Avoiding English as Weapon? Speak English Please

September 06, 2011

A healthy working environment is a right every employee deserves and a responsibility every employer should provide. Today, physical health is taken seriously by many employees and employers alike, but should health be limited to physical? Thousands are on stress leave and millions are working under stress. And most disturbing is people hardly know the cause to their stress. Health professionals agree combination of things contribute to stress and sometimes people cannot provide enough information for precise diagnosis. The reality is people may not know critical information they need to provide.

By carefully listening and taking a stand today, you may save yourself or someone you love from stress. In this global village, most of us has ethnic co-workers. Like people in general, you are likely to find good and bad people in every ethnic group. Imagine having Chinese, Indian, Ukranians, Russians, or African co-workers who choose to avoid English as weapon. As example, how will you feel to be surrounded by Arabs who keep mentioning your name amidst tension -provoking you. We know many immature teenagers may quickly start a fight to be at least fired. Some adults may be stressful to take stress leave or find another Job. A supervisor as victim can find another reason to fire the culprits. But what will you do if it was happening to your employees? Would you be indifferent to their health, possible cost to the company from under performance, stress leave, or losing valuable employee(s)?

Whether or not something similar is happening at your workplace, I want you to take a stand before it comes to your work place. I have a well written letter on www.mbioc.net , I want you to download it and write you own example if possible to be forwarded to as many doctors and employers as possible. This can greatly improve the quality of life at the work place. Perhaps not all work places, but most work places need to encourage one official language among employees. This will encourage transparency, build trust between employees, and above all, prevent problems that may affect beyond the work place. I know some of you may have some loving ethnic co-workers, but please do understand there are evil ones out there. We don't make policies or rules for the best of people but to contain evil people. This will be one of those policies that will hardly be implemented unless one abuses their 'ethnic advantage'.

This is not against ethnic people, I happen to be an African who is functional in five languages, I love languages. This is about Justice and respect for working, a fundamental branch of Showlove Trinity. Good people must make sacrifices in respect to working. It is possible to have misunderstood or even evil work place policies. I have worked for a very big company, (name withheld), where we were required to have permission before going to the rest room. I notified them but never waited for permission. My point is there are unreasonable policies out there and I fight them. What we are calling for will help both employees and employers.

The reason we have dress code and many other work place expectations or standards is to accommodate to as many people as possible. So does it hurt you to speak English when you don't feel like more than wearing a tie on a day you don't feel like? Call in sick on those days please. As said, this can greatly help ethnic people. How often were you served by people you can barely understand? I am not saying we should be intolerant to people whose first language is not English but we should encourage and help them with the language of the country they reside. They should also help themselves and each other by speaking English at the work place. I hated French in school but was eager to learn it when I resided in Quebec, Canada. Although I have an accent, I can comfortably communicate in English and thanks , partly, to an enforced policy. Back home in Africa, in what we called primary school, which is equivalent to elementary school-- We were forced to speak only English at school grounds, including break times. Most of us hated it but almost all of us are enjoying the fruits today. Beside the fact that it bridged tribal barriers, some of us are holding better jobs due to language advantage. If you cannot see the benefits as a minority, I want you to understand that some white people may not be hiring you as second ethnic employee because they do not prefer you to speak different language at the work place.

Wise-up and support the campaign. When you are at work, you are at work. I am not saying the work place should be painful but it should never be seen as a fun place or where you do what ever you like. You are there to serve instead of being served. So keep your admiration for your ethnic language and other stuff to yourself when it is not beneficial to your employer. Using your language at the work place after knowing the possible problems is a sign of ingratitude. Similarly, fighting a policy that may benefit your fellow ethnic people is inconsiderate. Practice is one of the ways we improve in language. Having such policies will improve our language, we will communicate better and perform better to possibly get better jobs, your employer shouldn't hear that part. By the way, I am looking for a better job in sales, writing, administration, or computer hardware related. I know my company may not like me very much after this but God is my provider and why should I stay with a company that doesn't seem to care about my health. If I cannot find a better job, I will stick around till I can open my own business and I urge you to do similar. Again, please download the letter on www.mbioc.net and submit it to employers and doctors. There are many doctors who may not know this could be part of their patients' problems. Take a good stand and may God bless you. May God bless Showlove Trinity: Let's learn, let's work, let's have fun.

By Jigster, founder of www.mbioc.net and www.adfec.info

September 06, 2011

Re: Ethnic language problems in the Work place

To Employers, doctors, and whom it may concern.

