In the aftermath of this month’s destructive floods, one certainly had enough cause to pause for reflection.
For most of us it was gratitude for surviving the hellish mayhem while hundreds perished, and that our homes and possessions were spared while thousands of others found themselves in the pits of despair, having lost absolutely everything they owned.
It is in times such as these that one ponders the “fairness” of life. Why have you been blessed with good fortune while others around you experience untold hardships?
It is not a case of schadenfreude – the pleasure derived by someone from another person’s misfortune – but rather relief that one escaped the catastrophes experienced by others.
Which steered my thought to the rescue workers – those courageous men and women who rush into the teeth of death to save lives every time a disaster presents itself, while the rest of us cower for safety and protection.
What makes these heroes stick to such a traumatic blood-and-guts job day in and day out?
It surely isn’t for the money. Considering what they do, they earn peanuts.
Is it a powerful altruistic calling to serve others, or simply a case of just having a job?
Only they can answer that.
The same goes for all our other superheroes who quietly toil for the benefit of the populace – the teachers, the nurses and the police (obviously excluding the lazy and corrupt).
Teachers, for example, are tasked to mold the next generation of leaders who must sail SS South Africa towards peace, stability and economic progress.
Granted, those who mentored our current confederacy of dunces who rule the land failed dismally and should be sent to the headmaster’s office for six of the best – but that is another debate.
What I’m on about is that there is something seriously wrong with a system in which people are not adequately compensated for the crucial or dangerous type of work they do.
We must re-examine our outdated approach of judging people’s value to society purely by academic qualifications.
Of course you want to see the framed degrees on your brain surgeon’s wall, but I’d rather have well-paid and efficient rescue service personnel, teachers, nurses and policemen in my corner than pompous, overpaid Prof Lalaland spending his whole life researching the sex life of the dung beetle.
In my opinion, the biggest travesty in our society is the exorbitant salaries earned by totally incompetent civil service employees whose only virtue is the mind-boggling volumes of fast food their bodies can absorb.
With due apology to those few remaining souls who still frantically try to make a difference in the tsunami of ineptitude – bless them – the “market-related” salaries that civil service and trade unions harp on about needs serious downward adjustment.
Let me provide a good example.
Having an illiterate journalist on my team some years ago (at another newspaper outside of KwaDukuza) who couldn’t string a single paragraph together, I regularly implored the Lord for relief.
The intervention eventually came when thick-as-a-brick Ms Hopeless was offered a job at the local municipal mayor’s office.
And there she still sits, receiving a monthly paycheck of just under R50 000 for painting her nails.
Now compare that to the meagre salaries earned by our valuable community guardians.
I rest my case.
