Employee's Survival Guide Under

Capitalist System

by
www.lankarising.com
Contents

The Myth About Money 04

The Boss Vs Leader 07

Love your work, but not the company 09

Never fall into the trap of 'Flexible Hours' 12

The political reading of Reality TV 15

Smart employee in Open Economy 17

A tear drop of capitalism - A case study 21

www.lankarising.com 2
www.lankarising.com 3
The Myth About Money
Most people measure money by time. They believe that by working more hours they make more
money.

Not a chance.

And it’s a perspective that’s hard to overcome. I’m telling you though, that the quality of your life
depends on you overhauling your mind on this very important matter.

Let me tell you a secret. Once you grasp the true meaning behind these words, you’ll never look at
time or money the same way again.

“Only ideas make money, not time.”

So how is it that time is not money? Look around you. What do you see? Lots of people who
spend lots of time working, and working. Their income is stagnant except for the occasional raise
to keep up with inflation. They are not breaking any ground financially. In fact, these workers are
most likely accumulating more debt as we speak. Some of them have to work two jobs just to
make ends meet.

But they keep thinking and hoping and praying that if they work hard enough, they’ll make a lot
of money.

Nope. It doesn’t work that way.

Now turn your attention to successful writers, entrepreneurs, artists and business people. What
do they all have in common?

They come up with a great idea.

An idea that excites all their senses. And because the idea appeals to them, they naturally have
great enthusiasm to implement that idea. They feel the joy of seeing that idea blossom and
flourish. As a result, successful people keep creating and coming up with new ideas. They learn to
discern which ideas work and have the confidence to discard those that don’t work.

Soon, ideas become as plentiful as apples on an apple tree. Which one to manifest – becomes the
question.

www.lankarising.com 4
Let me tell you something about bringing a great idea to fruition. It’s fun. It’s not work. How can
something you love to do be called work. Yes, there’s a learning curve in the beginning. Every
smart, wealthy person always wants to learn. But if the learning is organically connected to
bringing your idea to life – you’re more alive than ever.

Your health improves. Your mind improves. You have a Reason for being alive.

Successful people would never exhaust their creative spirit by working at a

dead-end job. They know that being creative is the blood of Life. And they
depend on their financial freedom to keep on creating.

If this kind of Aliveness interests you then immerse your mind in the books and courses and
seminars that teach you fulfillment and prosperity.

Your life ALWAYS begins Right Now.

www.lankarising.com 5
www.lankarising.com 6
The Boss Vs Leader
The vicious capitalism is not based on human values or socio-cultural harmony. Capitalism is
merely driven by greed and passion for profit demanded by the entrepreneurs. Therefore,
capitalism promotes competition among individuals to survive within the system. The system
demands the concept of ‘Boss’ rather than leadership.

If you are working for a multinational company or any of the notorious profit driven business
organization these ‘bosses’ may be plenty around you. They have no shame or humanity. They
are hand picked by the vicious politico-economic system at various stages. The evil capitalism
demands people with evil qualities. They are called Bosses and they are everywhere around you!

• The Boss drives his men, The Leader inspires them..

• The Boss depends on authority, The Leader depends on goodwill..
• The Boss evokes fear, The Leader radiates love..
• The Boss says “I”, The Leader says “We”..
• The Boss shows what is wrong, The Leader shows what is right..
• The Boss knows how it is done, The Leader shows how to do it..
• The Boss abuses men, The Leader uses them..

We defeated terrorism (TERROR + ISM) on 18 th May 2009. The LTTE terrorist’s big boss was
killed and Tamil people were liberated. It was not just a victory over separatist terrorism, but a
symbolic victory over TERRORISM of all forms. There are plenty of Bosses still roam around
with authority and impose TERROR in the cooperate and political culture. It is natural leadership
and visionaries that new Sri Lanka demands and not petty Bosses. Therefore, we all must unite to
defeat politico-business terrorism by win over BOSSES’ terror.

www.lankarising.com 7
www.lankarising.com 8
Love your work, but not the company
There is great saying “Love your work, but not the company”. However, it takes so much of time
for most of us to understand the philosophy behind this great saying. One who comes from a
village rooted with Buddhist value system usually takes longer time to understand the reality
behind the above saying.

By the time he understands the reality it is usually too late because good part of their youth is
already exploited by private owned or multi national companies.

