Yes, Sir. 

Well done on the moderation.  More precisely, the lack there of.  Thanks to the members for this refreshingly flame-bait free discussion.



Thanks for the candid response.  I'm guilty as charged regarding the PLP.  But, I've got to tell you, I'm not very fair-minded about the UBP either.  In fact, every time I see a politician's lips moving, I assume they are lying.  I've lost faith in both parties to put the interests of the whole Island ahead of their own greed.

Being one who has equated racism with hate, I appreciate your clarification.  This notion of superiority, or elitism, is rampant in Bermuda.  Could that be a cause, rather than a symptom of the unrest we know exists there?

"Being black is NOT an impediment to progress in International business, lack of education however, is another story."

I saw this earlier and I'd tend to disagree with this.  During my tenure in IB I never felt to be equal with my white counterparts as far as receiving the same treatment, trainng, bonuses and rewards.  Even when I had the same and equal positions (and more knowledge) I never got the same training and my salaries and bonuses were not equal and this is first hand knowledge so I'm not making this up.  If there were other reasons as to why this was happening I would have hoped to find out what those reasons where but I know it wasn't because of my work ethic as it never stopped me from performing my job at a high level.  At first I tried to accept it and move along but there's only so much that one can take before you take matters into your own hand.  I even tried raise this with many reps in HR and I never got anywhere with my efforts until I decided to leave and work for an equal opportunity employer.  Now on the plus side I did gain some good experiences working in IB but at the same time it is kinda hard for me to recommend to another black person that IB is the way to go and that you can move up in there if you work hard as I never did.  Now there are cases where you find a few black Bermudians who gain great success in IB but again there are only a few.

"I think tigga's point is that he's not hearing the admission that the reverse still happens."

Hmmmm.... maybe it's not that he's deaf, maybe he's blind also.  

UE - if CD et al. come on here and say we lack credibility because we do not treat Biggie/Sal the same way we treat tigga, then how is it any different if someone says the same about someone who doesn't treat tigga the same way they treat Biggie/Sal. IE: If the shoe fits. IE: Pots/Kettles.

Now here's the interesting part. It was Guilden who raised the credibility issue which you have backed him on. I wasn't talking about his "credibity" I was talking about the difficulty in hearing what he had to say seeing as there is so much noise coming from tigga. I just want him to understand that he's going to have to work harder under such circumstances. The exact same as we would have to do if Biggie/Sal continued to invade this site with his antagonistic BS.

tigga - with regard to the old man with his late apology - maybe you should dig up some of the comments posted by members and see just how many claimed he was being so noble.....

Guilden - it really must be better in the Bahamas. In fact I'm guessing it must be Utopia. Everyone down there must be perfect. The police probably get their little reports from someone who felt someone was being rude to them because of the colour of their skin. They probably send a couple of cops down to check it out and everyone's happy as pie. What white person? Haven't seen a white person here since Nicole's baby passed through with all the cameras.....

As to China.... how many fans, clothes, electronics etc etc do you have in the house. And how much did you pay for them. In many ways slave labour is alive and well today.....

But speaking about the African immigrants.....

BIKER STORY

Receives New York Times Best
  
A biker is riding by the zoo, when he sees a little girl leaning into the lion's cage.
Suddenly, the lion grabs her by the cuff of her jacket and tries to pull her inside to slaughter her, under the eyes of her screaming parents.
The biker jumps off his bike, runs to the cage and hits the lion square on the nose with a powerful punch.
  
Whimpering from the pain the lion jumps back letting go of the girl, and the biker brings her to her terrified parents, who thank him endlessly.
  
A New York Times reporter has watched the whole event.
The reporter addressing the biker says, 'Sir, this was the most gallant and brave thing I saw a man do in my whole life.'
The biker replies, 'Why, it was nothing, really, the lion was behind bars.
I just saw this little kid in danger, and acted as I felt right.'
The reporter says, 'Well, I'll make sure this won't go unnoticed. I'm a journalist from the New York Times,
you know, and tomorrow's paper will have this story on the front page... So, what do you do for a living and what political affiliation do you have?''
  
The biker replies, 'I'm a U.S. Marine and a Republican.'
  
The journalist leaves. The following morning the biker buys The New York Times to see if it indeed brings news of his actions, and reads, on front page: *
  
  





US. MARINE ASSAULTS AFRICAN IMMIGRANT AND STEALS HIS LUNCH
 

 

A lot of companies, especially smaller ones and startups don't have salary bands, just a general idea of what the position should be worth.  Even for the company that has salary bands for various levels you're still faced with what level and/or salary band an individual is hired at and when they're promoted from one level/band to another.  And of course, above a certain level everyone cuts their own deal anyways.

to be honest nobody is going to come on a mong board and say "I didn't get the same as my co workers because I wasn't up to the job" are they?

there are quite explicit games played with immigration here - work permits for expats no questions asked if you promote black bermudians (although the payola is nothing like the friends and family ride free on the G5 scheme).

Unfortunately what might well be necessary business programs can easily be misconstrued as racism in certain corporate settings. Take colour out of the equation totally. Let's also take gender and age out as well. I'm a Bermudian sitting at a desk in Hamilton communicating with all sorts of customers globally via email, fax, snail-mail and telephone selling our product. At the desk next to me is another sales-person. I went to a decent college and they went to a decent college. We both have identical business degrees. We both go to work.

I start my communications based upon my learned knowledge and up-bringing. So does the other sales-person. After six months our boss calls us in to review our production. We both show up and work hard but the other salesperson is bringing in more business. After a critique we realize that my communication/writing skills are not as easily absorbed by the customers and we find I and they spend more and more time going back and forth before  getting to the end game than my counter-part. The other sales-person has a robust scattershot approach to sales and gets things done quickly. However their customers often spend more time dealing with customer service fixing little things than my customers have to. But we get paid on sales and my counter-part is clearly ahead on that.

Q1: What race am I?

Q2: Who deserves the bigger money?

1. Irrelevant
2. The other guy

The thing about promotions and compensation at a lot of places is that those decisions rest with your boss' boss, or maybe even their boss... or maybe some sort of committee of higher-ups.  As much as you want to believe you're more than just a number etc, these people have no idea what you actually do day to day.  What they do know, is that Fred hit his sales target and you didn't.  Customer service is someone else's problem, we're in sales!  How did your self-assessment go?  Ooh, looks like you didn't meet some of your goals this year - even though your goals are self-set and yours were considerably more ambitious than Fred's ("they" won't notice that, as long as Fred's goals aren't complete gimmes).  It's easier to get promoted by being good at the game than it is to be because you're good at your job.

CC - that's exactly right. You get the bonus.

Rummy - you are totally correct as well. Spending time worrying about others is too often the downfall of many good workers.

Caveat: This is just an example of misconstruing events. This does not in anyway negate the fact that IR or bias exists in the workplace.