Dear Sir/Madam,

We are trying to raise awareness on a work related health issue that the victims, employers, doctors, and society should learn about and confront collectively. Work related stress is a major problem in our age, it cost companies millions through stress leave, some overreact or quit to possibly end-up in the streets to cost society billions, and many other avoidable circumstances. The cause of work related stress can vary but we can agree that a healthy working environment is a right to employees and a responsibility to employers.

Using Ethnic language as a weapon is indeed one of the cause to some work related stress. Whereas many Ethnic people are decent and mature, we have bad apples every where and ethnic people can actually be victims of abusive ethnic language in the work place. A chinese can be a victim of Arabs, an African can be a victim of Indians, a Polish can be a victim of Ukrainians, an English can be a victim of French folks etc. The sad reality is companies hardly have policies to prevent or solve NEW global village problems. It's bad enough to be provoked in plain English or ganged-upon but imagine being provoked in a foreign language, hearing you name in a foreign language amidst tension with a different ethnic group. It is happening and can happen to any one of us. Please do something before it happens to someone you care about. What can you do ? Write and/or forward this letter to employers and doctors. You can urge employers to have one official language in the work place and discourage the use of other languages among associates. Doctors should be notified to possibly include it in their questioning because many patients may not know all the contributing factors to their stress.

Although, the primary reason to this speak English campaign is to help employees, it can actually benefit employers. Enforcing the use of the official language at the work place means more practice to some who may really need it. Better English generally means better communication and performance, which eventually benefit all parties, including employers. Big companies can check few aspects as possible benefits: 1. The cost of Stress leave in ten years. 2. Training cost and The number of employees who may quit without giving reasons. 3. The number of employees to quit due to co-workers behaviors but without specifically detailing issues that others may re-accuse them of racism. 4. The improvement in team work towards profit. 5. The improvement in English to customer satisfaction, or better products or services. Even 5% of things mentioned may amount to millions of dollars in some companies.

Companies that ignore the need for such a policy must be fought legally. The employees and ex-employees must be sensitized to possibly file class action law-suits under negligence. Health cannot be limited to physical health. It took years of sharing information and lawsuits before some companies took responsibility of physical health to employees. When women came to the workplace, sexual harrasment was introduced. Now that we have multi-cultural work place and ethnic rivalry is increasingly common, we need new measures to accommodate everyone.

We can implement the policy at different levels but preferably from the Job Interview. Case Scenario example:

Interviewer: So what are your thoughts on building trust and team work?

Interviewee: Likely to say something positive

Interviewer: You mentioned so and so; How about sacrifice and transparency?

Interviewee: Likely to say something positive.

Interviewer: Fairly impressed, well said. By the way, you look great in that outfit but I notice you do not have a tie on. Our company policies require us to have a tie on to accommodate to more people. I hope you wouldn't mind a tie if hired? (likely to agree). Honestly, sometimes I don't feel like wearing a tie but it is one of those sacrifices for the work place. I also notice you speak chinese based on your resume, which is great. However, our company policies require us to speak English among associates to avoid cliquey groups, build team work, build trust etc. In your case, it happens to be a perfect example: Your would be supervisor happens to be a chinese who can barely speak English but great guy, you will love him. We also happen to have lot of Arabs, some Africans, and other nationalities. So you can imagine the need to be on one page and we need every sacrifice to build that. You seem to be very smart and likely to rise fast in this great company. So Imagine if you keep speaking chinese with the chinese supervisor... and suppose we need to promote you, some of the Arab guys may misinterpret the reason for the promotion. Or imagine if you had a problem with one of the Arab guys... if we allow them to speak Arabic, they can easily gang-up against you and it won't be easy for us to defend you–we don't understand Arabic. So in a nutshell, this is the reason we have one official language. Break times are not paid, so feel free to speak what you like while on break but we still prefer English. On paid hours, please give us 100% of what we prefer. Your supervisor, Mr. Ho, knows the job very well but struggles with English. Since he will be teaching you lot of things, it won't be bad to help him improve his English. Your English is superb but suppose you were struggling with English, I believe you would have welcomed more English practice. Do you think is fair to ask you to speak English with employees on paid hours?