The capitalist system

The post colonial political leadership has been dominated by comprador families in Colombo.
Although Western colonial masters officially left our country, they had established the capitalist
system. The capitalist system continues exploiting local labor in various industries ranging from
white color IT industry to blue collar Garment industry. The so called open economy paved the
way to pump out remaining money by selling excessive western junks ranging from Coca Cola
spirit to Lux soap.

The village life

Village is a place where social bonds are tight. People respect deep rooted values conditioned by
Sinhala Buddhist culture. They have ample time to care and help each other. Most of the time, the
neighborhood in village consist of close relatives. Therefore, they hardly ever feel social insecurity
in their life.

The temptation
The capitalist system demands people for their multi-national companies to operate. Their needs
range from physical labor to supervisors and more privileged management posts. They use
politico-economic domination to attract people for their system. Colonial educational system
provides most of the management workers while the villages are targeted for cheap labor.

On one hand they have created a miserable reflection on the life of the village and on other hand
creating a rosy cooperate image on their multi-national companies targeting relatively ignorant
youth into their vicious.

The vicious cycle

A youth who comes from traditional village family background expect the same friendly and
co-operative culture in the company. Companies usually promise the same and set various targets
to keep the person motivated. He has thousands of dreams for the future. Ambitious employee is

www.lankarising.com 9
gold for the company. He will do anything and everything to fulfill his ambitions. Trap in to
housing or vehicle loan will further tighten him into the vicious system. Now, he will be willing to
give more than hundred percent to the company for his mere survival in his fantasy world! Late
hours and long weekends will be taken for granted.

The reality - Company is not a human

The fact is that “Company is not a human”. A limited liability company is formed for the sole
purpose of generating profits. There are no owners as such in a listed company. There are only
share holders who freely buy and sell their shares eying for better profits for their investment. The
same person who invested in your company this year may sell all his shares in your company and
invest those in a competing company next year. He may be investing in a completely different
area from your field. Though workers are victims of specialization, money is freely movable in
market economy!

The investors’ interest on a company is short term and therefore company is always on a survival
mode. Savings is not in the vocabulary of capitalist company. If the company has made huge
profit last year the bulk is already shared among the share holders and new target is set for the
next year. In the same time the same investors who benefitted the profit last year may attracted to
some other venture this year.

Face the reality

You may have been promised a rosy way up by your top management to keep you motivated. But
in reality, every company is in a consistent struggle of surviving in every year by year. The
capitalist system is molded in such formula. You are not working for a human but for a
mechanism meant for profit making. Therefore, if you blindly love your job you are just another
fool.

The capitalist system has different branches name Human Resource Management to keep the
spirit up in the company. Every one from top to bottom is asked to fool the next level. However
the people in the top management who comes from comprador business families clearly know
this reality and they are shameless to participate in this vicious system for their benefit.

But you may be an innocent victim of the vicious system at one level. You may be forced to play
the dirty tricks on your sub ordinates at another level. If you are not moral conscious you may
survive in the system or else you will be forced to quit soon.

Do you still love your job? The decision and subsequent consequences are with you!!

www.lankarising.com 10
www.lankarising.com 11
Never fall into the trap of 'Flexible Hours' !
PLEASE READ & THINK…….

It’s half past 8 in the office but the lights are still on…
PCs still running, coffee machines still buzzing…
and who’s at work? Most of them??? Take a closer look…
All or most specimens are??-something male species of the human race…

Look closer… again all or most of them are bachelors… and why are they sitting late?
Working hard? No way!!!
Any guesses???

Let’s ask one of them… Here’s what he says…

“What’s there to do after going home… here we get to surf, AC, phone, food, coffee.. That is why
I am working late…and importantly no bossssssss !!!!!!

This is the scene in most research centers and IT savvy companies, and other off-shore offices.

Bachelors “time-passing” during late hours in the office just because they say they’ve nothing else
to do…

Now what are the consequences… read on…

“Working”(for the record only) late hours soon becomes part of the institute or
company culture.

With bosses more than eager to provide support to those “working” late in the form of taxi
vouchers, food vouchers and of course good feedback, (oh, he’s a hard worker… goes home only
to change..!!).They aren’t helping things too… To hell with bosses who don’t understand the
difference between “sitting” late and “working” late!!!

Very soon, the boss starts expecting all employees to put in extra working hours.

So, my dear Bachelors let me tell you, life changes when you get married and start having a
family… office is no longer a priority, family is…and that’s when the problem starts… because
you start having commitments at home too.

www.lankarising.com 12
For your boss, the earlier “hardworking” guy suddenly seems to become a “early leaver” even if
you leave an hour after regular time… after doing the same amount of work.

