General

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Sweet Bitter Disaster

A friend (once granted short-term benefits) has made me an offer I chose not to resist. I am indeed very grateful for it. It was a wonderful gesture for our friendship and, believe it or not, an affirmation to my worthiness.

It was also a test of sort, encapsulating a number of questions about my own personal beliefs and values. To be honest, some of the questions existed only because of the “once granted benefits”, which nearly costed us our friendship, alas indirectly. The actual cause was a single episode I term “la koloba”; taken from a Sesotho expression “a le nyaea la koloba”, which means to be lost for words.

Because of this episode, I nearly severed our entire relationship (not just the benefits). However, it wasn’t because I was blameless. I just couldn’t accept the convenience of words momentarily disappearing, given that I had continued to possess them in a situation that clearly called for my protection. In ghetto terms, the situation required for him specifically (as a friend or “benefactor”) to have my back! The details themselves were not at all relevant; it was about “seeing the forest for the trees” situation. Seeing that inaction, in whatever form, amounted to being rejected (not just at a conceptual level, but at the core of my existence).

With the above said, if I were to poetically describe the “la koloba” episode to capture the broad context of what had happened and what happened, I would put it as follows:

He was cowardly and I was feisty.
But this didn’t spell a disaster.
Our backgrounds or timing did.

We perhaps lacked the maturity to see this fact.
Or, we were untrue with ourselves to see the brewing disaster:
Gratifyingly sweet for the body and mind in the shared private moments;
Plainly and crudely bitter for the soul under the watchful eyes of the public.

Musical prelude, it is happening … there is no going back.
We have stepped in the abyss of the movie of our own making.
The cowardly soul yearns to be engulfed in a silky world filled with self.
The feisty soul yearns to be shielded without the silky frills of vanity.

A bruised butterfly in the abyss, seeking the protection of a cocooning soul,
What a truly sweet and bitter disaster!

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Growing a University

My life in Gown practically consists of being surrounded by academicians. However, last Sunday things were a bit different. I was in a social setting with them, enjoying good food and wine while talking about everything and nothing. And no, it wasn’t one of those organised departmental functions, where some people are present to keep up appearances! It was a true social setting and it was absolutely exhilarating.

I learnt a lot — acquired new knowledge and got sensitised to the little details that certainly attest to the saying:”the devil lies in details”! I am not going to go into these details. Instead, I shall focus on one interesting conversation about the future of any university.

Apparently, the future of a university lies in the plans it makes to assure its existence in the 25 years yet to come. Selfishly, I shall only talk to the points that resonated a lot with the growth of my own university at home, National University of Lesotho (NUL). And everything will be in context of how its future may or may not affect me, a future lecturer of the institution.

Housing. As a young person, possibly with no prospects of getting married, will I be able to own my own house? This is an important question because shelter is a basic need and if at all a university is to survive, it needs to have plans for making this a reality. At the moment, the housing scheme seems to have collapsed at NUL, the question is: will it be resurrected or will it be replaced by something else? For example, will it go into ‘real estate’: build and sell houses to its staff members at, say, an interest rate of 1% above prime? Of course, it would only be prudent if the university were to demand a preferential right to buy the property should one want to sell. The finer details at this point are not the issue. The issue is simply the ability to own a home.

Income generation. As they say: “money makes the world go around”! The issue of generating income is therefore of paramount importance. Yet, this is by no means an easy issue to deal with. It requires a lot of creativity and as many brains as possible working together for a solution. Personally, I am more for a solution that will see us increasing our postgraduate profile. In my mind, this may mean reducing the actual intake of undergraduate students but this is not in itself a bad thing because NUL is no longer the only university. What is important is to take the long view on things. With increased postgraduate offering, we can begin to initiate projects that use students as a resource. The objective would then be to develop a model that would enable us to refine those projects for the benefit of community or even commercial interests.

A conducive environment. This means different things to different people. For me, it is about the little things. The ambiance of the seminar room during coffee time and the rigorous debates with colleagues. For example, as a junior colleague, I enjoyed immensely engaging with the likes of ntate Mphaka about why for instance some students benefited from top-down approach to programming whilst others benefited from bottom-up. We engaged in that and many other issues as though we were on a quest to end the world’s problems.

There are many other things that I could have included but the above are the three that I thought were crucial to the growth of my university or at the very least crucial for making me ponder in the next few years the question: to be or not to be in the employ of NUL?

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My Love for Mathematics

For a few years now, I have had a question that I could not quite answer. The question is: “why do people hate mathematics?” Perhaps hate is a strong word but even when I tone the question down by using the word ‘like’ I still cannot find an answer that satisfies me.

Today being world maths day, I shall ignore the urge to find an answer. Instead, I shall attempt to answer the inverse of the question, which is: “why do I love mathematics”?

