Across the Universe

That’s the title of a movie I just watched. In my humble opinion, it’s a must see! Many people aren’t into musicals… neither was I after seeing “Sound of Music” a few too many times. But this movie was wonderful. All I could think about was my Tintin, who it seems to me is across the universe right now. For the uninitiated, Tintin is my wife-to-be. And right now she is miles kilometers away completing her medical degree. Across the universe!

So… here I am once again. I know the two people that have read this blog probably assumed I was dead. But I’m happy to say that I’m very much alive and kicking. I am employed! Woohooo! I am the systems analyst for a local business firm. They have lots of things going on. Seems as if they’re growing in every direction. They have recently opened another store in Guyana! That’s it baby! Do your thing! I’m happy to be a part of it! Seems like Grenadian businesses are stagnant. Local business men (and women) in Grenada seem to have no vision. And the Grenadian public seems to encourage this. We don’t ask for more. Everybody knows that “Mr. John” sells salt fish on the Carenage since hurricane Janet hit in the 50’s and he’s still selling salt fish on the Carenage today. Why the hell couldn’t he at least be selling shrimp as well by now?

But I am happy to say that this particular business man who has employed me doesn’t seem to share this affliction. He came from humble beginnings and has grown to become one of the powerhouses in local (and soon to be, regional) business.

That being said however, I have my work cut out for me. It’s quite obvious that Grenada has not embraced the benefits of Information Technology. In a more developed country you would never find a business as large as the one I work for that didn’t at least have an established IT policy. We employ over 300 people at last count and still depend on a payroll print out that has to be manually calculated from “punch cards”. I want to change that, but it will be no easy feat. First, attitudes have to change. The way we do things has to change. You can’t have vital business information being kept on personal work stations. What happens if that computer crashes? I questioned the particular employee that was working with this. She says that she backs up on a flash disk. What happens if she loses that disk? Or forgets to back up and that computer crashes? Or what happens if she no longer works with the company? The business is then left hoping that she leave with the only copy of the files. We have servers with virtually empty storage space. We have extra back up devices but they are unused.

And who am I? This new guy who wants to come and change up the way they do things? They’ve been selling salt fish this way for the last umpteenth years… why should they change? They should change because they should! In the first place, the information belongs to the business, not to any particular employee. Secondly, for security – which maybe should be the first reason, the business needs to do all it can to safeguard its information assets. It’s now my job to convince the “old hats” that this cap fits better, plus it will really keep you dry if and when the rain falls.

But this will be difficult. After all, most of them think that the systems analyst is there to “make the computer faster.” Wish me luck though. I am really impressed with the direction that this local business seems to be taking. I would love to be an integral part of its transformation into a regional powerhouse. If I fail however, I could always do what most of my friends from university have done… leave the country and go somewhere that wants to develop.