People leaving on time after doing their tasks for the day are labeled as work-shirkers…

Girls who thankfully always (its changing nowadays… though) leave on time are labeled as “not
up to it”. All the while, the bachelors pat their own backs and carry on “working” not realizing
that they are spoiling the work culture at their own place and never realize that they would have
to regret at one point of time.

So what’s the moral of the story??

Very clear, LEAVE ON TIME!!!

"Never put in extra time, unless really needed”

Don’t stay back un-necessarily and spoil your company work culture which will in turn cause
inconvenience to you and your colleagues.

There are hundred other things to do in the evening..

Learn music…
Learn a foreign language…
Try a sport… TT, cricket………
Importantly get a girl friend or gal friend, take him/her around town…

And for heaven’s sake net cafe rates have dropped to an all-time low (plus, no fire-walls) and try
cooking for a change.

Take a tip from the Smirnoff ad: ”Life’s calling, where are you??”

Please pass on this message to all those colleagues and please do it before leaving time, don’t stay
back till midnight to forward this!!!

ITS A TYPICAL ASIAN SUB CONTINENT MENTALITY THAT WORKING FOR LONG
HOURS MEANS VERY HARD WORKING & 100% COMMITMENT ETC.. PEOPLE WHO
REGULARLY SIT LATE IN THE OFFICE DON’T KNOW TO MANAGE THEIR TIME.
SIMPLE !!!

www.lankarising.com 13
www.lankarising.com 14
The political reading of Reality TV
The Western culture is nourished under the influence of Anglo Jewish domination . Passion and
hatred are inherent features of it. The western economic system depends on a single factor. That
is COMPETITION. As long as each one is competing against the other, the system can move on
and very one thinks they are happy. However the reality is that because of the high competitive
nature of the life style, individuals in the society does not have time even to sit down and reflect
on what ‘happiness’ is all about.

Of cause, there is one party that is benefited. They are called “Investors”. While the rest (majority)
of the society is asked to compete with each other, these people cash in. The system demands
more and more passion, desire and hatred in order to keep this vicious cycle live. Those who are
benefited from this vicious cycle, come up with various ideas to fuel this cycle.

The ‘American Idol’ was one of those ideas that came up in the master minds of capitalism in
USA. The fueling ingredients of capitalism passion, desire and hatred (negative factors of
humanism) is here sugar coated with a positive term “talent”. They say that they are looking for
talent and promoting talent of the people. However the reality is they are gradually justifying and
infiltrating passion and extreme competitiveness into the society.

It is no longer constructive criticism, but public humiliation in practice. The viewers are made
used to enjoy people getting humiliated. After sometime, the society will accept this as a general
norm. Once this is diffused into the society, the entrepreneurs will start practicing these same
concepts to rule their workers. They will ask co workers to compete with each other and lesser (or
workers having lesser desire, passion or hatred) workers will be publicly humiliates as shown in
“American Idol”.

Talent is no longer something that you appreciate and enjoy. Its just another factor to make a
mock of it so that others (having no talent at all) can enjoy and more importantly exploit easily.

In the evenings on TV, you may enjoy set of people getting humiliated in the name of
competition for talent. But following morning you will be the victim of same culture that was
blindly imported from the west.

www.lankarising.com 15
www.lankarising.com 16
The Smart Employee in Open Economy
Having worked full-time with 10 employer companies in just 14 years gives Mr. JH the relaxing
edge that most of the company loyal employees are struggling for today. Today, Mr. JH too is laid
off like some other 14-15 year experienced guys the difference being the latter have just worked in
2-3 organizations in the same number of years. Here are the excerpts of an interview with Mr. JH:
Don't miss last 2 Questions...

Q: Why have you changed 10 jobs in 14 years?

A: To get financially sound and stable before getting laid off the second time.

Q: So you knew you would be laid off in the year 2009?

A: Well I was laid off first in the year 2002 due to the first global economic slowdown. I had not
got a full-time job before January 2003 when the economy started looking up; so I had struggled
for almost a year without job and with compromises.

Q: Which number of job was that?

A: That was my third job.

Q: So from Jan 2003 to Jan 2009, in 6 years, you have changed 8 jobs to make the count as 10 jobs
in 14 years?
A: I had no other option. In my first 8 years of professional life, I had worked only for 2
organizations thinking that jobs are deserved after lot of hard work and one should stay with an
employer company to justify the saying employer loyalty. But I was an idiot.