I suppose my love emanated from the realisation that mathematics is but a language backed with the ‘power’ of logic. From this realisation, I fell in love and I have almost always managed to view mathematics as nothing but a tool to explore the unknown without worrying about the uncertainties. For example, in aspiring to run a business of my own in the near future, I am aware that I will be faced with multiple uncertainties. Should these uncertainties deter me? Perhaps! But since I believe the key to success lies in the ability to formulate a sound (logical) strategy, I know that my focus should not really be on the uncertainties. The challenge therefore, is how do I start to build a sound strategy? For me, as you would expect, my answer, courage and inspiration come from the world of mathematics in the form of a simple productivity formula shown below.

    \[ productivity =\frac{output}{input} \]

 

Using the above formula and a simple mathematical analysis, one can deduce that productivity and hence profitability will be high if:

  • Fewer or less resources are used to yield an output i.e. input < output
  • There is more output than input i.e. output >input

From the two above-mentioned facts, it follows then that I can easily develop a strategy that always strives to lower the inputs and increase the outputs – or at the very least make them equal! This will therefore result in success since the strategy itself will be developed with the sole purpose of offering me the highest probability of a successful outcome.

With the strategy, my exuberance or enthusiasm and my mathematical background that has equipped me with the ability to reason logically, what are the odds that I would fail? Quite frankly, I don’t know! But the point I am trying to make is: I love mathematics because it provides me with the understanding that many things in life are relative just by simply knowing that 1+1 is not necessarily 2! I am thus able to dream for I know success itself is relative… Happy maths day to all!

PS: I also love mathematics because it helps me spell out my name to people: MATHEmatics without the ‘matics’ ;-)! 

 

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Love: the bind to our being

I am seeing red but I am not at all angry. Its that time of the year for Limitless Obnoxious Valentine Extravaganza!

I am not against people expressing their love to each other but (yes, there is a but!) … It has to be free from the pressures of the commercial world. And free as in no cost, because love in its pure form is a precious gift that we get but may not even deserve!

If/when you find this gift, you will also learn that love is the secret glue that binds our being. Before we find love, our sense of being is scattered like grains of sorghum. If you are not familiar with the expression of endearment involving “mabele” (sorghum), my analogy may seem strange. But don’t despair, below I offer you the expression together with how each gender may use it 😉

FemaleMale
"Ngoana nts'oare! Ke mabele kea qhalana."

Translated: Baby hold me! I am the sorghum grain I scatter.		"Ke mabele kea qhalana. Ke hloka mothonaki".

Translated: I am the sorghum grain I scatter. I need someone to pick me up.

As you can see, there are gender nuances in the use of the expression. But as they say, men and women are from different planets. Whether or not I believe this saying, is a different story altogether. My simple point is: love is a priceless, precious gift that needs to be celebrated in different ways not just as the commercial world dictates. Love is what roots us even as the winds of change threaten to scatter us like “mabele” because in whatever form, it binds us to our being and existence!

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The Egg Count Years

Time really flies! Not so long ago it seemed time was on my side. The world was filled with possibilities and it didn’t matter which road I followed for time was on my side. Now, this is not the case! I have entered the “egg count years”.

It is time to decide on the road to follow when it comes to babies: to have or not to have them? If I didn’t regard this as my very own Shakespearean dilemma, I would toss a coin and all would be decided, finish and klaar!

I guess one thing is certain in this period I have entered: it is going to be interesting! For one, I get to have conversations with my elders about having babies without necessarily getting into the details of how they are made. I assure you, this can get very interesting especially if the elder is struggling with the balance between overt and subtle reference to the baby making process. Actually, I lie! It gets beyond interesting period! It gets humorous. And this, gentle-people, is what I hope will get me through the egg count years.

I may not know what lies ahead but I hope to keep my sense of humor and continue with my quest for the right partner. A guy defined by the word: balance. For example, he can be a male chauvinist to the outside world as long as he can play the yes/no dear routine at home without, of course, losing the passion to fight with me on important issues.

I can provide many more examples but its tick tick for me and need to move to the next task before my egg count gets to zero and I enter the living years (aka life in the 40s).

In the meantime, let me assure you, I shall make every effort to enjoy my egg count years. Yes, I have no idea what the outcome shall be, but I know mine will be a journey on a road that goes “over the Bridge of Sighs into Eternity” —Soren Kierkegaard

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Joy in small things

Thank God to the small mistakes in life. Clicks believes my Department should be called Department of Complex Science instead of Computer Science. What a laugh! This has really made my day and to think I was less than eager to even get my mail!

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Was really feeling the blues

Damn! I was really feeling the blues! This skeleton I had titled: Why customers like me leave a service provider?

The answer to this question is a short one. Customers like me who expect nothing but good service leave because of certain individuals that receive bonuses at the end of the year. Incidentally these individuals also have spacious offices and depending on their ranking they may even have interior decorated bathrooms with gold plated accessories. If you haven’t guessed who these individuals are, they are none other than managers/directors/executives of orgnisations/institutions.

