Beware of Paateys

Unlike a few peaceful years back,‭ ‬the streets in Male‭’ ‬are not safe anymore.‭ ‬Robberies,‭ ‬pickpockets and criminals roam the streets of Male‭’ ‬abound and nobody seems to know how to deal with them.‭ ‬Famously the last defence minister of the government in the‭ ‬previous administration is said to have said that‭ “‬such things can be only stopped by the people who do that…‭ ” (‬not verbatim‭)‬.‭ ‬Clearly the minister was not aware of his responsibility or the resources entrusted to him to address that very issue.‭ ‬That being politics we the resort workers have our issues with this and its worthwhile giving a little thought to this matter.
At the start of every month, hundreds of resort workers from various resorts frequent Male‭’ ‬ to send‭ ‬monies home or to find long lost friends or to do some much needed shopping the few resources in the resort staff shop could not provide for etc.‭ ‬Most of the Indians,‭ ‬Sri Lankans,‭ ‬Bangladeshi as well as locals make this journey to Male and frequently so at the beginning of the month.‭ ‬To receive them at Male‭ “‬Paatey”s‭ (‬local name for thugs‭) ‬roam the streets of Male‭’ ‬hoping to prey on the vulnerable and ill prepared.‭ ‬Nobody is safe from their designs and at a point in time in the recent past even tourists were attacked which thankfully is still very rare in this country so dependent on tourist income.‭

To help us the resort workers, a few no-nonsense street advice is in order:

1) Make sure you know exactly where you are going and plan how best to get there before you leave. That is if you are not on sight seeing mode.

2) Don’t be alone.‭ ‬The chance of a loner being attacked is greater than someone in a group.‭ ‬So try to have company‭ ‬if possible.

3) Stick to main roads and avoid narrow roads and unfamiliar alleys.

4) Don’t respond to strangers requests or calls.‭ ‬Sometimes Paatey’s use female counterparts to lure resort boys to houses and then‭ ‘‬ravish‭’ (‬for lack of better word‭) ‬them.

5) Don’t hesitate to initiate a fight if you think you can get away with it.‭ ‬Most Paatey’s are high on drugs and could be struck off balance easily.‭ ‬No if he has got company. However this option is not for expats as an expat defending himself from an attacking paatey could be viewed as brawl between a local and a ‘foreigner’ and all sorts of troubles could follow.

6) Don’t argue with a Paatey.‭ ‬The more you talk the more they know and the more time they buy.

7) If a police officer is nearby seek his or her help.‭ ‬They are very aware of these issues and always ready to help.

8) Wear casual clothes when visiting Male‭’‬.‭ ‬Maldivians are generally very low key people.

9) Do not stuff your pockets bulging with expensive phones,‭ ‬ipods etc‭…‬ most paatey‭’‬s train their eyes on those things.‭

10) Always have your phon‭’‬e imei number written somewhere safe in the case a Paatey does indeed snatches your phone,‭ ‬the authorities can be in formed and the phone made inoperable in Maldives.

11) Never accept a lift from someone you don’t know.

12) If someone makes you feel uncomfortable, cross the street and find somewhere safe to get help.

13) If you feel threatened, shout ‘fire’, rather than ‘help’ as people are more likely to respond. The local word for fire is “alifaan” and if shouting to draw attention then say “alifaanoi”.

14) Don’t be tempted to carry a weapon for protection as this just increases your chances of getting seriously hurt. A personal alarm is a much safer thing to carry.

Measures to counter this problem

Male‭’‬ is not a very big city and if the Male‭’‬ police still cannot control their city then they are indeed not worth their salt.‭ ‬However,‭ ‬we the resort workers‭ ‬also‭ ‬have our bit‭ ‬of responsibility to‭ ‬attend to which is to bring these matters to the attention of the public offices and the big businesses and to work for results.

Some measures might be:
Since our law makers in the Majlis has not yet finished with writing the‭ ‬Book of Laws,‭ ‬we could ask‭ ‬our Majlis members to‭ ‬draft laws with harsher punishments for robbers,‭ ‬burglars,‭ ‬thieves and the like‭…‬ A Paatey caught with a resort boy‭’‬s wallet full of cash and if the law requires him to pay ten times the value of whatever was in the wallet‭, then it ‬shall be a good detterent.‭ ‬Law of equality shall not be quoted here.‭ ‬We are not in insurance business and paatey‭’‬s has to be subdued‭!
In some parts of the world employers do offer‭ ‬various‭ ‬trainings to their staff some of which includes martial arts or self defense courses.‭ ‬ So in those few resorts where the managements might listen to such a proposition‭ ‬we‭ ‬the staff‭ ‬shall suggest ideas like this and hopefully they might listen.