Q: Why do you say so?

A: My salary in the first 8 years went up only marginally. I could not save enough and also, I had
thought that I had a permanent job, so I need not worry about what will I do if I lose my job. I
could never imagine losing a job because of economic slowdown and not because of my
performance. That was January 2002.

Q: Can you brief on what happened between January 2003 and 2009.
A: Well, I had learnt my lessons of being company loyal and not money earning and saving loyal.
But then you can save enough only when you earn enough. So I shifted my loyalty
towards money making and saving. I changed 8 jobs in 6 years assuring all my
interviewers about my stability.

Q: So you lied to your interviewers; you had already planned to change the job for which you

www.lankarising.com 17
were being interviewed on a particular day?
A: Yes, you can change jobs only when the market is up and companies are hiring. You tell me
can I get a job now because of the slowdown? No. So one should change jobs for higher salaries
only when the market is up because that is the only time when companies hire and can afford the
expected salaries.

Q: What have you gained by doing such things?

A: That's the question I was waiting for. In Jan 2003, I had a fixed salary (without variables) of say
Rs. X p.a. In January 2009, my salary was 8X. So assuming my salary was Rs.3 lakh p.a. in Jan
2003, my last drawn salary in Jan 2009 was Rs.24 lakh p.a. (without variable). I never bothered
about variable as I had no intention to stay for 1 year and go through the appraisal process to wait
for the company to give me a hike.

Q: So you decided on your own hike?

A: Yes, in 2003, I could see the slowdown coming again in future like it had happened in 2001-02.
Though I was not sure by when the next slowdown would come, I was pretty sure I wanted a
debt-free life before being laid off again. So I planned my hike targets on a yearly basis without
waiting for the year to complete.

Q: So are you debt-free now?

A: Yes, I earned so much by virtue of job changes for money and spent so little that today I have a
loan free 2 BR flat (1200 sq.. feet) plus a loan free big car without bothering about any EMIs. I am
laid off too but I do not complain at all. If I have laid off companies for money, it is
OK if a company lays me off because of lack of money.

Q: Who is complaining?
A: All those guys who are not getting a job to pay their EMIs off are complaining. They had made
fun of me saying I am a job hopper and do not have any company loyalty. Now I ask them what
they gained by their company loyalty; they too are laid off like me and pass comments to me why
will you bother about us, you are already debt-free. They were still in the bracket of 12-14 lakh
p.a. when they were laid off.

Q: What is your advice to professionals?

A: Like Narayan Murthy had said love your job and not your company because you
never know when your company will stop loving you. In the same lines, love
yourself and your family needs more than the company's needs. Companies can keep coming and
going; family will always remain the same. Make money for yourself first and
simultaneously make money for the company, not the other way around.

www.lankarising.com 18
Q: What is your biggest pain point with companies?
A: When a company does well, its CEO will address the entire company saying, well
done guys, it is YOUR company, keep up the hard work, I am with you. But when
the slowdown happens and the company does not do so well, the same CEO will
say, It is MY company and to save the company, I have to take tough decisions
including asking people to go. So think about your financial stability first; when you get laid
off, your kids will complain to you and not your boss.

www.lankarising.com 19
www.lankarising.com 20
A tear drop of capitalism - A Case Study
France Telecom, the former state monopoly, now Europe's
third-biggest phone company, has seen its brand name
Orange has come under public scrutiny after 22 workers
committed suicide and another 13 attempted to kill
themselves since the start of last year. One man had stabbed
himself in the stomach during a staff meeting while a woman threw herself out a window.

Unions are demanding a parliamentary inquiry into the deaths, which they blame on stress linked
to massive restructuring at the company, involving forced transfers and the introduction of new
profit targets. "The crisis at France Telecom is now a national problem," said the Force Ouvriere
and CFTC unions in a joint statement.

Resignation of chief executive

The deputy chief executive of France Telecom resigned in October 2009 in the wake of a spate of
staff suicides that unions have blamed on a bullying management style and brutal approach to
restructuring.

Tragedy of Stephanie – Just one example of many cases

The controversy over the spate of suicides took a macabre turn with the publication of a suicide
letter sent by the latest employee to die.

"I'm going to become the 23rd staff member to commit suicide," 32-year-old Stephanie wrote in
an email sent to her father just moments before she flung herself out of her fourth storey office
window. “I'm leaving my handbag with my mobiles and keys in the office, but I'll take my donor
card with me, you never know.” Her father passed the final communication to Paris Match
magazine, which published it in full.

