Sometimes You Don't Realize How Good You Have It

After spending one challenging week in Honduras and back and now am on "vacation" at the beach with super wife and three little bundles of joy.

We experienced a typical 2 year old meltdown today when I wouldn't let Lolo take all the yogurt she can hold to the beach with her. I am just lucky that she actually wanted to hold the yogurt in the container.

In our Honduras factory the employees are currently paid by cash. Frequently we have over $100,000 in Honduran currency in the facility on payday. People are killed for much, much less money in that country. In fact in one of the neighboring factories had their entire payroll stolen at gunpoint about a year ago. Despite the fact that we have the money delivered by armored car it is still very unsafe to have that amount of cash in the building.

I value the lives of my administrative employees in Honduras so we petitioned a bank to put a teller machine inside the industrial park very close to our building and we are planning on paying using a debit card instead of cash.

The employees revolted upon hearing that we were planning on paying via debit card. They were so upset that they initiated a work stoppage the entire day last Wednesday. After explaining to everyone why the decision was made to pay via debit card and how it would not be an inconvenince to them and most importantly of all that it very well could save the lives of some of our adminstrative staff, most employees still wanted to be paid in cash. It is very frustrating trying to implement change. It seems that no matter where I interact with people in the world, change is very difficult.

Since this happened in Honduras we were able to solve the issue very quickly. We rounded up the ten ringleaders who incited the work stoppage and promptly fired them. This is an entirely just way to handle this problem because we have the legal right to fire employees who willfully stop work without our permission with the intent of disrupting our production.

This might seem harsh to some but one needs to stop and consider that our employees work in some of the highest paying jobs in the Honduras manufacturing industry and have some of the best benefits. The unemployment rate is about 30% in Honduras so most people feel very fortunate when they have a job. It just goes to prove that the union mentality is everywhere despite socioeconomic status and education level.

I need a beer.