by The Wanderer, on November 22nd, 2010 No, not wandering about USA. Not this time. Simply about this tiny country which happen to be given by the name of Portugal, where originality is not a special skill but, at least, where making copies sometimes happens to be a kind of talent.
Here I am, back to Idols (see my post here) after a Sunday night (last one!) occupied with some computer work while I was watching on a TV channel, SIC – Sociedade Independente de Comunicação, another session of that popular TV show. While I was (still) appreciating the charismatic Roberta Medina, one of the judges in this competition, I went through a couple of feelings regarding this SIC production and I saw myself finding a couple of advantages which could support the continuation of this kind of TV production.
1 – Opportunities for young people
Clearly, young people wanting to succeed in show business. In Portugal, very few artists are able to comfortably live depending on show business. Portuguese market is very little, Portuguese taste is very odd! On this side, we are not very much given to intellectualism which turns people like Tony Carreira, as well as other followers of minor music, very popular and rich: the music “pimba”. But a relevant question should immediately emerge when touching this sensitive subject about music “pimba”: is not that what the country wants? It is! So what?
Idols is not a competition to launch this or that young guy or girl to this or that type of music. Idols is simply a way to collect profits to the TV channel producing it and, eventually, an opportunity for a carrier in the showbiz for a couple of kids in this country.
2 – A social show
Idols is a portrait of the country we are. Very little capable of producing brand new things, we are, since decades, basing our national production on copies of successful foreign productions. Beyond that, we have on Idols a great show of what we, Portuguese, are. The kids are struggling, yes they are. The kids wish to have a carrier on music. Yes, they wish. The kids have not many more opportunities to show their own skills or, essentially, artistic potential. Yes, they have not. The kids are very often begging! Yes, they are. But guys, this is bad! Can’t you see it? We are a country very much used to begging. We are a country without a tradition supported on true competition. We are usually oriented to pity and/or charity and very few times to competitiveness. This is wrong and needs to be changed shortly.
Are kids responsible for this state of humiliation? I think not. But the TV producers are, because reality shows pays. Just like the crime. A reality show is the dark side of our being as humans: we do love to watch others suffering or going down into a delicate situation.
3 – Learning women
The Portuguese ones, of course! I wonder if one of the judges (Manuel Moura dos Santos) of our Idols is right when he, frequently, says: “women in Portugal never vote on women”. Well, women behavior is, generally speaking, hard to decode. After five decades of life I still have no desire at wall of trying to understand it. But our women behavior is very often really weird, indeed!
I think our women are not that much beautiful, in general. I know they are very keen on producing themselves, I mean, they care about their look. Women, generally speaking, see other women as rivals. Ours, are not different. Is there the reason for women in Portugal not voting on women?
Maria Bradshaw is one of the female competitors in Idols, this season. I think she is beautiful, sweet, nice body, good voice, very much dedicated but… How come she never gets rid of that expression of woman carrying on her all the suffering of this world? I stole from the yesterday SIC’s show that little part when Maria was performing. Well, Jennifer Lopez is a pro. This girl, is seeking a seat under the sun. I wonder if the attraction I feel for her is due to that wide sadness printed on that beautiful face while singing a shaky song! Besides, despite the foreign name (Bradshaw), this girl presents a very Lusitana beauty.
Sandra Pereira is energy, is fight, is the woman’s wrestling side. She is not beautiful, not attractive but owns a great voice and a huge determination. She was performing very well this very Portuguese, very national song given by the name of fado (see more about fado here). Well, Mariza is a pro. This girl, is seeking a seat under the sun.
I hate the phrase “we are what we are and nobody has nothing to do with that”. Wrong! Much wrong. We are what we are, sure. But we must give others the chance of contributing to our own growing or, if you prefer, to our way to heaven. This kind of shows are necessary to create real opportunities in a country where «opportunity» has got a negative meaning long since. We just do not need to be that much parochial. We just do not need to wish being bigger than what is physically possible. We just do not need to wish swallowing more than what our throat is able to handle. We cannot be a land of opportunities (we are not USA!) but we can perhaps be a happy farm. We can even be rustic as long that is really what we want to be, proudly.
May the gods let Maria Bradshaw get a seat under the sun…
by The Wanderer, on November 11th, 2010 In October, 2006, I wrote here:
“Be ready when opportunity comes… Luck is the time when preparation and opportunity meet. ” (Roy D. Chapin Jr). Some tears could drop down my face after I read this quote of the day in this very same blog but a man should never cry. I’m saying this because I don’t recall to have had the opportunity, don’t recall to have had the luck and I’m afraid preparation and opportunity have never met before.