"When I called you this morning, you said I didn't seem quite right. You were right. My suicidal
impulses are taking over again. I've decided to act upon them tonight," the Parisian law graduate
wrote.

The note was sent at 5.10pm on September 11, 2009. Minutes later, Stephanie dropped from her
office window in a French Telecom client services office in Paris. Critically wounded, she died
two hours later.

Story of many others

www.lankarising.com 21
One worker this summer wrote about the company’s “lack of training” and “management by
terror” in his note, stating his inability to further cope with the job as the reason for ending his
life. An email message sent by a 32-year-old woman to her father before she jumped from a
fifth-floor window at work said she was committing suicide because she didn’t want to work with
a new boss.

‘Recession’ – The evil businessmen’s excuse?

It has been a difficult year. The pressure of financial uncertainty, job insecurity, heavier
workloads due to smaller teams and now the added demands that will be placed on us as we move
towards recovery, are all mounting up.

Forty-one percent of French respondents said they felt stressed, and 54% said it was because of
the current economic crisis, according to an April telephone poll by the French National Agency
for the Improvement of Working Conditions.

The current economic crisis is probably an aggravating factor, but does not account for the rise in
job stress over the last 15 to 20 years. It has closely followed a "qualitative jump" in work- and
stress-linked "psycho-social" illnesses observed across the French workforce. Christophe Dejours,
a leading French psychiatrist and researcher on work-induced illness and suicides said the
illnesses "are linked to a steep increase in overall intensification of work."

The technology based work culture killing work-life balance:

Pellissier said some employees were clearly feeling a lot of pressure due to the privatisation of
France Telecom, but he added that this was compounded by new technologies that cause work to
encroach increasingly on personal lives.

"When you were an average employee in a big corporation 15 years ago, you had no mobile
phone or no PC at home. When you were back home, work was out," he said.

Research in Motion's popular BlackBerry has been dubbed CrackBerry in the United States,
where some users say they are addicted to checking emails. Pellissier said such practices may be
taking a bigger toll on workers than has been acknowledged by his company or others. As a result
a fragile employee with difficulties would probably have more confusion with "more mixture
between personal life and professional life than in the past".

The new strategy - Moral harassment

Employees have cited “moral harassment” as one tactic used to pressure workers who are unable
to adapt to quit. Job descriptions change at a frenetic pace and workers have complained of being
constantly supervised. Employees are working more and more, giving more of themselves and are

www.lankarising.com 22
not seeing recognition for their efforts, said Dejours, the psychiatrist.

But at what price?

An atmosphere where people formerly worked in teams and relied on each other for support has
become an isolating place where people have had to adopt an attitude of “every man for himself,”
a shift that can lead to fear, mistrust and backstabbing among employees. “Now, what you have is
more competition among workers,” Dejours said. “When an evaluation is linked to sanctions,
whether positive or negative, this leads very quickly to people turning on each other.”

Respect and all forms of solidarity are destroyed, Dejours said, and everyone is left alone to
confront the pressures, big and small. When a person feels harassed at work, he is less likely to
confide in colleagues or seek help. “It is a kind of great loneliness that settles in the workplace," he
said.

Facing the reality of capitalism

With the France Telecom suicides as a backdrop, French President Nicolas Sarkozy recently said
he wanted the world to change its production-obsessed measure of national wealth. In September,
he argued for a new international economic indicator of wealth based less on gross domestic
product and more on "well-being" cultivated through leisure and social benefits, among others.

The idea for the "alternative wealth indicator" came from a government-commissioned study led
by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, with another Nobel economics winner,
Amartya Sen, as advisor.

The need of development based on Eastern values

The West is now repent on their extreme capitalist economic model which is based on extreme
passion and aggression, should we blindly follow their foot steps or build a nation based on our
Eastern values? Lets all of us together build a country with greenery and culture, a nation without
fear and hunger.

References:
- Boss blames smartphones for stress as company suicide rate comes under scrutiny (Sep 25,
2009. The Sydney Morning Herald)
- France Telecom executive resigns after employee suicide tally rises to 24 (Oct 05, 2009. The
Guardian)
- Why France Telecom employees are killing themselves (Oct 10, 2009. Global Post)
- Suicides force French to confront rise in work-related stress (Nov 01, 2009. Los Angalese Times)
- Hazards.org

www.lankarising.com 23
www.lankarising.com 24