Dignity of labour is how much we respect all types of jobs and how we don’t feel that one job is less or greater than another. Although this is one of the most essential things we as individuals should develop within ourselves, it is rarely the case.

This happens to be one of the leading causes of unemployment, as people are worried about what others think about what they do for living than getting employed and doing something useful with their lives rather than remaining idle. Its mostly evident in developing countries (such as ours) were people either have too much self-pride or fear of what their family, friends and relatives think about what they do for a living.

In some countries, someone who works two or more jobs (just so he/she could make some more money) is considered perfectly fine and no one bothers about it. But sadly, if someone who holds a decent position in a company does after hours part-time in a place like McDonalds serving food… it is looked down upon by society.

Judging the social status by what they do for a living still existent where we live. It is a common known fact that tillers of land, barbers, potters, leatherworkers, dhobis, carpenters, weavers, and cattle-rearers are looked down upon by society. As pathetic as this sounds, its the evolution of the community and how their status in society are traced; for all these occupations are confined to the lower grades of human dignity.

What people don’t realize is that most don’t do what they do because they have to, but because it is what they chosen career choice. Without each one of them contributing to society in their own way, we would be filled with a lot people doing the same thing everyday; all our lives!

Consider this for a moment, what if our fore-fathers gave up on rock-carving, farming, planting and making furniture, we would not be having a culture, traditions or history.

Another thing that should be brought to light is the fact that men work hard to obtain money; and having gained wealth, they suppose that their money will make their children worthy in the eyes of society. But many such men fail to train their children, as they themselves were trained, to hard, useful labour. Their children spend the money earned by the labour of others, without understanding its true value. Thus misusing the talent that was born in them that should be used to accomplish much good.

Not so long ago, it was considered by many that any sport would be worthless to pursue. But once it became a profession that was paying considerably, it started to climb the social ladder.

Sadly this is the society we live in today!

If you are wondering where I was for the last 2 weeks where I conveniently disappeared from the face of this planet…

Well as much as I would love to say that I was abducted by aliens and had probes stuck in places that I would find hard to explain about…

But I was actually busy with getting a job! A job you ask? Yes! A Job! I am employed now. It was always in my long-term plan to have a steady income and this is most definitely the conventional way to make money… although getting employed was least likely choice for me, I figured earning money doing what you love to do is fair enough.

Getting a job is a funny business. Most people prepare for it with all the possible resources they can muster, whereas others just walk-in without a worry on their minds. With both the above cases the chance of landing the job completely depends on the way you approach the situation. In my case, I walked in and got the job simply because I followed a few basic guidelines:

* Did a background check of the company, the kind of business they are into (IT, HR, Training, etc)
* Spoke to a few friends within the company to understand their work culture
* Prepared a few Q&A scenarios of the most likely questions they would ask
* Made a mental note of a range of how much I would be expecting in terms of a payment package
* Finally, got a good nights sleep before the big day!

I hope that this may help anyone else that is looking to get a job or change their jobs.

On another note, I made a few changes to this blog today by adding an “Advertising Zone” on the right bar. I don’t expect it to kick in for another 24 hours since that’s how long it takes to get activated and populate with relevant ads.

Hoping to post a new review soon, so stay tuned for that… I promise it would be a real treat for the creative souls out there.

I started my web development career at 21 with MegadynamiX (Pvt) Ltd (LK-based IT solutions provider specializing in web development) as a trainee web developer on the 10th of February 2000.

After my 6-month probation period was over, the Webmaster who was there left the company for a better position and I was promoted to the post of Webmaster and put in-charge of the day-to-day web development activities . Over the next few months, I was tasked with training the 4 university interns with the inner workings of building a website, where to host the files and the standards to follow in the process.

During this time we worked on a lot of websites and portals for various clients. One of the stars of the time was when we made a one-stop portal called “LankaWorld”. Although its no longer active today, it was making headlines in months where we hoped it would take years.

After serving at MegadynamiX for over 3 and half years, I left the company to join Confifi Management Services on the 12th of August 2003 as their Group Webmaster, taking with me some good lessons and whole lot of experience. Confifi Group was a hotels and resorts management organisation based in Sri Lanka. Although most would think of this switch as career suicide, I thought of it more like a challenge. As expected, I was faced with a lot of challenges, frustration and reluctance by my fellow employees to embrace the ever evolving web technology since most of them had little or no exposure to Information Technology back then.

I worked my way through each problem, eventually leaving Confifi on 25th of April 2005 to join OpenWorld after having served for 1 year and 7 months, during which time I learned a lot about the inner workings of hotel chains, customer management and public relations.

OpenWorld was one of the best places to work, I was given a pre-warning though that I would not learn anything new but the pay was extremely good so I took up the challenge to try something different since now I had the best of both world under my belt.

A UK-based IT solutions provider for the global travel and hospitality industry, with branches worldwide. OpenWorld served the likes of InterContinentals, Raffles, Dorchester’s and many more hotel chains. I was recruited to service the Raffles and Swissotel Hotel chains for a greater part of my time and it proved rewarding for everyone, since my contact at Raffles was very impressed with the way things were being handled.

After serving at OpenWorld for over 2 years, one fine day the CEO of OpenWorld dropped a bomb on everyone saying that the company was running at a loss and that he had no choice but to close down the company on a global scale. Although we knew that this was not possible since the company was making millions, we all started to look for jobs.

At the peak of my career I was frustrated and angry, I promised myself that I would never let this happen to be again. Now I was in financial trouble as well since I had got married only 3 months back. So I looked around for another job but in fact my skills were now out-dated and out of style. Eventually, I found a job through some good recommendations of my ex-colleagues at OpenWorld. TravelByte Technologies also proved to be a short career when they closed down 3 months later.

By this time, another friend of mine who had gone to Dubai over a year back mentioned that there was a position with the company that she was working for, as a Web Developer to build a tourism, business and recruitment consultancy portal. After a few months of negotiating, I was on my way to Dubai to start my life fresh without making the same mistakes all over again. With the help of some of the best people I ever had the privilege of working with, including my ex-colleague from OpenWorld; we launched the portal.

Six months later, I was dragged into the same pit all over again. I was once more tricked into believing that I could come back to Dubai in two weeks when I came to Sri Lanka in November 2007 for a short holiday.

Although it was inevitable that they would not need us once we had completed the portal, giving people the benefit of the doubt is what we should always do. Anyways, I am now in Sri Lanka trying my best to overcome my past mistakes and get my life and my web development career back on track with an outlook to a prosperous future.

Lessons Learned:

1) Never ever trust people that offer you the world
2) Always trust your instincts
3) Make as much money as you can when you are young (never tell your boss that you are NOT interested in money)
4) Save as much money as you can, because you never know when you will need it next
5) Never give up on yourself or your dreams
6) Always Think Positive!
7) Be aggressive about what you want in life and never settle for anything less than your worth

Do you have a story that you would like to share? Please feel free to drop me a line…