Potable water to drink

Forgive their ignorance, but most of the guests who take a sun and sand holiday in a typical Maldives resort would not know this. That the staff who serve and make their holiday possible, their waiters and ‘roomboys’ and everyone else offering assistance with or without their knowledge are given the same water to drink that is supplied to their flush tanks … This is of course despite the fact that in most resorts bottled drinking water are sold to guests sometimes as high as 3$s per bottle, which needless to say is enough to buy 1/2 a case of bottled water in local rates.
This is in fact the situation in about almost all of our resorts and the cause of the problem is lack of imagination and insensitivity among other many things that can be rightly attributed to the managements. Lack of imagination because this is a situation which is totally reversible with existing infrastructure in the resorts with minimal if any expenses to the resort. Insensitive because in most resorts the top management are far removed from the other staff when it comes to facilities for them hence out of touch with reality.
All resorts without exception produce their water in situ with water plants from sea water and the quality of the water produced is mostly taken for granted. The water machines require simple maintenance routines to keep the water quality up and yet are completely neglected in the majority of the resorts.

Imagination or any stretch of it should be extended to keep a separate stock of water for staff, which could be double filtered from the same water plants and the resulting product would indeed be better than bottled water in quality.

On the simplified diagram above of a typical R/O plant the only change needed to do a double filtration is to feed back the product water to the system past the pre-treatment stage and the plumbing to such a connection should be already available in most R/O plants.

The drugs problem.

Most resorts have strong anti drug abuse policies and drug abusers are dismissed on short notice once caught in the act. However its a sad fact of life that drug usage (or “abusage”) among resort workers is a persistent problem although its a lot better than the levels found on the streets of Male’. The reasons why people resort to drugs are various and many. Drugs is a problem thats sweeping through across all strata of society and there seems to be no end of the problem as across the country indicators are showing signs worse off than what it was before. Some tit bits of info about drugs abuse in Maldives.

One in 100 adults in Maldives struggles with substance abuse.

Heroin use is on the rise among girls which also leaves them vulnerable to sexual exploitation and abuse.

Male’ is one of the most densely populated in the world. This makes it more difficult for former drug users to avoid re-encountering old drug haunts.

Physical withdrawal from drugs is painful. Withdrawal can take 7 to 14 days.

Recovering users re-embrace religion which can provide needed spiritual guidance order and structure in their lives.

Of the persons who abuse drugs, 20-25 percent abuse drugs by injection.

Of the persons who abuse drugs by injection, the majority (90 percent) are male and about 20 per cent are less than 20 years of age.

Unemployed young people are the group most vulnerable to drug abuse.

Use Live Cds… When Windows is virus infected

Laptops and personal computers are common among resort workers and is used for variety of reasons. For the expatriate staff the predominant use is to keep in touch with family back home via voip such as skype or Msn messenger. However there is a handicap of laptop use that frequently arises in resort and that is the issue of viruses (in Microsoft Windows) which at times is a minor nuisance whilst in other cases makes many a laptop inoperable. This is a grievous issue for staff in resorts in far flung islands in Maldives far away from Male and expert help.
Our solution to the problem is simple… Use live cds or at least keep one live cd in case things get wrong.

Linux Live cds are complete operating systems in one cd which can be used to boot a laptop or a desktop from cd rom and a whole functioning operating system springs to life in no time. Unlike Microsoft Windows Linux live cds need not be installed to the computer and is very handy when a computer is infected and no longer operable. Unlike like windows, most linux live cd distributions have all the programs and applications installed such as media player, cd writer, internet browser, messenger, graphics programs as well as open office suite which has substitutes for Microsoft applications such as Word, Excel, and Powerpoint.

Here is a link to a collection of Linux Live CD Distributions which are of course free and need only to be burnt to a cd in the iso format and booted only from Cd ROM.

http://www.livecdlist.com

If the computer or laptop seems to ignore a burnt live cd bootable disk then the boot order (or priority) setting in the bios may need to be changed to start the computer from cdrom first.

