CHANGING WITH THE TIMES

By Doreen Hammond
THE immediate past boss of the Ghana Broadcasting corporation (GBC) has revealed how he had to contain ‘stale’ workers who had outlived their usefulness in the organisation. Though we may see this as the cries of a drowning man, this may be bigger than we think for it is a problem that transcends the GBC and is common in many organisations.
The world is dynamic and so things keep changing by the day if not by the minute and we risk becoming redundant if we do not continuously update ourselves in whatever enterprise we find ourselves .
Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the practice in our part of the world. And so we have some university professors still teaching 1930 theories to students, some doctors prescribing treatments scrapped off since the Second World War and typists who have not been able to migrate to the use of the computer over the period.
For instance, a modern day journalist should be able to file his story, take pictures and run a voice over where necessary as against the olden days where these functions would have been performed by three or four people. So we have the Christiana Ampours with a minimum of crew beaming news to the whole world while in our setting we will use a whole platoon to do that . Just look at the long list of names that appear after a short programme on our television screens.
The situation is even worse in the informal sector where for the lack of any meaningful continuous assessment, people graduate into certain vocations and never upgrade themselves.
Take the average mason, carpenter or plumber for instance; apart from having acquired his training on the side lines ; say from his “master” by apprenticeship and graduated without any test of his proficiency, he may never attend any upgrading course throughout his professional career and thus as new technology and tools are introduced, he stubbornly sticks to the old ways until he becomes irrelevant and sometimes even a danger to clients. Have you ever had an item of yours destroyed instead of repaired by any of these artisans? And who paid for the cost of the destruction of your property which was supposed to have been repaired?
The petrified face of a plumber who could not fix my water closet is still so vivid to me. It took another plumber barely an hour to do what this other plumber said could never be done. The relationship between that plumber and I now? Of course your guess is as good as mine, that was the last time I called him to do any work for me.
When automobile technology changed from back axle to front wheel drive, most of our mechanics refused to move with the tide, claiming that the former was better, even after the owners of the technology had through research come out with what had been acclaimed an improvement. The same happened with the change in technology from the carburettor to the injector systems. Since we don't manufacture cars and the manufacturers had settled on the new technology, we had to tow their line or risk getting out of business. With time when the manufacturers of back axle cars and carburettor engines stopped manufacturing such cars, some of these mechanics lost their entire clientele and relocated to Kokompe where they are doing all sorts of things to earn a living now.
So you send a vehicle to the mechanic because the brake lights won’t go off ? The answer is simple, he removes the bulb! Problem solved!
I remember a visit to the Tema DVLA offices early 2000 where I met a white man who looked baffled and perplexed. The gentleman had come to trace the documents on a vehicle he had purchased and had had to pay money for the search to be conducted. His surprise obviously was not about paying for the search, but the fact that the one searching had to virtually ‘swim’ through a garage full of old files covered with dust and cobwebs and smelling of decay.
After three and half hours, the poor “searcher”, drenched in sweat and decay appeared with the file gasping for breath but beaming with a triumphant smile for performing what to him was a miracle! The white man's consternation might have stemmed from the fact that he expected the information to be available to him by a click of the mouse. The reality is that, it is not only at the DVLA offices that such old and archaic practices are found. It cuts across most public and private organisations.
With the introduction of the computer, one would have expected that we would have tapped into its full uses, including storage of data. Regrettably, what we have been able to do so far, is to replace the type writer with the computer.
The bottom line is that organisations must identify the most effective and modern ways of going about their businesses and eschew bureaucracy. Such action could help us make some savings.
In a similar way, we as individuals , must make the needed efforts to be abreast of the latest ways of doing our jobs. The organisations for which we work could meet us half way by continuously creating the necessary environment for learning and organising training courses in order that we upgrade our skills .
Failure to do this and we risk becoming the ‘Suegbe’ that the legendary Nigerian Musician, Fela Ransom Kuti, sang about. A tailor sewing like a carpenter!!
Writer’s e-mail : aamakai@hotmail.com