Today I feel like allowing tears dropping down my face. It is not sadness. It is not joy. It is only a sudden desire of lubricating my ocular muscles because it has been a (long) while I do not weep. The fact of not much have changed since I wrote my first post about Autumn Of Life (read it here), does not bring me any kind of depressive state. Definitely not. Nowadays I am seeking the opportunity by preparing it. The symptom of success will be: preparation and opportunity will meet! I am changing, by myself and according to my own will, more than eighty percent of my life. Freedom or death! What a scandal…
I do love autumn. Zeca Afonso was a communist guy, much tuned with the Portuguese Communist Party. I remember him always with a grave expression of a man carrying over his back all the sins of the world! I know: not everything shining is gold nor everything black is coal! Nevertheless, today, Dia de S.Martinho (St. Martin's Day), I have decided to join autumn, roasted chestnuts (Castanea Sativa), red wine, fado and Zeca Afonso on the same dish. This is that: an apparently silly mixture of shreds! It is however a fabulous dish of Portuguese stuff. Autumn is a nice season in Portugal. Roasted chestnuts (or boiled, if you prefer) is very typical in this season and very much appreciated over here. Red wine, because Portugal produces the best red wine in the world. Fado, because is the national song and has a lot to do with autumn. Zeca, because I see him as a symbol of Coimbra’s fado and a good example of matureness.
in English
—
Gone water of the river
My empty sleep
It will not awake
Fountains’ water be silent
Oh weeping brooks
I’ll not be singing again
Rivers out-falling to seas
Let my eyes dry
Fountains’ water be silent
Oh weeping brooks
I’ll not be singing again
Water of the river flowing
Sunsets dying
At the edges of the sea
Fountains’ water be silent
Oh weeping brooks
I’ll not be singing again
Rivers out-falling to seas
Let my eyes dry
Fountains’ water be silent
Oh weeping brooks
I’ll not be singing again
em Português
—
Águas passadas do rio
Meu sono vazio
Não vão acordar
Águas das fontes calai
Ó ribeiras chorai
Que eu não volto a cantar
Rios que vão dar ao mar
Deixem meus olhos secar
Águas das fontes calai
Ó ribeiras chorai
Que eu não volto a cantar
Águas do rio correndo
Poentes morrendo
P’ras bandas do mar
Águas das fontes calai
Ó ribeiras chorai
Que eu não volto a cantar
Rios que vão dar ao mar
Deixem meus olhos secar
Águas das fontes calai
Ó ribeiras chorai
Que eu não volto a cantar
Yes, this is an ode to nostalgia, to the gone times, to “it used to be like this”, to yesterday, to gray spectrum, to naked trees, to ancestrality, to sepia tones, to wrinkles and chicken feet, to falling, to little girls of sad eyes, to wisdom… This is also an ode to portugality, to lusitaniality, to iberiannity, to oceannity, to Europe’s ass!
Nobody dies at fifty…
by The Wanderer, on November 4th, 2010 The fact of not knowing much more of what is given to us during our religious education, while growing up, must not represent an excuse to avoid any kind of political positioning regarding the barbaric behaviors of certain fundamentalist groups populating this World. I know very well the Catholic principles and rules orientating the behavior of Catholicism followers. I was educated under those rules and principles and one day I said, “enough”. It is not mandatory to know very well the foundations of a religion to deny that very same religion. I say NO to Islamism. Am I wrong about it?
If we see, even in a deep way, what are these Middle East countries contributing with to the World since centuries, I just remember one word: petro-dollars! Before that, they are just sand and a lot of troubles along millenniums. Religious principles of Koran are a clear evidence that too much sun and sand hurts bad your mental health. If you cannot see it this way, you will never understand that bullshit of committing suicide in the name of an eternal life living with twelve virgins, that paradox of declaring holly wars and blindly believe that a war has a slightest chance of being considered sacred and finally, but not at the smallest degree, the treatment given to women, largely below the treatment given to camels, horses or dogs.