This is by no means to look down on ethnic people. In fact, An African who is functional in five languages, going to his sixth, initiated the campaign. I am pretty confident that with the right explanations, it shouldn't be hard to convince people on the need for such a policy. I hope you seriously consider the issues raised with the understanding that there may be much more we do not know regarding the evils through ethnic language. The problems are real, some may go on stress leave, quit, or fight back in a manner we may not appreciate. The possible benefits are real, we can save money, improve lives, and make money by implementing a needed policy.

Sincerely,

Jarga Kebba Gigo (Jigster) founder of www.mbioc.net

Do I have to pray really hard?

Do I have to pray really hard? Do I have to pray for two black Muslims to bomb the white House or 'a too big to fail' company after speaking in ethnic language? Since black is the most hated race and Islam the most hated religion, then they may debate and act quickly. No, I do not want them to be white Christians from Norway, they will first suspect accident, then certify them as 'mentally disturbed' due to too much English. Let their words be translated for the importance of transparency be debated beyond its direct meaning. Let there be a survivor who will say, 'Darn if only I understood Arabic, I could have foiled the plot'.

Do I have to pray really hard? Do I have to pray for many white girls to visit the Hospital after beatings or take long stress leave through Ethnic Language provocations. Since white girls are the most adored species in the west and take the most stress leave with funny reasons or no reasons. No, I do not want them to be Black Managers, they may physically fight or fire them to be accused as violent or intolerant. Reactionary choices is understandable for some people and some choices like stress leave, cutting man's penis, abortion, screaming if your are a woman, back bitting and provoking name calling in ethnic language, to name a few..

Do I have to pray really hard? Do I have to pray for racial rival gangs in schools to re-learn ethnic language and use it as a weapon? In elementary, they are hardly racist because if hatred is in the genes, then it must be like the breast genes – to grow only after years. Why were many black slave women so close to white kids with illusory expectations that if they grow they will be nice to them or set them free? No, I don't want them to be street gangs in competition, let it be college gangs or workplace gangs. Why can't we encourage diversity through transparency or is transparency against diversity? Can non-transparency ever contribute to cliques or reduce diversity through quitting or stress leave?

Before the Workplace became a global village

Long, long ago, before the workplace became a global village. A global history will be boring... So let's briefly limit it to western history and super fast forward it to current issues, I promise. Long, long ago when people invented language as weapon or to separate from others in rebellion-- African languages became many. The French invaded England but compromisingly imposed French words as alternative on English as “highly literary words' . Then the U.S and Australia were fabricated but there was no need to invent new language in bravery, in semi-cowardice or non cowardice.

Long, long ago, before the workplace became a global village. Long before blacks and women joint the formal workplace of the Western World. Women were generally adored but some were abused, especially the ones without husbands or horse-bands. A writer and would be American president kissed the wife good morning, told her 'you are super special, not like other women – all women are not created equal'. So he wrote ' the declaration of independence' claiming “all men are created equal...”. The white male were not all enjoining but most agreed is better to keep the women at home. Then they abused but agreed the Indians, Spanish, and other races were 'less abusable or not hardworking' -- So they went to Africa for slaves: Abusable and/or hardworking? So some whites males were elevated to women status of home-work but those who cannot afford slaves kept working. Those without horse-bands suffered in hard work without historical recognition.

Long, long ago, before the workplace became a global village. When the world war forced women to enter work force or formally accept polygamy or more meretriciousness. Some women chose to stay in the workplace for different reasons. Some men became very surprised that women can work hard and said, damn it!, women should work and let's bear what ever changes may happen to the workplace. Uncle Sam counted her tax dollars, said how did we miss this, by no means should we let them go back home. Businesses agreed. We can even stop the prohibition on alcohol. Businesses agreed! Then God or Satan pitied the world, sent more technologies to make it easier for more women to enter the work force. Then few new standards were recommended for women to avoid offending them. History books confirmed the promised to not just women but also men : 'technologies will lessen the working hours ', among other things. Some how, immigrants were imported, under-paid, and many women are now doing two jobs. But please do not tell this to the “angry white male” who comfortably fed a whole family with a high school diploma. High School was so high to be named “high” in England and upgraded to “Diploma” in America's big mouth. Now the Immigrants with degrees have to compete with the white male with high school diploma. So you have lot of angry immigrants and angry white males. So they said let the brown 'stick around' but we must have pre-employment marijuana test against blacks, to keep the Judicial industry and department of ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco, and Fire Arms) as one department or at least one aim. So what is the difference between formal and non-formal Education? And what is difference between education and thinking became a bigger question in life but not much at the work place. The world of business and commission care less about education. The world of politics care less about formal education.