TRYING TO HELP OUT

I am very pleased to have contact with so many students who, as part of their studies, are (hopefully) looking at positive PMC involvement in conflict areas with different eyes, especially given the spectacular failures of the UN – an organisation I have made my thoughts and feelings very clear on.

However, due to travel and work-related issues, I am not able to always respond immediately as some expect and want me to do. When I am engaged to assist a client, that engagement takes precedence over everything else I do. It is, after all, very unethical to use time that has been paid for by a client to do something else. That does, in my simple way of thinking, amount to both fraud and theft.

Added to this, I am sometimes in places where I do not have internet access and only receive the requests several days after they were sent to me.

I appreciate how important the studies and research papers are but it is very frustrating to have students ask me to repeat what I wrote about in my book because they “don’t have the time” to read it. It is equally frustrating – and time consuming – to have students ask me to respond as quickly as possible to their questions as they are facing a deadline re their research papers.

Whereas I am happy to help out wherever I can, I cannot drop everything to accommodate the many students who are busy with their research and studies – at last count, there were more than 100 students asking for my assistance.

I will continue trying to help out where I can but it is not always possible to do so as quickly as expected. After all, I too have other obligations to attend to – and those obligations will always receive priority.