Hark, silly season is upon us

21 December 2011 - 02:20 By Peter Delmar
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Just suppose the following: David the office messenger and general factotum takes the petty cash down to the TAB when he's supposed to be running errands and, dipping into it, has three or four beers and then blows the rest of the company float on a hopeless nag running in the Fifth at Greyville and, while he's getting motherless on company money (and time) he completely forgets to deliver to the Very Important Client the documents I'd worked on throughout the night before.

And suppose that this is the third time this month that David has made himself guilty of this type of behaviour and that, when he gets to the office late, woolly headed and contrite the next morning, I punch him in the kidneys. Repeatedly.

The question behind all of this supposing is this: am I, in this instance, guilty of infringing David's human rights?

It's a rhetorical question because, of course, you and I both know the answer: yes, I'm guilty. The point of most assaults is precisely that: to infringe the human rights of the victim and, with a bit of luck, to teach them a lesson.

Workplace violence is a bad thing - as is violence of any kind that is not sanctioned by the WBA, the WBC, the WBO, the IBF or WWF. So David has recourse to a simple remedy. He goes to the cops and lays a charge of assault.

Let's keep supposing: that I committed the assault in front of Maureen from Accounts Receivable and Precious from Human Resources. David has witnesses.

In sentencing me to prison, the magistrate might, if he is of an inquiring mind, ask why I had not simply fired David before coming to blows with him.

And I reply: "Your Worship, this is South Africa; you can't just go around firing people who don't do their jobs."

In theory you may dismiss people, but in practice it involves a process called the CCMA that makes committing the assault, serving your six months, enduring a bit of unsolicited sodomy and getting the whole thing over and done with ASAP much preferable to the drawn-out inquisition that is the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration.

My little business resolutely sticks to its hiring policy - which is that it doesn't have one. This means that we never hire anyone. So there is no Precious on the payroll. No Maureen and no David.

Instead, when I need something delivered, courier guy arrives at my office a few hours after I call his employers, smiles, calls me "Sir" and does the necessary. His company will deliver a small parcel to Pretoria for under R50 and whether the driver has a drinking problem and crashes the delivery vehicle on his way to the Tote is not my indaba. Courier guy never asks me if he can take sick leave and never expects a 13th cheque. No David, no Maureen, no Precious, no personnel problems. In other words, I outsource everything I can't do (and sometimes some stuff I can or would do if I could be asked to do it).

Lots of people, several dozen of them, mostly entrepreneurs and freelancers, earn a sliver of their living from my little enterprise. I can't point to any particular jobs I have created but I can take pride in my modest contribution to the economic merry-go-round and job creation.

So it was that I read with alarm last week a headline declaring "Small businesses 'panic' as five-year extension ends". When I read that the panic involved submitting information to the Human Rights Commission, of all people, I thought: "Oh dear, I suppose I'd better panic like everyone else."

Especially because of my business's human rights record; not that I'm some kind of workplace Pol Pot but because - not employing any humans - I don't have a record of any sorts on respecting their rights.

It seems that this additional bit of paper filing was suspended for five years by the authorities who realised that the Human Rights Commission had absolutely nothing to do with business and that it would be unfair to both business and the commission to make them administer details of small businesses. And they're going to keep suspending it.

As I read the piece, it suddenly dawned on me that this was the silly season and that not everything you read in the newspapers at this time of year is to be taken too seriously. So it's business as usual until next year. Happy Christmas.

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