Old wine in a new (old) bottle?

Couple of days back, we were faced with another issue (I talked about one in my previous post) about the Palm Court administration. The house-keeping staff came up to the President, and asked for a hike in their salaries. Their arguments were that a significant part of what they get here is spent on the transportation, which leaves too little for them to manage the house-hold.

Although we don't really have to take any of that in face-value, there are a few points to consider here. Presently, our house-keeping staff (we've two of them at Palm Court, today) are paid Rs.1200/- each. This was the salary agreed upon, when the existing staff joined us about 3 months before (There had been change of the staff at least 3 times in the past one year, due to various reasons). However, there had been no change in the remuneration during the past one year. So, while the argument makes perfect sense from their stand-point, it means to us too much of overhead in terms of meeting up at the executive committee level, making quick decisions and coming up with alternatives.

I guess the executive committee will work on these aspects and come up to a decision. Meanwhile, going back to the issue that I talked about yesterday, non-availability of a plumber-on-call at Palm Court (as I mentioned in my previous post) had been a 'burning' issue for the past several months. Every time we face a crisis, Raju runs frantically around, and catches hold of somebody. This has almost always worked for us in the past, but there is no guarantee that it will, in the future. What if, Raju had gone for a vacation and nobody else has a clue about how to approach the issue? What if, Raju couldn't get hold of anybody within a reasonable time period? What if, the plumbers went for a strike in Bangalore (though very rare, it's nevertheless a possibility)? What if, the plumber demands a huge sum to fix the issue?

Now looking into these two issues closely, it perhaps gives us sufficient hints that the current model we've adopted for the general upkeep of Palm Court isn't working well. If you remember, during the term of the first association, we'd employed an external agency to handle all these for us. 'Rapid Force' used to manage all the work related to plumbing, electrical, house-keeping & security on behalf of the association. We used to pay the agency a lump-sum amount at the start of every month, who in-turn managed all the various tasks. We never had to worry about such demands as a salary-raise, or even some of the staff absenting themselves on certain days. It probably makes best sense to go back to the same model, even if it means a bit more financial liability.

What do everybody think? Expecting to see your comments...

Most urgent: Plumber required at Palm Court, Jakkur!

Today, I was drafting a job requirement for my team, in the office. It just occurred to me that we@Palm Court also have a long-pending requirement, that we struggled with for the past several months, tried out different options, but unfortunately has been a never-ending (sad) story. If we create a job req. for this purpose, it'll look something like this...

We're proud to introduce ourselves as one of the best apartment buildings in Bangalore.

If you are a plumber, and has relevant experience on the job, what are you waiting for? Apply with us immediately! Send your resumes either to PalmCourtResAssoc@yahoogroups.com or approach one of the association office-bearers. If you're sending a mail, please mention the job code in the subject of the mail.

Job Code:

PC-PLB07

Job description:

• Responsible for all kind of plumbing works at Palm Court, Jakkur.
• Specific work includes, ensuring the sump motor in working condition, attend to any minor/major plumbing work within apartments or in the common area.
• Must pay 4 visits per month to the apartment and attend to all pending problems for the week.
• Should be available on-call.
• Able to rope in more experienced hands, in cases of emergencies or in an advisory role for specialized jobs.

Required Skills:

• 1-2 yrs Experience in Plumbing.
• Preferred Diploma Holder in Plumbing.

Remuneration:

Rs.1000/- (negotiable) for the regular visits (4 per month), excluding any other on-call visits and/or spare-parts.

We'd been waiting for an applicant to the above job, for the past several weeks. Given that Raju is unable to bring in anybody for the job, the job is being transformed into a HOT job category. It means that whoever can bring in a plumber that suits our requirements, will be suitably rewarded!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Authorized signatory
(Palm Court Apartment Owners Association)

Setting the right expectations

Setting the right expectations is a challenge everywhere, at your workplace, at your home, and even in a social environment like in our own apartment association. Still, it is one of the most ignored things. And, people (at the helm of things) invariably suffer from complaints, constant cribbing from others, all due to a bad job done on the expectation management in the first place. The matters could take even worse turns, from bringing about faction based fights to defacing each other. Here I attempt to enlist all that you can reasonably expect from an association like Palm Court's.

