coworkers… I don’t care anyway, as long he or she keep the job running on the track and schedule… I can tolerate those stealing…

Posted in Office Hour