In discussing “The 10 Commandments of the Ghanaian Worker” the idea is to highlight some common negative philosophies seen in the way we work and relate to our employers in Ghana with the hope that we will sit up and change our attitude to work for the better. 1. Thou shalt put in as little as you can and take out as much as you can. The average Ghanaian worker spends a lot of energy and creativity just to put in as little work as possible without getting into trouble. In these days, when there is a computer on every desk, the task of avoiding work has become easier in most office. You find the worker sitting at his desk looking very busy on his computer but sneak up on him and you will find that he is playing games or has logged on to Facebook. So, the first commandment of the Ghanaian worker seems to be, “Work as little as you can get away with.” Indeed if you work too hard, some of your colleagues will ask you, “Does the company belong to your father?” 2. Thou shalt not serve wholeheartedly. Our attitude to service in Ghana sucks. We seem to think that service is demeaning. The irony is that if we are not being paid for a service, we are happy to do it but once it becomes a job and we are being paid to do it, we hate it. Attitude to service is one significant feature that distinguishes a developed country from an underdeveloped one. In developed countries, service is embraced as a privilege and rendered wholeheartedly and efficiently. In underdeveloped countries, service is regarded as demeaning and rendered poorly and inefficiently. 3. Thou shalt find ways of making more money for yourself from your position. In a public lecture, Prof Adjei Bekoe said that when he was Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Legon, he realized that if he had employed someone to sit at his door to do nothing, that person, being a Ghanaian, would still have found ways of making money from that. He was underscoring the ingenuity of the Ghanaian worker in finding ways of making money from whatever position he occupies. The messenger knows how to make extra money on the job from those he is paid to serve; the typist knows how to make extra money on the job from doing what he is paid to do; even company drivers know how to make extra money from driving company vehicles. Where a worker cannot make extra money for his personal pocket, he is simply not interested in doing his work. I once went to a government office for a permit. The clerk asked me, “How soon will you like to have the permit?” He explained that if I wanted to receive the permit that very day, it had a price; if I wanted to receive it within a week, it had its price. And if I wanted to receive it within a month, that too had its price. The only option that did not have a price is if I did not want to receive the permit. The guys in the office had devised a system for making money from the public they are being paid to serve and they are not the only government office with that kind of system. 4. Thou shalt understand that the office is the place to hang out with your colleagues, exchange the latest gossip in town, argue about soccer and politics, read the newspaper and even entertain your friends. One of the companies I worked with had four senior managers and we were all housed in a gated four-apartment compound with a night watchman. He was a lousy watchman who went to bed every night by 10pm. But one day, I understood why Braimah was not serving us well. I was standing at the gate when a man passing by the compound saw him and asked, “Braimah, what are you doing here?” Braimah said, “Massa, ibe here I dey sleep.” It turned out that Briamah worked as day security man in another company where the man was the boss. After the man had left, I said to Braimah, “You answered that question honestly because it is obvious that this is only a place for you to sleep and not to guard.” I find that Braimah is not the only worker who confuses his working place with something else. The average Ghanaian worker thinks that his office is an extension of his home. 5. Thou shalt hate your colleagues who excel. If you excel in your work in Ghana, you are in trouble with your colleagues; none of them will like you and some will even go to the extent of getting you into trouble. A worker who excels is an irritation to his colleagues. It is as if there is an unwritten law that no one should excel in any office in Ghana. It would be wonderful if we would all seek to emulate the example of the excellent workers and take productivity and efficiency to new heights but no, we will undermine them; we will not cooperate with them and we will gossip about them and in some cases even frame them up whenever a chance presents itself. 6. Thou shalt undermine any manager who insists on productivity, efficiency and discipline. Any manager or boss in Ghana who insists on results and productivity gets a bad name from his staff. Our favourite managers in Ghana are those who will allow us to get away with anything. And yet, a manager who does not enforce discipline or insist on productivity is dangerous to the company and should be seen as an enemy because he will collapse the company and deprive us of our livelihood. I am sure that there are workers of Ghana Airways who wish that their managers had been stricter on discipline and efficiency because if they had done that the company would still have been around to give them employment. 7. Thou shalt not report a colleague who is sabotaging the company. You cannot work with a company in the US or Europe and be doing things that sabotage the fortunes of the company and not have your colleagues expose you. In Ghana, however, that will not happen; we shield colleagues who are doing the wrong things. We may never do those things ourselves but we will never expose them and so those who do the wrong things always get away with it to the detriment of the whole company and its workforce. 8. Thou shalt cultivate discontent in your work. The average Ghanaian worker is discontented with his conditions of service no matter how generous the package is. To be fair to the Ghanaian worker, most companies offer lousy conditions of service but I have found that even in the most generous ones, the Ghanaian worker is still discontented. After secondary school, I first worked with a public enterprise that paid far better than the civil service and yet we were just as discontented as our counterparts in the civil service, if not even more so. It is not about the money. It is an attitude thing in Ghana. 9. Thou shalt work only for money. The average Ghanaian worker works only for money. Money is the basis for career decisions for many people. That unfortunately, is the attitude of the poor. The poor work for money. The rich do not work for money but they make money because money is always a reward or the result and not the cause. People should work for the exposure, for experience and for the privilege of making an impact. Those who work for the exposure, for the experience, and for the opportunity to make an impact, soon discover that they are making money beyond their wildest imagination. 10. Thou shalt not value company property. If it is company property, the Ghanaian worker will handle it carelessly. Company cars wear out faster than taxis. Company computers break down more frequently than private computers and it is not because of usage but because of carelessness. Most company drivers do not make a distinction between potholes and good roads. They drive on rough roads just as fast as they drive on good roads because they know that they will not have to pay for the repairs. Workers spill liquids on computers at the office when they will not have any liquid anywhere near their own personal computers. Office furniture become write-offs simply from rough and careless handling. The attitude is, if it belongs to the company, handle not with care but with carelessness.