We recommend Ubuntu which is a linux distribution most popular and easiest to use and can be used without installing on to hard disk. Another much smaller but as simple one is Puppy. Its amazing how small and yet powerful these distros are and brings real meaning to the processing power in computers..

Far far behind the digital divide..

Countries across the world are thinking big when it comes to their visions for future. In the EU and US a collective recognition that they are still using the same basic design Edison crafted as his bulb got them thinking and at last they are going to ban the bulb. The incandescent bulb that is. Beyond 2015 such bulbs as we use in our lamps will be collectors item. In the fast paced Singapore they have become absolutely fed up with everything low tech and they have decided to do something about it. They are going high tech and going about it big. From day to day electronic items to invisible public infrastructure devices, everything is going to be connected, networked and integrated with high tech and thinking machine capabilities. Just a few days back analog TV signals were switched off for good across the United States after 6 decades of continuous duty replaced by smoother, higher definition digital technology which does the same, only much better. The same process has been going on in the UK albeit slower paced giving ample time for people to do the final switch over in 2012. Here in the Maldives we also have an ambitious plan. Recently our president Mr. Nasheed announced to the world that Maldives will be the first carbon neutral country in the world. The time frame is 10 years and hopefully by the end of 10 years we shall have been able to swith over from diesel generators to other renewable sources of energy. And we are not speculating about the future.

Coming back to the present we have the small matter of digitally haves and have nots. Here in the resorts of Maldives we (the staff) certainly are have nots when it comes to mobile phone coverage, acceptable phone tariffs, availability of Internet and of course the speed of data transfer. The problem of course is the exorbitant fees the service provider charges on resort managements and the lack of competition in the area of telecommunications. Up until very recently everything that is telecom is monopolized by Dhiraagu which had in its board members, government (former) appointed ministers and enjoyed cozy opaque relationship with the regime. The same is true to a certain extent still and the monopoly is stifling development in the sector. Enter Wataniyya in 2006 in a wholly transparent manner to the market and yet the market seems not to budge. Wataniyya is at a disadvantage when it comes to installation of telephone towers in resort islands to improve mobile coverage as resort owners and operators do not wish to have more than one telephone tower in their resorts and Dhiraagu (which has about 80 towers in the islands including resort islands) refuses to share antennas with Wataniyya thereby weakening their position. Part of the problem being the government body which has authority on these issues is toothless and is not independent. As for the Internet most resorts (which are very few..) which provides Internet services free for staff (Such as wifi) do so mostly in an off-handed absent-minded manner. Most of the time such a benovelence is an afterthought rather than acknowledgment of a legitimate need. Money of course is the problem as Dhiraagu charges exorbitant fees for data transfer in resorts as there are no other parties are allowed in Maldives to operate as service providers. Focus info com which operates in Male and pretends to operate in other islands has to buy their capacity from either Dhiraagu or MediaNet (a local cable TV company which has a fiber optic ring one of the two in the Maldives… the other of course belongs to Dhiraagu).
The solutions we propose are:
The government has to come upon Dhiraagu hard on anti competitive behavior.
The telecom authority has to grow their own set of teeth.
Public awareness has to be increased on the issue of Dhiraagu overbearing attitude towards this sector especially as our current government seems to be very fond of privatization.
The members of parliament shall table a bill requiring all Internet service providers of the country to dispense wifi free Internet in schools, hospitals and public institutions like libraries mosques etc…
Resort owners and operators has to come to an understanding that keeping their staff behind the digital divide will bring them no laurels.

Some environmental thoughts…

as far back as 1989, we were demonstrating against the world..

photo credit :Nalaka Gunawardene

The year was 1989. The prevalent idea at the time was like this… Greenhouse gases released into atmosphere by industrial process in developed and developing countries are depleting ozone layer somewhere above the earth… Which somehow heats up the atmosphere below and ice sheets in both poles will melt and the melting ice will flood the oceans raising the tide levels till our little country will be submerged… Atleaset that was the prevalent narration. However scientists are telling us now that the exact sequence of events somehow will be a little more complex than that. For one thing the melted ice will not flow to oceans just as water flows on from a spherical surface and that they are regulated by magnetic field of earth as much as the surface geometry of earth.. lots of physics and science involved in the process of determiing the exact course nature seems to be taking. But few things are certain:

The ice sheets are melting and dissapearing fast.
The world is getting a little bit hotter
The developed countries do not seem to share our grief… They are infact expecting oil and mineral booms from the poles once the ice melts..

