Advice for Employees Fearing the Ax

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  1

  gibsonmu

  09/19/08 | Report as spam

  RE: Advice for Employees Fearing the Ax

  DONT PUT ALL YOUR EGGS IN ONE BASKET
  
  The above old English saying aptly sums up the risk management measures workers have to keep in place throughout their working life.
  Hence, an employee should always be involved in small time private work to one's main career job. It does not matter even if it is a totally different field to one's career job. An example is where one is employed as a domestic worker but during his/her spare time gets involved in sewing or welding.
  Who knows, one might be having naturally skills/talents in that field?
  One then is exposed to the risks involved in the part time job apart from also saving one's meagre salary by doing some of this work for oneself.
  A retrenchment package(cheap funding) could be the opportunity the employee has been looking for to expand his/her business. Of course good work ethics have to be observed if one practices the same career as at his/her workplace. One should not divert clients from
  his/her employer to his/her small company or worse still use his employer's facilities to do private work.
  Many employeees who suddenly find themselves with huge retrenchments packages have been known to put to waste the packages when they start to experiment to carryout new self jobs. A study in East Africa actually confirmed that graduates fall into this class while the non graduates were found to put to good use their retrenchment packages. Non graduates are known to carry on private work while still being employed full time like baking cakes and buns, selling chickens and eggs etc. which they bring to sell to colleagues on credit with the amounts due payable on pay day. Graduates tend to feel as if they are being looked down upon if they embark on such extra work since they want to give an impression that their salaries are sufficient for their needs.
  I am a Zimbabwean and actually witnessed in 1987 President Mugabe's noble retrenchments packages of ZWD50,000.00 being put to waste by many of the freedom fighters who suddenly woke up to find themselves rich and did not know how to invest productively the money. The Government of Zimbabwe is to blame to some extent for not having held counselling investment sessions with most of these former freedmom fighters. Imagine some are known to have hired luxury buses to just caryy a family of six(60) to their rural villages from town for just a visit. some are known to have ordered vegetable vendors at one rural shopping centre to feed cows grazing nearby with their cabbages and bring the bill for them to settle while drinking beer!
  It is however good to note that those who had been carrying out some part time private work have never looked back again.

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  Denay

  12/09/08 | Report as spam

  RE: Advice for Employees Fearing the Ax

  This is a very interesting article. I must agree you definitely cannot put all your eggs in one basket. I sell pies when I am not teaching online. I know many people who have what we call in the United States a "side hustle." Something they do to make extra money and offer relief in lean times. I hope many will read and heed this warning. Good luck to you and thanks for sharing.
  Denay