I currently work for a multi-national company. Due to certain circumstances they have sent me to Johannesburg in South Africa for 3 months. Due to the nature of this city the front receptionist at my company is actually employed by a contracted security company. She doesn't do any guarding, there is a very large man in close range of her in case that is necessary. It is likely that her being part of the security company adds a level of comfort. She directs people, transfers phones and the like. Whenever I pass by the front desk we chat about things. Generally inane small talk about how South Africa is much warmer than Ireland or how our respective weekends were. She tends not to talk about her life much so it surprised me when I ran into her on a break and she started telling me about her job.

It actually started off as a discussion of my working habits. My contract with the company requires me to be a union member. One part of the union agreement is the number of hours I am allowed to work in a week. Not being a fan of unions I tend to work more hours and forget to record them. I was intending on working late and it came up in the conversation. My friend was quite concerned and sympathetic. She felt that I shouldn’t work too hard, and all that time in front of computers must be very wearing on me. The conversation moved on and after a while I got her talking about her job.

This lady is about 30 years old, speaks at least two languages fluently and has traveled through parts of Europe. Every morning she wakes up at 3:30 and heads over to the work meeting place. She and all the other employees then go on a 10km run. They are back at the meeting place by 4:30 for their morning parade. After the parade they all hop into the back of a truck to be taken to work. From what my friend says they are packed into the truck like sardines. I've seen the vehicle and it is old with a large flatbed on the back that is covered by a canopy. The inside is purely utilitarian. This truck then drives around to the premises that the company has contracts, dropping people off and picking up those they are relieving.

By the time I arrive at work, generally 8:00 she is already there. A couple of breaks during the day then at 18:00 the truck turns up again with her relief so that she can go home. Of course there have been times that I've stopped to chat on my way out and the truck has been significantly late. On one occasion I asked what would happen if the truck didn't turn up. Even if they were able to get home, the guards weren't allowed to leave their posts until relief arrived. I commented that at least they'd get overtime but no. There is no remuneration if your relief is late or doesn't show. Nothing. There have occasionally been days where she has been called to do 24hour shifts. That's part of the job though, I’m told.

In spite of all this. In spite of her miserable cold. In spite of not being able to leave the desk. In spite of a 10km run while sick. In spite of all that she tells me, the guy with a company car. The guy that eats off site on a whim. The guy who left early to take friends to the airport. She tells me not to work too hard.

It's enough to make a person feel ashamed.

I know what hard work is. I was an unskilled labourer in a sheet metal factory at one stage. I've also had cause to work 17+ hour days for extended periods. I would rather take back my 17 hour days than trade jobs with my friend though. At least they paid for my meals.

My entire life I've lived and worked in 1st world countries. I've visited 2nd and 3rd world countries before but I was younger and a normal tourist. I didn't meet the locals, just ignored them as they tried to sell me badly carved wooden statues. In truth I didn’t even get involved with the other tourists who were all pre-occupied with taking advantage of their superior currencies and bargaining power. Why is it that when you talk to people that have visited such places the first thing they seem to do is pull out some tacky artifact and brag about how they drove a really hard bargain taking about 1/3 off its´ price? You do the currency conversion and find that they’ve saved themselves a couple of dollars. Strange how we donut think of the difference this might make to the artisan. The end affect of this is seen in places like Bali where everything is overpriced so that the tourists can feel good about their haggling skills (i.e. walking away and forcing the local to beg) and local families still eat. An interesting source of pride.

Now though, I'm living in a 'developing nation'. High levels of unemployment mean that labour is extremely cheap. My friend was telling me of a job she had as a secretary where she was paid 100 Rand a week (USD 12.60). How does this affect the society as a whole?

Unemployment is currently at about 40% according to the census (it is generally agreed that the true number is somewhat higher). As with most places the way out of poverty is through education. If you are educated it can still be quite difficult to find work however if all you have is a high school level education it is virtually impossible. The problem is that people cant afford to stay in school. The economy is in a shambles and education is expensive. So people finish matric and do not continue, not through laziness or stupidity or lack of desire but simply because they can’t afford to. Traditionally this problem hits the townships very hard. There’s not a lot of money in those areas to start off with and in some of them getting electricity and running water are a higher priority than education anyway. There is a perception and it would seem accurate that the problem of lack of education and therefore lack of employment opportunities hits the black population disproportionately, although it does affect white people as well.