What is the world doing about bestiality born and raised in Middle East countries like Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and so on? Not much, do they? Here and there, now and then, there is a political guy putting aside that convenient rule of being always politically correct and showing the World that, sometimes, politicians are human beings:
Iran suspends stoning of woman Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani
Iran has suspended the execution by stoning of a woman convicted of adultery, the Foreign Ministry has confirmed, after weeks of condemnation from around the world. The announcement came a day after European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso called the stoning sentence against Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani “barbaric beyond words”, the latest in a string of criticisms by foreign powers.
This thing of taking adultery as a crime under an analysis of the type “to be or not to be is the question”, is no longer a new issue in this blog. Marriage sucks. Therefore adultery emerges. But as you can see, adultery is not an exclusive privilege of men. Women as well practice that social crime given by the name “voluntary sexual intercourse between a married person and one who is not his or her spouse”. Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, despite her terrible name, is an adultery follower and that was her sin. For the simple fact of jumping up the fence, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani was condemned to death by stoning. But once again, sometimes some groups fighting for human rights make their voice to be heard up there:
Iran’s has suspended the punishment of death by stoning, state media say.
A judiciary spokesman said four people sentenced to die by stoning had had their sentences commuted and that all other cases had been put under review. Lawyers and human rights campaigners have said at least eight women and a man are awaiting the punishment. Stoning is the penalty for crimes such as adultery under Iranian law, but it is rarely carried out. The last such execution was reportedly last year. Amnesty International called on Iran in January to abolish what it called a “horrific practice, designed to increase the suffering” of those condemned.
Hell!! How come we are very much concerned (and sometimes aggressive) with the way we kill pigs, chickens and cows for our own surviving and we are not that much worried with the way people is killed for the simple fact of having gone through a nice romance with another human being? Guys, the lady probably married with an ugly Iranian, smelling worse than a camel, swearing like hell when Allah is off for vacation and compulsively drinking when off Ramadan. What would you do if you were a woman living like that? And what would you do if your wife were committing adultery? Would you join your friends for a weekend in your farm for a barbecue, lots of beers, jokes about hot girls with a game here an there like stoning a girl buried up to the neck until she dies, in the name of the father, the son and the holy spirit, amen? Well, at least in Brazil men betrayed by spouses resolve this in a more human manner: they simply shoot their wife!
May the gods be with Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani.
by The Wanderer, on October 29th, 2010 In this rentrée to my activity as freelance writer I have decided to dedicate this post to a kid I have met a couple of months ago who had the common sense of calling me old-man, retrograde and barbarian. As I have not had any news from him since I left my previous job (July this year), all of sudden, this morning right after I woke up, I wondered how useful could be for my happiness to dig up the ancient phrase “king dead, king dethroned” and drop here this amazing song and performance of the enigmatic being given by the name of Rufus Wainwright. For some reason I have no idea of, this video-clip reminds me my forever friend RGAL.
In English
—
Men reading fashion magazines
Oh what a world
It seems we live in
Straight man
Oh what a world
We live in
Why am I always on a plane or a fast train
Oh what a world my parents gave me
Always
Travelin’ but not in love
Still I think I’m doin’ fine
Wouldn’t it be a lovely headline
Life is
Beautiful on a New York Times
Men reading fashion magazines
Oh what a world
It seems we live in
Straight man
Oh what a world
We live in
Why am I always on a plane or a fast train
Oh what a world my parents gave me
Always
Travelin’ but not in love
Still I think I’m doin’ fine
Wouldn’t it be a lovely headline
Life is
Beautiful on a New York Times
Oh what a world
We live in
Why am I always on a plane or a fast train
Oh what a world my parents gave me
Always
Travelin’ but not in love
Still I think I’m doin’ fine
Wouldn’t it be a lovely headline
Life is
Beautiful.
Em Português
—
Homens a ler revistas de moda
Oh em que mundo
Parece que vivemos
Homem heterosexual
Oh que mundo este
Em que vivemos
Porque estou eu sempre num avião ou comboio rápido
Oh em que mundo meus pais me puseram
Sempre
A viajar mas não apaixonado
Ainda assim penso que estou bem
Não seria isso um adorável cabeçalho
A vida é
Bela no New York Times
Homens a ler revistas de moda
Oh em que mundo
Parece que vivemos
Homem heterosexual
Oh que mundo este
Em que vivemos
Porque estou eu sempre num avião ou comboio rápido
Oh em que mundo meus pais me puseram
Sempre
A viajar mas não apaixonado
Ainda assim penso que estou bem
Não seria isso um adorável cabeçalho
A vida é
Bela no New York Times
Oh que mundo este
Em que vivemos
Porque estou eu sempre num avião ou comboio rápido
Oh em que mundo meus pais me puseram
Sempre
A viajar mas não apaixonado
Ainda assim penso que estou bem
Não seria isso um adorável cabeçalho
A vida é
Bela
May the gods be with you…
by The Wanderer, on August 4th, 2010 This is to inform that due to an upgrade of this blog up to the version 3.0.1 of WordPress, some functionality has been reduced which includes a malfunction in the upper pages menu. A fix for the menu will be tried as soon as possible. Meanwhile, any information referring to any other malfunction will be welcome (leave a comment to this post, please).