The time for preventive action to halt this runaway process of global warmings seems to be past and gone.. Politicians across the globe made sure they never benefitted from the scientific knowledge..

Some green thoughts…

An inspirational pic of local school girls demonstrating against the world to raise the environmental awareness to save the country. The year was 1989. The prevalent idea at the time was like this… Greenhouse gases released into atmosphere by industrial process by developed and developing countries are depleting ozone layer somewhere above the earth… Which somehow heats the atmosphere and ice sheets in both poles will melt and the melting ice will flood the oceans raising the tide levels till our little country will be sunk… At least that was the prevalent narration. However scientists are telling us now that the exact sequence of events somehow will be a little more complex than that. For one thing the melted ice will not flow to oceans just as water flows on from a spherical surface and that they are regulated by magnetic field of earth as much as the surface geometry of earth.. lots of physics and science involved in the process of determining the exact course nature seems to be taking. But few things are certain from 1989 onwards:

The ice sheets are melting and disappearing fast.
The world is getting a little bit hotter
The developed countries do not seem to share our grief… They are in fact expecting oil and mineral booms from the poles whilst the ice melts and our country will be submerged..
The time for preventive action to halt runaway process is past and gone.. Politicians across the globe made sure they never benefited from the scientific knowledge..

Saving the turtle

Small projects to “Save turtles” is common practice among many staffs in resorts where baby turtles were found making their way to the open sea. The prevailing idea is that as baby turtles are very vulnerable to predators such as sharks (which are very common), it makes sense to detain them on their fatal journey and to nurse them till they grow up a little bit. Many small turtle conservation projects are done by resort staff with or without management involvement or help. However it appears this practice of nursing baby turtles in captivity is illegal and even dangerous for baby turtles.
Experts believe bringing up turtles in captivity causes the baby turtles to loose important skills such as hunting skills which they could only master in their natural habitat. Also that turtles brought up in artificial environment would find it harder to identify friends from foe as they would have been brought up as pets. Remember Garfield?
Our advice for resort boys (or girls of course..) is to refrain from the urge to nurse baby turtles in captivity as they being quite adorable will quickly take or demand lots of your time (which you don’t have..) and effort and care and at the end of the day are found to be detrimental to their own health and wellbeing. Better ways to help the turtles in the longer run would be to discourage friends in the islands and elsewhere to poach on turtle eggs and to dissuade people form “velaa furohun” (hunting adult turtles) and to spread awareness about turtles in general. Not that people are unaware about turtles but to press upon the point that most poached turtles and turtles eggs are not done out of necessity or for financial gains but for “fun”.

The mix of staff

Excepting the very few exceptions, most of the resorts in Maldives have a mix of staff from various countries in an easily categorized fashion depending on the functions of the staff.
For example: Most of the Bangladeshis on the average resort would be found in the labour workforce whilst the Sri Lankans will be the majority of the accountants and the locals dominate in as Room Boys, Waiters, Receptionists and the Nepalis are dependable for security. These are general stereotypes and should match the status in most of the resorts. There is no issue in this mix of nationalities and is a blessing in many forms. Having a team of different backgrounds and nationalities bring lots of skills and everybody benefits from multiculturalism.

The flip-side of this situations is the many occasions where simple misunderstandings of language translates to anything from bickering to fights to full-scale warfare resort style. There has indeed been instances where riot police had been called to islands to quell such violence with serious injuries to staff.

On the other hand, those resorts which seems to favor a particular nationality of staff over others have an easier job of maintaining governance being dictatorial. Examples of such resorts are The Universal Group, Bandos, Vabbinfaru, Sonevafushi etc. However it has to be noted that there are indeed reasons for a resort to have an abundance of staff from a particular country or some islands in Maldives. For the Universal Group the biggest reason is their extensive business links in Sri Lanka and the history of the company rather than anything else. For Bandos the apparent favoritism of Addu staff could be attributed to Mr. Deen’s personal attachment to Addu which is quite well known. Past experience and a desire to achieve the prestigious tourism award of “green leaf” could be the reason why nature loving resorts like Vabbinfaru choose locals as their favorites. Of-course none of these claims to favoritism would be found in official ink but the effect of the evident policies are found in the staff listings and there are reasons for that.