One approach to dealing with this that the government has implemented is positive discrimination in the workplace. Businesses are required to submit business plans to the government part of which includes a % of black employees. A good plan if we were dealing with pure racial discrimination, but we aren’t. What is a magazine supposed to do with people that have a high-school education. Someone with a Degree in Journalism still needs training. So after several years of training not one, but a number of people on the pay a fully qualified person would received to do jobs that needed to be filled straight away, you can finally carry on normally. Assuming they haven’t been hired away. Is that a good way to run a successful business? Does it help the economy? Even this positive discrimination doesn’t help most people though, just the lucky few. So what is left to those that have no further education and don’t get hired into a glorified traineeship?

For a start everyone has a maid. If you can afford one it is considered a necessity. A good friend of mine is a University student living in a shared household and even they have a maid come in once a week. People who are even slightly wealthy can afford to have live in maids. These people live away from their families except for their day off a week. They also cook and act as nannies (in fact I know someone who refers to her maid as a nanny in spite of there being no children in the house) but are still paid a pittance.

Why is this so? Because there is a huge demand for work and if they don't do it there is a long line of people that will. What do these people do who aren't lucky enough to have pulled down one of the jobs I've described? There are a number of alternatives that I'm aware of so far. People that are able to work legally do a number of things.

Some of them are/know skilled artisans. If you sit down outside a restaurant in one of the trendy areas you will have a near constant parade of people walking past trying to interest you in everything from paintings to replica Harley-Davidsons made from pieces of wire. At any given set of traffic lights you are likely to be approached by people selling everything from drinks to newspapers to coathangers to steak knives to petrol. The last is actually a major problem for garages. Between crippling petrol prices (a combination of an extremely devalued Rand (in the last 14 months the Rand has devalued 25% against the USD), taxes, and high oil prices) and the overheads of running a business, there is no way they can compete with the prices offered by some guy with a jerry-can. High petrol prices of course have a knock-on affect making it difficult for anyone who relies on a car for work to make money, which considering the size of this city and lack of safe, reliable public transport is anyone who can afford a car.

Somewhere along the line some clever boy realised he could turn the crime rate to his advantage. If you go to a public area like a lake or restaurant that doesn’t have protected parking there will generally be a person to look after the cars. This person is sometimes employed by the restaurants and so forth but more often do it off their own initiative. The work for tips and will watch cars worth more money than they will probably ever see for the couple of Rand you pass them on the way home. You have to admire the sense of honour of those that doe their job. Unfortunately there are members of this ‘profession’ who do abuse the trust. It should also be noted that the culture of exploitation reaches into this area as well. There are 3 companies that between them control most of the viable areas in Johannesburg. A car protection person must pay the firm a set sum up front for the right to work that area. In return the company will generally supply them with a vest (the vest will sport an advertisement that presumably the company is paid for) and some laminated ‘business cards’. The person can then take home all the money they make that day.

If you can’t find your way clear to one of those jobs but you don’t want to resort to crime there are two professions practised the world over. Begging and prostitution. There are sex shops scattered around the city and some of the formerly affluent after areas in the city have been abandoned to prostitution and the criminal activities that almost invariably follow. At every set of traffic lights along with the retailers there will generally be a beggar or two. Mostly they will be middle aged or young men approaching you with hands pressed together in supplication. Every now and then a woman will sit at the lights with her children knowing that people will pull up next to her. After all, who can resist the plight of a child?

Lastly you have the people who garner the most interest, especially internationally. If you have heard about South Africa and especially Johannesburg, then you have heard of the crime. I’m not going to pretend that it doesn’t exist or even that it is not a significant factor in how people live their lives here. People in Johannesburg drive with locked doors and their windows wound up. When it is nighttime they keep constant check on their mirrors when stopped at lights. Where in the day you ignore people approaching because you don’t really need another cell-phone cover, at night you run the red light. Affluent areas are easily spotted, they are the ones where people can afford razor wire or electrified fences and armed response security. The threat is real.

I wonder how many of the criminals freely chose to take that course though, and how many were forced into it through circumstance. I can’t quite see the bureau of statistics adding ´hijacker´ to the census forms under employment unfortunately. The level of criminality and violence inherent in the society has seemingly caused somewhat of a vicious circle. Anyone you talk to can tell horror stories of hijackings, many first hand. If you hear that someone has been involved in a violent crime you wince in sympathy and move on. This ambivalence is reflected in children. I know someone who comes from a wealthy family and went to a private school. He now works in a professional capacity but is still happy to brag about how he was the collector for a protection racket that the final year students ran over the younger boys. This practice resulted, a couple of years after he left, in a child being beaten to death.