Thanks,
This Blog Administration
by The Wanderer, on August 1st, 2010 51st constellation, year 2010 - Five years after the part one of this topic (read it here), I have realized how important for me would be to find the escape. Many events during my stay in Brazil, from 2005 to 2007, and many other after it, have made me understand how (too) close I am to those humans mostly worried with justifying the error instead of solving it. Life is short and there is not a second one…
Altogether, I have been working twenty years for the same corporation. Out of those, eight have been a pure waste of everything. Two, have been a great lesson of life for me and my family, mainly for my kids. Eight years out of twenty represents forty percent of my life in that company. This is awful, really awful…
Twenty years after, I keep very few friendship connections to co-workers which means I have just gone through pure professional relationships, I must confess. How about that? Well, I do not believe in success and friendship co-existing in a company’s environment unless you and your pal are committed to the same success. In this case, both will understand each other and may reinforce that connection with some friendly relationship. People get paid by corporations to be part of a team which is supposed to achieve corporation’s goals. If you are success oriented and you are supposed to be a driver, you better forget friendship with the driven ones because you barely will get both together. Leadership very often drives leaders to loneliness.
Considering the size of the World, the huge quantity of countries, the enormous size of the World population, the large variety of human activities, keeping ourselves working for the same company more than, let us say, six years, it is a huge mistake. I made that mistake, damn it! Many other made it too. However, other’s mistakes and suffering do not relief my pain. The decision taken recently, move away, should have been taken twelve years ago, latest. The life during those twelve years has been then a succession of boring repetitive events along with many uninteresting people. Too many! Result: it turned me to be a uninteresting person!
I see no interest at all on speaking about this or that person I have co-existed with, these decades along. Generally speaking, people work because people need money. This is the way societies are organized like. The best way to deal with successive phases of our life is very much according to some lessons which I have learned some years ago in a training course called Time Management. I have also learned some profitable lessons with a guy who happened to be my boss for a couple of years. Altogether, I have engineered a rule based on several precepts assimilated during my professional life: managing our life assets it is much easier if we learn managing time and space first.
The last ten years of my professional life have been a journey through the desert. The style of management I have been assisting to, during that time, has been totally very Vale Do Ave styled. Unfortunately for Portugal, some Portuguese managers have not yet understood how far we are from the right entrepreneurial spirit which is typically found in, for instance, German, Dutch or American investors and/or entrepreneurs. The kind of management I have been lately victim of lies always on workers owning “qualities” like servility, complicity, dependency, leniency or, trying here a literal translation from a Portuguese saying, submission to the “law of the least effort” (in Portuguese, “lei do menor esforço”). Managers practicing this type of management always use tools like deceit, cheat, opportunism, demagogy and manipulation of others to make their own dirty work.
Being kept by my own inability within an environment what I should have got rid of, long time ago, it is the sin, the guiltiness and the regret I have to deal with for the next few more suitable units of time. The remainder, does not really matter, as I would be wasting even more time with stuff I already have wasted far too much time with.
In English
—
Aping my soul
You stole my overture
Trapped in God’s program
Oh I can’t escape
Who are we?
Where are we?
When are we?
Why are we?
Who are we?
Where are we?
Why, why, why?
I can’t forgive you
and I can’t forget
Who are we?
Where are we?
When are we?
Why are we in here?
Who are we?
Where are we?
When are we?
Why are we in here?
Em Português
—
Ao imitar a minha alma
Tu roubaste a minha ‘overture’.
Aprisionado pelos planos de Deus,
oh, não consigo escapar!
Quem somos?
Onde estamos?
Quando estamos?
Porque somos?
Quem somos?
Onde estamos?
Porquê, porquê, porquê?
Não consigo perdoar-te
nem consigo esquecer.
