Transferring to Singapore

Many of you have commented that we should move to Singapore to avoid the violence at the mine site. I say that's like moving from Seattle to Vancouver because of the violence in Miami. Ineffectual and unnecessary.

Sentiments aside, I learned this week we have an office in Singapore complete with video conferencing. Starting in September, my plan was to commute every other weekend to Singapore while my wife and daughter lived there awaiting the arrival of our son. My plans have now changed. From September through November I will be working out of our Singapore office 50% of the time. My plan is to alternate between Singapore and Jakarta every two weeks until they can return with me. Nothing to do with the continued violence in Papua.

Regarding Papua, we have now had 4 incidents in 5 days. It started Saturday with the shooting death of our Australian employee and has continued with the latest event being a gun fight yesterday. The Associated Press has published a history of violence near our mine site.

The continued violence has required drastic measures, and some bold strength by our executives. First, because we have shut down transportation up the hill, we've told our people stuck in the lowlands to just stay home. Second, some of our senior executives have flown in from Phoenix to demonstrate that it is safe enough to continue working. This has been a major morale booster for the staff. So many of them have fear in their eyes when you talk to them. Having a high ranking official come to the site demonstrates to everyone we believe in our business, we believe in safety, and that work can continue.

Meanwhile, the theories continue to fly. The one gaining the most support is that the military forces in Papua are committing the assaults because they are upset over losing the lucrative security contract. As expected, they are denying involvement. Our party line, for obvious reasons, is we do not comment on conjecture and assumptions.

Every day we receive both an update on the incidents and an update on transportation restrictions. I haven't asked how others are taking it, but I'm tired of the boilerplate memo we are using. I'm sure there are legal reasons why it contains everything it does. The video message from our CEO and our division president, I think, were more effective. Senior management keeping their family at site sends an even stronger message. Overall, I think we are doing the right things we're allowed to, and doing the wrong things we are legally required to do.

Oddly enough, this is very similar to when I worked for Security Trust a few years back and they were giving us frequent updates on whether or not the government would allow us to exist. The memos that went out were not nearly as effective as the town hall meetings where we could ask questions and management gave tough, honest answers. Honesty allows people to feel like they are in a position to make their own decisions, even if they really cannot. I'm glad we're doing all we can in this respect.

The other aspect that has been refreshing is we are overcommunicating on what would typically be very mundane activities. For example, when we sent a lot of people off the island, we explained to everyone why they were leaving. The people we sent home were visitors (employees on business trips) and contractors. People who were taking up beds that we badly needed to provide to displaced employees. We overcommunicated so rumors wouldn't spread that people were being shown favoritism in their ability to leave.

These are the elements of stressful situations that bad companies overlook. Our management has been through this before and knows what to do. This is preventing a bad situation from getting worse. Even though I am not involved in the discussions on what to communicate, I am learning a lot from what the organization does communicate.

Finally, on a lighter note, our daughter has been entertaining us with her observations and perspective on what it means to be her. Two days ago, when she returned from the pool with my wife, our maid, Jumentin, was sitting in our garage conversing with another maid from the neighborhood who happened to look very similar - short black hair, older, short. Our daughter very matter-of-factly said to my wife: "I guess we have another Jumentin", and walked into the house like it was a very normal thing to just add another person to our household.

I don't know what she's going to think when we get back home and mom and dad are doing the driving and the cleaning. She laughed out loud when our maid ironed her clothes. She'll probably think it is very strange that mom and dad know how to drive.