away from home…

the long perilious journey ahead

Except for the very rare ‘exceptions’, dedicating a whole life working in resorts is very rare in Maldives. The reasons are obvious. The resorts being tiny and cut from the rest of the world by the seas and lagoons that surround, the average resort workers works on borrowed time in resorts. And whatever length of time he or she would have spent on the resort would be a great sacrifice against family and friends back at home. However the sacrifice is worth the while for some while not for others. For those who will be able to make substantial savings while working in resorts, the life in resorts would have been worthwhile. But for the vast majority of resort workers this simply is not the case. Resort life is just a necessity to get by to support families and loved one’s back home.

case in point:

Most of the Bangladeshi workers who work in resorts face a special dilemma in addition to being separated from family for extended periods of times. Most of them would have made to Maldives through ‘agencies’ or middlemen who charge exorbitant fees and commissions which are several times over the average of what could be earned in a year’s income in Maldives. With false promises and after having surrendered a mortgage on a title deed or a house or with live stocks the worker arrives in Maldives to find the situation very far from what was being promised. Promised monthly wages would seldom be given and yet the workers toil in resorts sometime for as long as 5 years without being of any benefit for the families back home or themselves. This is in fact labor exploitations big time. Officially most resort owners or managements are not aware of this exploitation and is seen as a peculiar circumstance relating to expatriate labor.

our next projects

Experience tells us that most employers take their job interview questions straight from textbooks and seldom does anybody care about originality.. Questions all too familiar and yet a necessary bane, a right of passage till we get there inside the resort. One of the many such standard question an employer might ask is “how or what information do you know about our resort?” And here in the not-haves of the digital divide most of us have no idea what to reply except “some friend told…” or “seen the job ad in a paper” etc etc. not very impressive replies for the all important HR man (or woman for that matter).
To address this lack of knowledge we intend to be as helpful to our fellow staff as we can. We are currently collecting info about various resorts, the brand and product names they market themselves, the changing histories of the islands as well as the complex business links that connect them altogether. The idea is that before applying for a job we shall arm us with appropriate info about the resorts and if we can not impress them with our resumes, to wov them with what we know! At least that’s the idea. We will have a little who’s who of resort owners, entrepreneurs etc as well as some distinguished staff whom we want to celebrate.. those two pages are already up but still there is a long way to go..
We are only hampered by the slow speed of our Internet access which hopefully we will overcome in a few days. We are always open for suggestions, corrections, help and hints and any contributions in kind etc.. Everyone is welcome and long live the Employees.

Index updates…

Thanks for all our friends and colleagues for updating us on more info about many other resorts and now we have a sizeable list of resorts. Still there is a long list of resorts we have to go through and hopefully in the next few weeks we will be able to put a grade on all or many of them. Our goal is here to put numbers on them for the services the resorts offer to our friends and colleagues in various resorts throughout the country.
With this last update we have done some changes on how the questionnaire is graded to include weighting of the index which shall reflect more on the true position and be far more representative. The idea is that that the resort workers are not necessarily after small gimmicks of favors as such as pressuring the employers to celebrate their birthdays or to arrange outings and picnics for staff. What really counts is how much the staff takes away to his home after a long hard one month’s labor. If the money is good then the employer has done half his job. The other half shall be about the small gimmicks and favors…
Anyways that how our current thinking is. Everyone is welcome to comment and give ideas and share thoughts…

The economics of resort workers earnings..

The economics of resort workers earnings..
Hillary Clinton made a big fuss about it, a Bangladeshi financier earned Nobel price because of it, but what is it?
tic, tac, tic, tac, tic, tac…. time up..!
The answer is micro financing.
Although much ignored by the politicians, its micro finance which drives communities to success and prosperity. In developed countries these lessons were learnt the hard way and they understand the need to assist the small business owners (they call SBO ..) and there are various departments in governments set up to help and develop and to assist them.
Comparing the Small Business Owner to the average resort worker, there are very interesting parallels where money is concerned. Both make sacrifices to earn a living and both earn although differently. Suppose a small business owner in the island invests 20kRf and starts a small business. If all the goods in the shop were sold out in the course of 1 month (which will not happen) he would have made a profit of 1/5th of the value of his goods which would be 4kRf. Added to this are the worries of the bills and invoices, the registration fees and the weather which determines the supply of items from Male’ etc etc. However the same kind of money (or more!) can be made by the resort boy investing his bare hands and whatever was needed as qualification at the time he was hired in to job. A resort boy who earns 4kRf is indeed the same as the SBO who invested 20kRf to earn 4kRf. that is they create the same amount of wealth although the outflow of their money is different.

