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...