The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

Looking at the way our society is heading the common man today doesn’t have much support or none at all, no matter which direction he or she turns. Whether it be the government, church, a neighbour, family or your good friend, but there is something today that when we have it we appear to take it for granted – and that is our jobs.

If you can remember a time in your life when you were down on your luck or maybe you were just coming out of the shadows of your parents and you needed that job.

Well, as I remember those days here in The Bahamas, we were an island people with integrity, we were hard working, humble and prided ourselves in our good manners. When we walked into that particular business establishment looking for work and nothing to offer other than our hands and our word, we forget that in that interview we were ready to work in any position that they had available.

In The Bahamas, we are a very fortunate set of people, especially for the common man to walk out of school with no other form of education to land a job in a hotel and in some areas, because of nature’s talents and our hard work we could make over a thousand a week from satisfied guests.

Now today you see yourself making this kind of money, but for some reason the attitude that helped you succeed in those days has disappeared.

Today, you consider that certain things are beneath you, yet you are that same person who couldn’t find a penny to his name, but today you have too much pride to even pick up some bits of paper off the floor, to go and help with getting some dishes clean after the machine breaks down, or, as in the recent hurricane, help in the manual clean up process to get your employer back into business so as to protect your job - because once your employer is down, so are you.

At this point, you should put all your pride aside and protect the only thing that you know that you can depend on – that piece of a job that you and that future of yours is riding on. We all need to know how to put aside our differences to do what it takes and kiss it until the day you can kick it.

So far, at least in my life, that day has not yet arrived.

A BAHAMIAN

Nassau,

December 7, 2016.