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Need to terminate an employee? Do it in Bali.

The lenient sentences delivered to 2 killers in Indonesia suggests getting rid of crumby employees might not be so difficult anymore, writes Jack Marx.

Bali work

Earlier this week, British DJ David Taylor was sentenced to 6 years jail in Bali for killing an off-duty traffic policeman. His Australian girlfriend, Sara Conner, who took part in the killing, got 4.

That’s a pretty good deal.

I once worked alongside a jerk with whose pens and pencils I’d get funky after he’d left for home each night, just to enjoy the sight of him sucking on them the next day. That’s how much I hated him, because he made each day a misery. If someone had offered me the chance to extinguish his account in exchange for a paltry half-dozen years in Kerobokan Prison, I’d have paid for our one-way tickets to Bali out of my own money. I’d be a free man today, with a prison-gym physique, a jailhouse swagger, authentic tattoos and a by-correspondence law degree. Best of all, I’d never have to fear bumping into that twerp again.

 

They say there were extenuating circumstances in the killing of Wayan Sudarsa that affected the sentencing – Conner suspected he’d stolen her handbag, and when Taylor confronted him it was on for young and old. In other words, if you suspect someone has cost you some money, 6 years will be the price for beating the life out of them. Might not a circumstance of similar gravity be a suspicion that a slack employee is sending your company’s share price south?

We all know how hard it is these days to give a lousy worker the bullet, with unions, lawyers and anti-discrimination covens all poised to defend any simpleton’s right to be paid for just turning up each day. Giving a shot duck the sack can be an enterprise more costly than keeping the bludger on the payroll.

A cheaper, more expedient method might be to fly your staff to Bali for a ‘team bonding’ weekend that goes ‘horribly wrong’. If you can make it look like an accident, sweet. If not, the defence of; “He was destroying my million-dollar company” will surely sound more impressive to a Denpasar judge than; “I think he pinched my girlfriend’s handbag”. With any luck, you’ll be sprung by a religious-holiday pardon and be back before the next board meeting.

If you happen to be a female CEO, the better place to despatch a useless worker might be Japan. In 2015, the president of a wholesale seafood company in Nagoya violently beat her male employee to death, citing “his attitude” as the reason for her extreme termination of the young man’s employment. Throwing herself on the mercy of the court, Miyuki Muto was punished with 5 years probation.

Prevention being better than any cure, however, perhaps better screening of job applicants might be the sensible way to go. But, for heaven’s sake, don’t get all hot with fleas when they ask how much they’re gonna’ get paid.

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