Some other forms of small-scale businesses, how do you pay wages? A hairdressing saloon, how do you pay wages to your own apprentices?
Agatha Emeadi
When relationship is discussed in its context, it is not necessarily about the opposite sex alone. Other relationships that exist and need to be carefully nurtured include master-servant, siblings, parents and children. Others include classmates, colleagues at work and neighbours in our midst. Today, I will focus on these other types of relationships that make living worthwhile.
New Year, stronger relationships
This season is one that presents opportunities when servants are being exchanged from biological parents to Masters and Madams who take over the affairs of their lives completely for a long while. During the Christmas, some people go home purposely to look for helps and eventually return to the city with them. Some of these helps are mostly relatives while some others are not. But wherever they come from, they are all human beings created by God Almighty.
There have been an avalanche of recorded stories between the masters and servants relationship that became enviable and others where both became the living day demons.
I give it to men and women who understand that human lives are equal before God, thus they treat their helps like their biological children, and this will not remove anything from the master or madam, rather it will elevate them before God.
A man who owns a furniture company that allows his apprentices to resume at the normal office hour of 8:00am-5:00 and use the rest of the day for their other personal needs wants his apprentice to excel. This man owns his furniture business and has many apprentices. He had instructed that his own time starts from 8:00am and ends at 5:00pm on a working day. Again, they were at liberty to use some of the end products that their boss condemned, some equipment that could be useful to them as well. Whatever any of his apprentices does with the rest of the day was none of his business even as the owner of the trade. Some of his smart apprentices would take jobs outside the workshop, get to the office as early as 5:30am and start their personal business until the stipulated 8:00am and would continue after the official closing hour. The Oga’s business was waxing very strong, the boys were happy at the business, and not ready to leave because someone was paying their wages somewhere without being affected. Most people did not know his secret, instead envy crept in. It was discovered that this very man gets 80% apprentices within the area because he gives human face to his business. One of his furniture contemporaries sought from a native doctor the secret behind his friend’s bubbling business. He was told to give his own staff a room to operate. When the good man took ill sometime and was hospitalized, his boys made sure his absence was not felt in any way. They were productive, responsible, and accountable and held the company before their boss was discharged from the hospital. Now, what is the lesson from this furniture man’s experience? The spirit flowed from the altar and peace, respect, harmony reigned in the organisation. The boys were giving their due season and the result was felt by all and sundry. Apprentices do not earn salaries until they graduate and get employed, but in this case, these boys were paid wages. Their wages were the time factor, end used products and equipment, which they were permitted to use in their own little way.
Some other forms of small-scale businesses, how do you pay wages? A hairdressing saloon, how do you pay wages to your own apprentices? Does she come to work every day in a week without having a break of at least one day to take care of personal responsibilities? Boutique owners, how do you threat your sales girls? Food vendors, are your workers free to eat from the madam’s pot? Can they go home with the remnant of the foods or all will be packed inside the freezer to continue the business tomorrow. Fashion designers, can your worker make outfits for herself? Oga’s wife, are your husband’s servant proud of you? Do you make food readily available or use it to taunt them?
Would you blame an assistant pastor who took a walk from the church because he was never allowed to preach to the congregation. His duty was to support the head pastor for years until he became angry and left the church. When the elders of the Church inquired why, he told them, he has been a conductor for years and was never allowed to pilot the vehicle. His Head Pastor did not pay wage here and it caused him great loss.
When private teachers are drained by the proprietors and go home with little or nothing, where do you think that school will get to? A teacher will be in school as early as 7:00am, teach and take care of children until the business of the day is closed; then, they start the recently introduced lesson until 5:00pm, all through the holidays, these teachers are caged to work within the school schedule.
This is a call for repentance in this New Year with our other existing relationships. When you as the head go the extra mile to treat people around you with little care, both will live happily ever after. I had a conference in Port Harcourt sometime and chose to be with my roommate in school who became a medical doctor and married to a top government functionary. From our discussions, she had arranged that I would be comfortable before she comes back from work. Just as I settled down, there was a knock on the door, and a little girl wanted to buy a bottle of coke. Politely, I sent her away because I felt that my people were bigger than selling coke, but soon after other knocks came for the same purpose, and one insisted that they buy drinks from this particular compound. I opened the freezer which was fully stocked and I thought it was for their personal use. My friend met the girl and myself disagreeing over selling of drinks. She laughed and told me her house-help sells drinks after school. Frankly, it jolted me. She also told me how she and hubby would assist in selling and accounting for their help. House help selling drinks from Madam’s freezer? Not minding their status, their quality visitors, yet people had access to them when they needed drinks. My friend was paying the wages without realizing it.
Your relationship with these ‘lesser’ people around you shows who you are. That help in your house whose duty is to stand on her feet doing your chores for 24hours without rest is a litmus test for you. One post on social media went viral. It showed a family feasting large in an eatery while the house-help was sitting watching and waiting for them to be satisfied before she could gather the crumbs to eat. She was not entitled to a plate of food according to this family. Just know it in your mind that how you pay your wages determines how far you go in that business or lifestyle because God is involved in everything we do.
Every job has its wage to pay. Salaries are different from pecks of a job. The moment you allow your workers, apprentices a little freedom, you will see a new phase of the job. When your members of staff are being poached by your contemporaries, they will definitely weigh the options, especially for fashion designers.
Who are those men who eat the bone hung on their neck like a dog? A widow cried to a distant relative to assist in the training of her daughter. Both parties agreed and the young innocent beautiful girl arrived at Markurdi where her new guardian lived with his family. Her would-be-father figure was responsible for her first abortion. Realising his evil deed, he stopped abusing the girl and rather set her free for his friends who were interested in her instead of being her protector and the girl ran away and became a mini-prostitute. It was during a raid that she was discovered and the agency tried to rehabilitate her. Has this man paid any wage to a girl who was entrusted into his care that ended up being a young prostitute?
All those Madams who instruct their helps not to correct their children with a little spanking, you are getting it all wrong. I have seen situations where these helps become mothers to the children because they were given free hand. What you sow will definitely come to play out in your absence. I was in church with this family sitting in my front. Madam had bought a snack, Gala for her young children without giving the maid, instead she instructed the help to feed the little girl, when she opens the gala, the help will eat the soft inserted meat in her own mouth and feed the child with the dry flour. Meanwhile the madam sat in front and would intermittently take a look at the children.
People, who are bitten by this bug, tread with caution. Develop and nurture these other relationships, improve lifestyles; it will never cost anything extra, rather would make the world a better place for all.