Quem somos?
Onde estamos?
Quando estamos?
Porque estamos aqui?
Quem somos?
Onde estamos?
Quando estamos?
Porque estamos aqui?
by Muse
Exogenesis: Sympony Part 1 (Overture), in Resistance, © 2009
Translated to Portuguese by The Wanderer
Click here to listen to this song ( Winamp only)
The show must go on and I have not much time for contemplation. Even so, I feel no anger about the corporation itself. Corporations are very often victims of their own options because some workers contribute much more for the corporation self-destruction than for turning longer its existence. However, corporations are made of people! I will not miss the major part of all people I have known along these twenty years and I feel good knowing that they will not miss me either. I do believe that not every Man was born with something good inside him/her, like many deluded people think. I will not speak, write or act for seeking absolution but I am afraid I was not that much “sweet” with people who deserved being served by some “sweetness”. The truly friends I got in these twenty years of dedication to a multinational industrial machine, know how much I love them, as much they know I shall not forget them, as much they know I will struggle for them if necessary. Words, very often kill the goal. Silence can much often tell a lot more. Nevertheless, I leave here two of many famous words I left to all of subordinates I had the pleasure to lead:
- I was not hired to love you but to help our corporation achieving respective goals. Without you I won’t succeed.
- Every leader has to know the right point in his professional life when to give way to younger people.
Current year has been chosen to be the year of revolution. Nobody is dead at fifty unless it was medically classified as such or, by his/her own means and free will, has decided to become a zombie or a vegetable in life. Pragmatic people like me always do believe that a human being should reach a point in life when it is wise to leave an open space for younger ones. Evolution must be always a concern in an intelligent man’s mind and I have declared myself long since an intelligent man. A good leader must always prepare its own successor and I have declared myself long since a good leader. A proud professional never accepts peacefully to be led by worms pretending to be leaders and I have declared myself long since a proud professional. A wise man knows what he knows, what he does not, what he should but does not and what he does not want to know at all. I have declared myself, recently, a wise man.
Four years ago I said in Self-Trapped, part one,
The end of a Self-Trapped is only one: it’s easier for a camel to pass through the hole of a needle than for a Self-Trapped to pass away as a non-Self-Trapped.
and I mean it. I am now ready for a new trap designed, engineered and installed by myself. Just because I am a genuine and pure self-trapped person since the very moment I know me as being I. With a delay of about ten years, delay which I am not being able to digest, I must confess, I do feel that I rather take the risk and step forward than keep myself trapped by others (Yes-Man and similar) in the name of a comfort I definitely see as pure laziness.
Will the gods be with me? We’ll see. Meanwhile, may the gods be with you…
by The Wanderer, on July 23rd, 2010 … or “Don’t cry for me. This is not a goodbye”.
Today I went through a terrific experience in my professional life: my former bosses were so spectacular providing me such a VIP treatment that the result was a couple of people dropping some tears for me. Guys, when someone cries for me, sincerely and altruistically, there can be only two things I can think about:
- that specific someone really cares about me
- I get nervous (from being touched, of course) because tears happen when feelings (or pain) are really strong
To those who today gave me that signal of pure caring, my eternal thanks. A new page was turned in the book of an already long life. Turning pages of our life’s book going through, once in a while, such demonstration of caring like the one I had the honor to experiment today, is always very much motivating. Big happiness is very often made of little things, I have learned. I’m touched, really touched…
I am not a man of easy tears. Life was, long ago, a stepmother for me. That made me tough enough or, sometimes probably, too tough. For some, I am an arrogant wall of steel. But, even steel walls have their own feelings!
Thank you for your tears. So long friends! May the gods (all of them) be with you…
… to be continued
by The Wanderer, on July 21st, 2010 Somewhere near the 51st constellation, year 2010 – I have to declare I have today been crushed by loneliness. Fortunately I had a conversation about deep considerations over life and the good reasons to be alive and be still working out good ways to see happiness through a lens of weaknesses and hopes!
I wrote something about “solitude vs. loneliness” in June 19th, 2009. I wrote and I meant it accordingly to my state of spirit by then. The nice thing of this life is that the state of spirit is variable, as long that is not that much variable and inexpectable as woman’s humor! What is life without a bit of salt & pepper?
