Mud Ghecko

Fifteen years of messing with proposals and deadlines and an uncoordinated head office- and this was officially the last straw that broke the camel's back. This cartoon is from  Morten Morland Times So last week my team told me they were all working feverishly on a deadline to submit a bid to the United Nations supplier portal. Y ou just have to upload it , they said. It will be ready very soon and we still have a day more , they said. Only you can do this techy part , they wheedled.  Well, I do know a thing or two about USAID and EU submission portals online, so I was suitably uncomfortable. The previous year a colleague and I had been struggling till 4 am in the morning ( which was a more reasonable time in New York) fighting with dodgy broadband and the tedious UN Atlas portal but we had had about a week to get familiar with that. Even then I had vowed I would not do this again.  Now the bad news was ATLAS had been shut down and QUANTUM had taken its place and I h...

The housewives guide to competing for freelance work Chandrika Gadiewasam for Kathru.com How to actually find rewarding work from home?  Be available. Be dependable. And deliver on time!  You know who they are, they sidle up to you at various functions and say that they are looking for work, and giggle bashfully and say can you send some work their way.  Comfortable looking, slightly frumpy stay-at-home moms, previously smart, professional,  gainfully occupied women, now stuck at home with a kid, a dog or more challenging- a husband. Suddenly they want work, they want the money, but they are simply incapable of understanding that dread word " deadlines ." Well, deadlines are deadlines whoever you are, and companies have to work with deadlines. That's how they make the money with which you are paid. You have to understand this. Frankly I've personally had it with employing housewives to do my sub-contracts. Here's why. As an employer I'm completely fed up with ...

WAY TO GO, ROVER   written and illustrated by Sakuntala Sachithanandan – 2023.… Book review by Chandrika Gadiewasam Rover arrives at Gamini's house unexpectedly, bundled out of a bag – much to innocent Gamini's delight but to the intense annoyance of granny Siriyawathie. He is a very small puppy ,found on the street  by an uncle. He is very small, lonely and terrified and he pees uncontrollably when he gets scared which is quite often…Many things scare him including the huge angry broom-wielding Siriyawathie.  Sriyawathie thinks Rover is a filthy cur because  - simply because he is  a dog and she did not wish to spend her valuable time on looking after dogs. True enough, somehow, her grandson has brought him to stay, but  she mistreats him, screams continuously at him and generally starves him. Quoting Zelda, the clever lizard watching it all from next door and creeping over to Gamini's garden now and then , "she absolutely hates anything that walks on four legs or m...