Tit for tat is the fairest deal on job

There is this page in the newspaper that looks like a misplaced obituary column- usually somewhere near the classifieds.

You will usually find two black and white photographs of some mean-looking individuals with their full names given, and above them, the caption “The persons pictured here are no longer employees of xxx Company.” And then the general public is warned not to interact with these dangerous and mean-looking people, and in some dire cases, ‘anyone with information on their whereabouts is urged to report to the police’.

The first question that comes to my mind when I see these notices is “What on earth did these people do?” Did they poison the morning tea? Steal enough photocopying paper to get noticed? Elope with the boss’s daughter or son, perhaps? Question two usually concerns why there is no law preventing the use of such terrible images of one’s person in public.

And what do they do to make sure that all the men pictured have cold, hard eyes that glare defiantly at the camera and all the women have the worst weaves known to womankind perched on their heads? The third question is “Where the hell do you get your employees from?” Because sincerely, going by the black and white shots, some of those people look mentally unwell, or at best, predisposed to sudden and unwarranted violent acts.

In the interest of fairness, justice, equality, and all those things our Constitution promises us, I’m proposing that the same be done to employers. Having left any bad employment, one should be entitled to get a grainy, horrific black-and-white picture of their immediate supervisor and owner of the company (or chairperson of the board) and publish them prominently in the national dailies, with the caption reading something like this:

‘The following people representing xxxx Company are guilty of: bribery, corruption, sexual harassment, withholding payment, verbal, emotional or physical abuse/modern - day slavery, idiocy, general unintelligence or tax fraud (tick any that apply).
Anyone contemplating employment with this company is urged to reconsider and report them to the nearest URA office for investigation.”
Tit for tat is fair play, after all!