Between loneliness and solitude there is a barrier called stability. What a human being desires most is definitely one thing called stability. I would call it “comfort” instead. Nevertheless, stability is something which is now called a thing from the past cause world, I mean generally speaking, is moving all the time and not necessarily clockwise. We are now, world wide, closer to the American way of life: a constant fight for survival or, instead and preferably, for the ultimate state of a luxurious life with lots of permanent pleasure and leisure.
In English
—
Repress and restrain
Steal the pressure and the pain
Wash the blood off your hands
This time she won’t understand
Change in the air
They’ll hide everywhere
No one knows who’s in control
You’re working so hard
And you’re never in charge
Your death creates success
Rebuild and suppress
Change in the air
And they’ll hide everywhere
And no one knows who’s in control
Change in the air
And they’ll hide everywhere
No one knows who’s in control
Em Português
—
Reprime e controla.
Suprime a pressão e a dor.
Lava o sangue das tuas mãos.
Desta vez ninguem vai entender.
Mudanças a acontecer.
Eles se esconderão algures.
Ninguem sabe quem controla.
Trabalhas tão arduamente,
mas nunca estás por cima.
A tua morte gera sucesso,
reconstrói e dissimula.
Mudanças a acontecer.
Eles se esconderão algures.
Ninguem sabe quem controla.
Mudanças a acontecer.
Eles se esconderão algures.
Ninguem sabe quem controla.
Today is my independence day, no matter what that can mean for every reader of this post. Ms. PA was “present” to make it even more intensive. Mr. RGAL wondered why was I today having lunch on my own. Deep thoughts, fluid decisions. I think fast and write easy. I do love things turning my life to an intensive experience. I usually try to make other’s experiences intensive enough. Sometimes I succeed. Sometimes not. Yet, I keep trying…
New mind, new way. I hope. I shall not surrender. May the gods be with me, Ms. PA and Mr. RGAL…
by The Wanderer, on July 12th, 2010 … or, some mistakes a leader should never make! In some corporations, there is a bunch of leaders with very poor concepts of delegation, communication, team work, assertiveness and so on. Roughly speaking, a good leader is somebody succeeding to drive his team towards previously defined goals by using the less possible resources. For instance, a good football (soccer) coach is usually much more concerned to make his team scoring to win than playing beautiful and win. The ideal would be getting victorious scoring and playing beautiful but that is harder to achieve, isn’t it? Well, likewise, in managerial life, getting successful does not always correspond to be good. How about this?
What I have noticed in my last decades as a normal worker, regarding usual mistakes in Portuguese labor market, can be put in a list which will be more or less applicable worldwide. Some actual Portuguese companies, even being part of multinationals, suffer from all of them. Yet, they are profitable companies (at least, apparently), meaning, they sell a lot. …
Top 13 Management Mistakes
Managers come from different walks of life, possess various characteristics, and have their own philosophies regarding how to manage a business and employees. In a broad sense, there are common mistakes made by managers at different levels and in various types of businesses.
- Not making right the transition from worker to manager – I am talking here about promotion and not exclusively the vertical one. No matter which type we are talking about, any change at this level must be explained to, analyzed and planned with the worker
- Failing to delegate – I have not found many managers being able to practice delegation or, at least, practicing it correctly. Typical Portuguese managers see delegation as “just do it and shut up”.
- Not setting goals with employees – Setting goals with employees should not mean “my friend, these are our goals and I am pretty sure you will achieve them in the name of a good team spirit towards success”
- Failing to communicate – Portuguese managers, generally speaking, do not communicate. They dictate instead. When they want to practice “show-off” for statistics handling or political achievements, they invent information means, more or less clumsy, they (over) spread them all over the company’s facilities but are not expecting much from there in what the happiness of the workers is concerned.
- Failing to learn – a Portuguese manager is always too busy to dedicate time for learning. Majority of managers I have met are always with that facial expression giving the idea that all work in the world has been dropped over them. And they are always talking on the cellular, cellphone sticked to one ear, head inclined down to approximately 45º…
- Resisting change – innovation is not a concern of our managers. They usually think “if I am selling my product, why should I change?”
- Not making time for employees/Not standing by employees – No way! Why should they? Can you imagine? If you make time for employees you are taking the risk of hearing what you do not want to hear! Big corporations overcome that by creating bullshit like “employee dialogue” or “record of dialogue” just for… the records!
- Not recognizing employee achievements – Why should they? Are employees not supposed to be happy just because they are employed and they are doing it for a superb employer? Besides, they always say “my friend, if you are not happy with us, you know the way out, don’t you?”
