Island Mentality

Sri Lanka has truly amazed me. It’s fascinating to come here from squeaky clean Singers. The people have been wonderful, the weather has been great, the women beautiful and the life easy.

Yet nothing really works. The government is horribly corrupt (with many of the locals complaining that they have yet to see any of the Tsunami charity money), with the ministers being some of the worst criminals in the country. The sons of the ministers are the ones that perform the most crimes and run around with armed bodyguards (there was a big fight in one of the clubs before we went there on Friday, apparently with drawn guns). The people are inefficient as hell (they love to stand around and watch others work) and everything takes about four times as long as it should.

To give you an example, we went to a supposed western style coffee place and ordered coffee. There were three customers in the whole coffee place, one person before us and the two of us. There were ten staff members standing around, seven normal workers and three important looking people, wearing ties.

It took them ten minutes just to take the order before us, while we stood there waiting.

Ten minutes for ten staff to fill one person’s order, before it was even our turn to order! Why? Well, everything that was ordered had to get written down (in duplicate). This was all being done by one staff member. Of course, he had to write slow and exactly, as this was the receipt. While he wrote, nobody else did anything. They just stood there and looked at us, at the man and at the other customer. Only when the order had been finished, did they bother to start making the coffee.

That is, the normal seven staff members. The guys in ties didn’t do anything, except kept looking at us. I think that as soon as you wear a tie you’re no longer supposed to use your hands, just stand around and try and look like you’re actually helping through your presence alone.

The thing was, the person I was with (who was Sri Lankan) didn’t even notice. I told her what I saw and how it amazed me that they didn’t just get another person to start writing receipts and she said ‘yeah, you’re right. Why don’t they do that?’ but it had never crossed her mind that this might be a problem, until I pointed it out. And this wasn’t the only time. This has been going on everywhere.

Not only are the Sri Lankans inefficient as hell, they are also completely unaware of it. I guess it brings a certain rustic charm to the island, even if it keeps out prosperity.