Negligence

I can't help commenting on news. A guy released from Durham prison shot dead his ex-girlfriend's boyfriend, shot and injured his ex-girlfriend, and shot and injured a police officer. They are still looking for him. Nothing wrong with all this except that it has now emerged that Durham prison had warned the police that this guy could possibly harm his girlfriend. This makes it all so wrong because this makes all these incidents preventable. IPCC have been asked to investigate whether there was negligence on part of the police.

The other bit of news is from India. I learned about it from an old friend Aashish, via facebook. A child fell to his death through the floor of a sixth floor restaurant in Juhu, Bombay. This is worse than the Durham prison guy being allowed to shoot 3 people. This is negligence beyond belief. There are quite a few comments about this news on the Times of India website, all saying something along the lines that lessons should be learnt from this incident and the management should be punished. And there is call for severe punishment for those responsible.

Such incidents happen frequently and every time there are similar calls - punish, inspect regularly etc. Still the incidents keep happening. There has to be a deeper underlying problem. I think it has to do with the fact that we do not take pride in "a job well done" any more. We have completely lost sight of quality in our day to day working. Quality is not just a set of standards which a product or service should meet. If I am experienced enough I can produce a product which will pass all quality inspections but I know that it is not as good as it could be. Quality is an internal standard of the person doing the job. The people who did the floor of this restaurant were aware of its poor quality. They were aware of the fact that it could give way if stood upon at certain places. This is borne out by the fact that they did not fall through the floor! The floor did not meet industry standards in this case but it also did not meet the internal (moral) standards of the people making it. They chose to violate their own personal standards as well as the industry standards.

Industry standards should be there. They should be enforced. But I think from the workers point of view they should be informative rather than something to aim to meet. They should be the minimum. The worker should strive to meet his / her own internal standards which will make him feel comfortable and also proud of his workmanship.

Our problem is that we have stopped being proud of what we do or produce. Instead, we are proud of how much we earn doing no matter what. A glaring example is the IPS officers in India. They are very proud of their positions and what they earn. And they are not ashamed of the law and order situation is most places of India. They should be but they are not. They get a decent salary, a car, a driver, and numerous other perks and they are genuinely proud of these and they are genuinely not ashamed of the result of what they do at work.