Employment in Neopia

Now, I wouldn’t say that I’m an expert in business practice; at best I am a typical manual worker, and because of this I wouldn’t dream of mentioning any of this to my bosses. However, I feel that for the sake of all of my fellow workers, and for that matter myself, there are many issues which I have come across in my career of working in variety of the Neopian businesses. And, to give credit, I have worked in a large amount of the Neopian businesses. I’ve worked in the National Bank, the Freaky Factory, the Skeith Factory and many others over the years... You’ll find that short term contracts are the norm! Not that I’m complaining about that, of course; I’ve never been short of work and have always had ample opportunities.

Working in the Freaky Factory, any employee will quickly realise that there is a constant risk of the plushies, which each individual worker has made, being stolen by a group of Grundos who appears to have no respect for the law or property... and yet they seem to get away with it freely. The only security system in place is the ability of the individual worker to whack him themselves, or to drop a dollop of liquid Kreludite onto the head of said Grundo. This makes me both security guard and factory worker... and you can never have enough concentration for both jobs.

The plushies which have been stolen by this group of criminals are taken straight out of the employee’s wages, so they do not get paid for their hard work and effort which has been put into making these cuddly toys. This would appear to me to be both unfair and rather lazy on behalf of our dear employer, who actually even appears to have painted the factory the same colour as these malicious Grundos in order to make it that little bit more difficult for us hard working employees. This could just be me being cynical and suspicious, but I’m sure that there must be a security company somewhere in Neopia who would be overjoyed at the long term prospects of such a job. It would, without a shadow of a doubt, cost the company more in the short run but in the long term the absence of stolen plushies and the increased efficiency of the workers would more than pay for the cost.

Another business which I have seen to have major issues in how it manages its workers and security is the National Neopian Bank. This may surprise many hard working Neopians who save their neopoints diligently in the Neopian Bank so as to prevent them from being stolen by the Tax Beast or the pesky ghosts. But having worked behind the scenes in the Neopian Bank, I have seen that it is amazing how often thieves and robbers find their way to the bank and even more astonishing that once again it is up to the individual cashier to try to stop these bare faced robbers.

A normal day's work for the average floor worker at the bank involves collecting money from the normal trusting Neopians, bringing down alarm bars on thieves, sometimes losing half the cash when they don’t notice the thief in time and having to remember to change the cash into solid gold bars which can’t be stolen. How is this a sensible amount of work for one person? And it is almost inevitable that a large amount of the money deposited in the bank leaves in the hands of criminals, but possibly more amazingly these criminals keep on coming back. There appears to be no justice or way to stop them from reappearing to take the money which rightfully belongs to others. I get paid for my work no matter what happens on my shift, but it does seem rather wasteful and a betrayal of the trust of all the Neopians who deposit their neopoints in the true belief that it is safer in the institution than kept in their own pockets.

There are other companies which I could also mention as having major flaws in the way they work and how they could make a larger profit whilst not stretching the individual workers to such a ridiculous amount. However, the National Neopian Bank and the Freaky Factory are the two main contenders for the businesses in need of a revamp, or at least in need of hiring official security guards. I’m sure that if they hired some Werelupes, then it would be the end of all problems. Nobody is going to want to mess with them! I would like to stress once again that I bear my employers no ill wishes; my only wish is that the manual workers in my position are given a better chance to complete our jobs effectively without the distraction of thieves and criminals whom we have to defend ourselves and our work against. It is because of this that I would beseech the owners of these companies to reconsider their positions and take a close look at the running of their companies.

In a similar vein, I feel remarkably sorry for the babysitter Lumi, who has to take care of those baby Usul brats. Surely something should be done about them, even if it is only warn the parents of their darling offspring’s behaviour and make them do something about it as the brats should be their responsibility. It just isn’t fair on that poor Nimmo to have to deal with that kind of behaviour day after day after day.

Or poor Samrin the Kacheek, who has to shepherd the petpets in his care away from Balthazar. I believe that he is contracted to other owners of petpets and ensuring that their petpets do not get eaten (although I may of course be wrong and therefore he may be taking care of his own petpets). If they are his own petpets, then I have no complaint, other than to say that he is not amazingly clever. If, however, it is as I believe and he is working for others, it has crossed my mind on several occasions that it would be so much better for him and for the owners if they made better fields to store their petpets. Where is the point in having a field with one pen and one entrance to the pen? This makes it far more likely that the petpets will be eaten and therefore it is a waste of their money as well as making things far more difficult for Samrin.

With any luck, this article will allow more Neopians to fully understand the plight of the regular Neopian manual worker and to grasp the danger that this poses for both the economics of the business and, also in the case of the Neopian Bank, the danger posed to their own hard earned neopoints.