For the SBO whatever he earns as disposable income will immediately go towards finances of his family whilst the resort boy’s (or girl for that matter) monies take rather treacherous routes and is more diversified which leaves the vast majority of resort workers at the end of the month…(sad to say but…) virtually penniless or in our case ‘laari-less’. The average resort boy hailing from different islands of Maldives is just like an expatriate and a stay of 1 day in the expensive city of Male’ would dent a substantial hole in the pocket for an oversized rent of a room for 1 day to start with. Following accommodation comes food which is also overpriced, tasteless and thoughtless (that’s an addition..) served in cafe’s and restaurants which makes another substantial hole in the pocket.. Like wise goes the money for the resort workers and rarely if at all does money reaches their families back at home, hence the underdevelopment found on the islands.
(to be continued ..)

What has to happen…

What has to happen is much… and they better happen all at the same time.
Lets start enumerating them.
1) Resort owners or managements have to come to a collective understanding that staff are as much an asset to their business as are other contributing factors which constitutes to their success story. Currently to the many resort managements and resort owners (Especially the local ones) this does not appear to be their understanding according to our unfinished survey. Those resorts that do appear to acknowledge this fact is clearly in their own class of resorts and clearly is making more money if money is the objective (which it is.. and always was)

2) The resort workers has to do a crash course in many work related subjects such as striking, petitioning, lobbying and demanding rights in the light of new labor laws and the country signing up to International labor Office. Most of these involve lots of legal mumbo jumbo the average resort worker has to become familiar with and do so in a very short period of time.

3) Those resorts which still cling to the idea of running their own tropical empires from their resorts has to come out of a long slumber and face 21st century reality. Change has swept through America (Obama said that) as well as Maldives. More and more resort workers are coming to a broader understanding of their rights and issues are becoming more vocal in their assertions and demands. It shall be noted that for the most part whatever is raised as issues by resort workers are clearly well defined rights and where there is clash of conflicts for the most part is one of virtue against vice.

4) The economic slowdown of the world is still in a declining slope and the earliest foretasted growth is 2 years to this date as such much is there to be done to adjust to the survival of the fittest game. Catering only for the richest people of the world has its own disadvantages one of which being that the economic woes affect them more than others. Prominent tour operators in Maldives has been raising this issue through the years many times that we have too many 5 star and 6 star properties and too few for the mass market. Now is a good time to do the long overdue soul searching and come up with better schemes for better times to come.

5) With the end of the Sri Lankan civil war the tourist to this region would have a one more choice of a destination which might affect the tourism of Maldives to some extent if the worst case scenarios are to be believed. However it has to be understood that the products on offer in Sri Lanka and Maldives are quite different and will be complementing rather than competing.

6) Time it seems is running out for everyone… and more so for us here in Maldives. Atleast that’s the picture coming out from the world media. The sequences were like these.. The Russians hoisted a flag somewhere in Arctic seabed using submarines claiming sovereignty over a no-man’s land followed by the Norwegians, Swedes Americans, British as well as Canadians. All these countries are expecting the ice to melt over the poles of the world in a few years from now and to monopolize the gas and oil fields supposedly hidden under the the ice. The melting ice becomes water and our country being the shallowest place on earth maybe the first to be submerged if we follow this logic. However this is an over oversimplification of a long sequence of maybe’s and might be’s and yet still what is unknown about this whole episode is more worrying than what is known… Hence the time.

Resort staff facilities index updates..

A glimpse of how resorts treat us ‘The Staff’ is slowly emerging out of the data we are collecting and some interesting facts are coming to light! Although the data are incomplete now, the final values of the index for each resort will be a good measure of what services are offered to the staff. Our questionaire is composed of 27 questions focusing on all aspects of staff services and focused on tangible measureable criteria on various aspects of a resort workers life. The main ideas behind the questionaire are:
1) We are interested in the lowest common denominator … that is our survey shall find out what’s in store for the lowest person on the coorporate ladder of any resort, what services he or she gets.
2) Most measures which are required to give a better service to staff are not that costly to implement at all if there is a good enough will to implement it.
3) Knowledge is the key to almost everything… isolated in small islands all to themselves, resort bosses frequently loose touch with reality hence the need for eye opening knowledge. Knowledge on how or what services are provided to staff by other resorts etc..
4) There is distiction between what is a right and what is a favour. In our survey we are concerning us with ‘favours’ as services.