These individuals more often than not are behind the scenes and as such we don’t get to interact with them a lot. However from the service we get from the frontline staff, we can actually determine the effectiveness of their behind the scene work. For example, if a customer can be told: “Opps! We forgot to carry-out your instructions and now that you have reminded us we will execute them but don’t think it won’t cost you” spells ineffectiveness on the part of those individuals. The sad thing about this ineffectiveness is when staff actually knows that even if a customer were to complain not even a mere cup of tea will be offered. And, they use that knowledge to make one appreciate that they are in fact in control and they can cause as much inconvenience as they can if and when they want to.

The question then is: can one really blame them (frontline staff)? Of course not! They are not liable for they have been socialised to believe that knowledge is power; they have the knowledge about the effectiveness of their managers and the power to humble me if I insist on getting a good service and a proper apology in the event that they fail to provide me with the service I am paying for.

The only liable individuals are those in management. They are liable because they have not taken the pains to make their staff aware that there is a correlation between their getting paid and customer satisfaction. Therefore, they have failed to convey the importance of looking after the cents. That is, they have forgotten to state the obvious; cents grow into Maloti/Rands; Maloti/Rands grow into hundreds; hundreds into thousands; thousands into millions, etc. In addition, they have failed to point out that a cent can make a difference to profitability or loss, just like a single vote can make a difference to winning an election.

In nutshell, I blame management because I understand that nature does not allow vacuum and if they, as the leadership are not willing to exercise their powers, someone in their institution will do. And when they do, chances are that they will use that power as carte blanche to inconvenience, frustrate, … and possibly annoy me the customer.

In light of the above, I hope then that the management of a certain blue bank will understand why I shall hold it liable when I leave. I therefore urge it to reconsider providing a simply better and faster service. I also urge it to accept the challenge of restoring my trust with it by providing me with an assurance that never again will I have to endure poor service. To win this challenge, terms and conditions apply.

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Feeling the blues

Yet another skeleton from the past. This was written in 2007 after a certain blue bank changed its slogan.

My journey into the blues started in March with what one could call a misunderstanding. However, I shall only focus on the events of this month (May). When the month began, I had ordinary feelings of a broke person. The feelings were really not that bad. I wasn’t exactly too broke not to afford a rope to hang myself – if at all I were a suicidal person. I was just anxious for the 9th to arrive. This was the date in which I was expecting money to be deposited into my account.

The 9th eventually arrived and there was no money in my account. “Not a big deal”, I said to self, “may be tomorrow I shall find it!” The next day like the optimist I am, I went to check but there was still no money. I began to panic for it suddenly dawned on me that expressions like “tomorrow never comes” are popular for a reason. So, in a state of mild panic I went to the nearest branch to seek answers and by the end of that day I had my answers. I had both the good and the bad news.

The good news was that my money was actually not floating somewhere between the borders like a restless spirit. The bad news was that it was retained safely (I presume) in my home account. This was bad because I had actually issued instructions (for a fee naturally) to have the money transferred to my foreign account. The justification for the non-execution of my instructions was negligence in my opinion. But the official version was that much as the exchange doesn’t open on Saturday, on Monday people on duty thought that my request was processed. How and why? I still don’t know!

What I do know is that I sent over four emails asking among other things the procedure that is typically followed by customers ‘inspired’ to complain. The recipients of those emails believe it or not, included the service manager. When I failed to get a response, I actually made the effort to send an email to the gentlemen in charge of the retail sector. Sadly, he hasn’t responded and I truly believe that much as I guessed his address the mail was delivered; for I have no returned mail.

All of the above really got me thinking. I started wondering what inspired the blue bank to change its slogan. Could it be that they thought the new slogan would afford them the opportunity to water down their service. Lets digress a moment, so that you can appreciate fully my translation of the slogan. Whoever said that thugs for example lack motivation or inspiration? I mean, how else would they get the commitment for being involved with criminal activities? On the basis of these two questions allow me then to give you my own translation of the new slogan. ‘Our involvement in your life is motivated and inspired by the desire to cause you inconvenience!’

So as the blue bank continues with their mission let me remind it that “reputation takes years to build but less than a week in the banking industry to destroy”. An example in point is the collapse of a certain red bank in South Africa that is now known by a different name. In three days, customers withdrew all their money and the bank was bankrupt. Apparently customers heard that the bank had no money and very few were interested in asking any questions and seeking assurance. What makes this example a romantic one to use is that the actual announcement of the bank’s placement under curatorship was made on Valentines Day. (For those interested in verifying this, the year was 2002.)

My concluding remarks to the blue bank are that history has a way of repeating itself and your day might come sooner than you think. So instead of giving us a service that leaves us with the blues, give us a service that resonates with the old slogan. A service that assured us that things would be done simply, better and faster.