I hope, by this time, every resident at Palm Court is aware that we've an association led by a governing body (consisting of President, Secretary and Treasurer) that is elected out of Palm Court apartment owners. Governing body has a term of typically one year - though there had been discussions around it many times in the past, when some of our members favored as much as a couple of years and some, as less as 3 months. But, the consensus remains as one whole year. Once the term is over of the governing body, another one (none of which had been part of the previous body) is elected, by calling for a general body meeting and each member voting for one of the nominees. Alternatively, a resolution can be raised to the effect of electing a pre-identified group of people to be the new office-bearers, by any of participants in the meeting and get it seconded.

The ground rule about the election is that no two office-bearers should be from the same apartment. Governing body is imposed with certain responsibilities as well as authority to run the association. Specifically, they will have the power to take some of the financial decisions on their own, drive the executive meetings (that are typically held once every month) and responsibility to take care of the accounts and cater to all requirements imposed by the state legislation on all apartment associations in the state. Typically, the model we follow at Palm Court, is to elect an executive committee (that comprises of 6 people - 4 floor members + 2 lady members) immediately afterwards, who will meet regularly to take key decisions to the welfare of all residents/non-resident owners of the apartment. Broadly speaking, the association is guided by the bye-laws (similar to constitution) written up when the first association took charge from the builder.

To help the office-bearers run the association effectively and efficiently, it has hired a few outside hands - including 2 security guards-primarily to man the gates (from Brave security), 2 house-keeping personnel to keep the premises clean, 1 general helper/gardener (Madhav Reddy) and one supervisor (Raju) who will ensure all operations are run smoothly on a daily basis. Responsibilities of each of these people are well defined and communicated to them, when they joined us. Our (including all members of the association) interface with each of these functions will be through the building supervisor. Note that none of office-bearers are meant to follow-up on the day-to-day operations at Palm Court and hence rest of us are expected to directly contact the building supervisor, in case of concerns/issues (whether urgent or not) as far as possible. In addition to the above permanent personnel, we also have a visiting electrician and a plumber, who visits Palm Court once every week (talk to Raju to know about the timing of their visit). All services (reasonable) will be free of cost to the members for the problems attended during their regular visits, except anything that involves spare parts.

Another issue that has been discussed time and again in all forums is about who pays up for the services, that are used outside of these regular visits and/or if it involve any spare parts. Though there are different opinions on this, the logical best solution is that the respective apartment owner pays up, if the issue originated from one of the apartments. If the issue is in the common area, the association will pay up the excess money. However, if an agreement can be reached among all parties involved on it, the burden can be shared among all/some of them as well. Typically, association wouldn't want involve itself on any issues that occur within the apartments, unless it disturbs the peaceful co-existence of all of us.

So far, so good. If everything that ever happened in this world strictly follows the written rules and regulations, then there wouldn't be humans around. We will all perish and be replaced with robots! What I mean here is that there can be a variations on a case-by-case basis, depending on the urgency of the situation, effect of not having a quick solution including the extent of damage the lack of one may cause and of course, welfare of its members. Nothing can and will ever be written on stone, and followed with a strict military discipline.

Of course, if there are grave mistakes, it must be attended to immediately. All office-bearers are responsible for it. But, it doesn't give the right (or rather not expected) to any member of the association to keep pounding on the same issue and/or disturb the association's initiatives. Instead, every one of those are encouraged to help in some reasonable way to find better and quicker solutions, and make our environment the best to live in and enjoy while doing that. It is very important for the rest of us to realize that most of the association bearers belong to the working lot, who have responsibilities/priorities in many other aspects in life, other than the association itself. Over the past several years, there has only been an increased reluctance from the community to assume the responsibility of being part of a governing/exective body, every time we came up to an point where a new committee need to be elected. Given these facts, it is expected that everybody else be highly self-motivated to build a common beneficial environment, and specifically not bad-mouth their concerns, but turn it over instead. Please remember this always - Nobody, whether he is part of the governing or executive body (or for that matter, even a member of the association) doesn't work for anybody else. All of us work for each other's benefit...