- Going for the “Quick Fix” over the “Lasting” solution – This one is very Portuguese typical. We really suck, don’t we? Portuguese are, by nature, the bigger “Quick Fix” religion followers.
- Taking it all too seriously – Let us say only that it is not recommendable, if you aim a “far and fast to go” success, to laugh too much! Just do it at the right level to please your boss. He will appreciate…
- Feeling people are lucky just to have a job – Yep, another very Portuguese typical attitude from managers. I believe this has much to do with the 50 years of Fascism under what Portugal lived until 1974 (Carnation Revolution). Today, as of then, a Portuguese citizen must be first eternally grateful for getting a job. To have a job, as seen by Portuguese managers, is a big part of the earnings a Portuguese worker will get. After that, why should salaries be high?
- Ignoring rumours – Rumours cannot be avoided when there is at least three human beings within a short space. Portuguese love rumours (gossip). We are not happy without them and we are unhappy with them. It is a tremendous mistake to not take rumours into consideration because they are a strong feature of our nature as human beings. Behind a rumour there is always a good lesson to be learned.
- Saving the praise for last – …when it happens! Positive strokes are fundamental for workers motivation and should be practiced on a milestone basis.
Apparently, making many or all of the previous mistakes would bring companies to a low performing level, therefore low yearly profits, but that is not necessarily true. In fact, slavery does not live supported on modern ways of human resources management, where actually several actual employers are also very weak. In fact, it happens very often that “HR management” is easily replaced by “HR control” which, in a society of narrowed labor market like the Portuguese, is easier and cheaper. Let us say that employers very often abuse from closed labor markets which is something very much tolerated by governments of 3rd world countries or those, like Portugal, still presenting a remaining 3rd worldism…
Bossism is very often taken, by mediocre bosses, as leadership. The authoritarian way of leading teams, either based on power by weapons or by a defective country economical situation, drives normally corporation managers to practice crass mistakes like “getting in like a lion, getting out like a lamb”. As a matter of fact, when this mistake happens it shows how little clever are managers making it because such a mistake is already the result of several other:
- little knowledge about the other´s side situation: managers think that workers are already between the sword and the wall which gives managers motivation to step forward without properly measuring respective steps
- little knowledge about the impact of a failed attack: if workers succeed forcing back an attack from managers, workers will understand it as:
- my boss has no idea about what he wants to do, if he wants…
- my boss is not that much powerful
- little knowledge about what really strengths a leadership: a leader should never hesitate and, even though looking to be sometimes necessary, a withdraw has to be taken only as an action integrated in some strategy
Some people may ask: what is the alternative, when the attack fails? Should we keep troops in the battle field to be exterminated? Of course not. Let me say first that a manager should never take an action making it look like an attack. The answer for “what can be done when a management action fails?” will be given in a next post, some day, somewhere else…
This post is dedicated to Quinta da Malafaia, a place in Esposende Municipality, Portugal for entertainment, food and leisure, which is very much connoted to a management action, I have observed recently, looking like an attack. Going “In Like a Lion, Out Like a Lamb” is politically uncorrect and pretty much expensive, even if negative results are only medium/long term observed.
May the gods be with Portuguese workers….
by The Wanderer, on July 7th, 2010 I have been thinking about three trivial questions involving 2010 FIFA World Cup:
- Why was South Africa, a country leading Apartheid practices where the sport king is rugby and cricket, was chosen to be the stage for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, a football (soccer) tournament?
- Why is FIFA against the intervention by governments, like Nigeria and France, in FIFA tournaments, when those governments are unhappy with the lack of professionalism and national pride shown by respective teams?
- Will the profit coming from the sale of thousands of deafening and awful vuvuzelas, not forbidden by FIFA in the name of a South African culture, going to be applied for rising the life conditions of millions of black people in South Africa?
I have been thinking, and thinking, and thinking, and thinking, and thinking (sometimes I eat, drink, sleep and snore too) until I found it. Just in time because the tournament is about to reach the end. The following song and video are the answer.
By the way, now that Portugal is off, I am against Germany. May the gods be with the other teams…
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Revamping This Due to integration of a photo-blog and a net-radio, this website is being revamped, mainly its audio/video content. For this reason, some of the links to video-clips and audio songs might result on message errors pointing to missing media. We apologize for this. We're trying to be as fast as devil steals good people's souls...
2011-Dec
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