Celestial Tech Limited

An ambitious young lady applied for a job with Celestial Tech Limited. She was attracted by the Management-Trainee Program advertised in the official Celestial Tech website.

The young lady got the job, and to my surprise, without being asked, she was put under my care. What to do with this young lady, with her education and past career records not being related to job I was hired for. On top of that, though being advertised, there is no such thing like a structured management-trainee program in Celestial Tech.

Besides my main job I had volunteered to generate an Employee Handbook and Company Policies & Procedures. Actually, I was focusing on the Policies & Procedures that I regarded most urgent, however, a few days before the young lady started her job with Celestial Tech, two incidences caught the attention of the CEO in conjunction with our company cars: One morning the service vehicle was not washed (after the service e team had returned from an urgent service mission late at night), and the CEO was not happy with our log book of another company car. I was also not happy with that logbook that I was given by the company, but to my understanding this was the way the management wanted to have the car utilization recorded, and I put this topic on a back burner until other more important policies had been created, published and implemented.

From one second to the other, the CEO changed the priorities and instructed me to work on the car-handling policy with highest priority, gave me a company car log book of a Japanese company, of course in Japanese, and requested me to have it translated.

If how we are handling company cars is or highest priority in this company, so be it, and I started drafting the policy. With the new young management-trainee lady joining, I thought, company policies are actually management matters, so why not get her involved in writing our company policies and I let her start with the policy of highest priority, the handling of company cars.

The whole day, the young lady was working on the policy, and in the evening, she submitted her draft to me. The next morning, the young lady did not show up for work, and we never heard or saw anything from here again. This was a very short management-trainee program.

Based on her draft I completed the policy, and of coursed I did not have the Japanese log book translated, as I know pretty well what needs to be recorded in a log book for company car utilization.

Once completed I submitted the Company-Car-Handling Policy to the CEO for his comment and his approval for publication and implementation. Despite repeated reminders during the two months prior to my departure, I never got any response from the CEO about the policy. Apparently, his priority had shifted in the meantime. Unless a miracle has happened, the Company-Car Handling Policy will not have been implemented until today.

Any comment or contribution from your side?

Imagine you are working in an organization where you are given a certain area of responsibility. You perform your job full heartedly, you spend hours and hours after official working hours, you come to the office on weekly holidays and you come to the office on government holidays as you want to perform your duties for the company diligently.

For certain issues you need the input from the CEO who is frequently travelling overseas. You try to reach out to him by e-mail o by WhatsApp, so the CEO can reply whenever convenient to him, but you simply cannot get any reply from him. You finally get him on the phone, you put your question forward, and the only answer you get is "Why do you ask me?

Next time, in a similar situation you remember the "useful" answer on your question from the CEO, and you opt to make the decision by yourself. Everything seems to be ok until, the CEO returns from hois trip and you get scolded "why didn't you ask me?"

This pattern repeated time and again, you are running crazy and the CEO claims that he will die of a heart attack because of you.

This is the normal life in Celestial Tech Limited. The employee, whose story has been told here, quit from the company after more than 5 years of suffering with unpaid part of his remuneration and with zero severance pay as required under the Bangladesh Labor Act.

Do you want to work in an environment like this, or do you better stay away from such company in the first place?

Any comments or any contributions from the audience?

Imagine you have accepted a position at a middle-management level in a company. You have a team of approx. 10 subordinates and you are tasked to develop sales and service of a new product line and to grow the team with new employees with the respective background.

You do everything to establish yourself as the new manager, get yourself accepted, work on a business plan and a strategy and then, every time the CEO is in the office, you notice that he calls your team members, either individually or in small groups, for meetings, but you are not being invited. You scratch your head what is going in there.

Once these meetings are over, and you get hold of the respective team members and you ask what was the topic of discussion, you are very surprised to hear either, “sorry, I have no time I have to work for the boss now” or even better “sorry, I am not supposed to tell you”.

Confronting the CEO to change way of communication with respect for the chain of command, you only get silence – no answer whatsoever.

This pattern goes on and on, day by day, and even if the CEO is travelling, he regularly calls your subordinates giving them direct instructions about things you do not know or you are not supposed to know.

After the first experience of such kind, newly employed team members come to you asking whom they are supposed to listen to, to their immediate superior or to the CEO. They are totally confused.

This is life of a middle manager in Celestial Tech Limited. In this company, a middle manager simply cannot perform his/her job, and the toxic direct communication of the CEO with your subordinates behind your back corrupts the entire organization (where such organization exists).

Do you want to join a company with such behavior pattern as a middle manager, where ultimately you cannot do anything else other than to resign, or do you stay away from such company in the first place?

Any comments or contribution from the audience?

Imagine you apply as a Service Engineer o Marine Electronics with Celestial Tech Limited, an open position advertised in one of the prominent Bangladesh job website.

You make it through the interview with the CEO, you are given an Appointment Letter and you start your job timely at the agreed day and time. You take possession of your desk your chair, your computer and you try to settle in into the company.

There is only one problem: Nobody talks to you business and nobody gives you any work. For one week you are sitting at your desk, turning thumbs and looking holes into the air and still nothing to do. Time does not pass; the days are getting longer and longer.

Finally at the end of the week somebody starts talking to you, telling you that starting next week you do not have to show up for work anymore, as at Celestial Tech Limited there is no work for a Service Engineer Marine Electronics. Poor fellow.

Fantastic manpower planning!

Any contribution from the readership, any contribution from your side?

Imagine, after your relentless application for a job with Celestial Tech Limited, you are invited for a job interview, let’s say at 1 pm. You are there in time. In Celestial Tech Limited, the majority of the job interviews are being conducted by the CEO himself. He is in the office, but busy with other things. You are waiting, and waiting, and waiting, 2 pm, 3 pm, 4 pm and then with HR sitting on needles, you are finally granted your interview.

The interview starts, and as the first thing you are being scolded that the photograph on the resume does not reflect your present appearance, as you have grown a beard in the meantime. You are being questioned whether you do not care about the first impression you are giving to the interviewer…

What about the first impression Celestial Tech Limited is giving the applicants by letting them wait for one hour, two hours, three hours and in extreme cases for four hours, clearly giving the signal to the potential future employees that they and their time are valued nothing.

Unfortunately, the job market in Bangladesh is very tight and applicants have no choice other than accepting such treatment.

What is your experience with interviews with Celestial Tech Limited? Any contributions?

The above title was taken from the official Celestial Tech Limited website. "Ethics" has many facets. In the context of the "Employee Section" of this blog, it refers to treating your employees with the highest ethical standards. To me, first and foremost, this implies that the company shall fulfill the requirements of the Bangladesh Labor Act, which simply means, follow the law.

To my experience, there are a multitude of examples where Celestial Tech Limited does not follow the law.

Furthermore, ethical behavior towards employees includes that the clauses of the Appointment Letters signed by the company and by the employees or other agreements made between the employer and the employee are being respected, which includes the payment of the agreed remuneration.

To my experience, there are a multitude of examples where Celestial Tech Limited does not follow the word of the Appointment Letter or other agreements made.

I think this is enough for the first blog in this section, and for the time being, I leave this blog open for any comment or contribution from existing, former or potential future employees of Celestial Tech Limited with their experience made.