WHEN KEMU CAME CALLING.

Dan Ariely quipped that, “We are pawns in a game whose forces we largely fail to comprehend”.

Ever wondered what happens in KEMU Towers that is along University Way and directly opposite Ambank House. Well I had always had the same issue boggling my mind for more than half a decade. While I was a student at the nearby Main Campus, I had always had this hanker of knowing what was happening behind the imposing structure. The only contact I had with the building was the fast food restaurant that sold unpalatable fries and a couple of snacks and junk that my appetence could not savour as the chow only qualified to being sec.

Hitherto, the building had always thrilled the design crave I ceaselessly had albeit it just being a stone through away. However the interior was too bland upon entry and the intrinsic values that I had assumed it had, all but ended up being an antithesis or say counterintuitive because it was used by students.
 
In high school, I had always had a passion for being an architect, but as circumstances would dictate, I studied a course I had an abortive period with while in Campus. In fact there was a former Starch student whom I knew who was doing architecture and the fact that he was lamenting of only scoring straight Ds in exams was quite appalling. I did pity him, but he had vowed never to fail again. I doubt if he stuck to the regimen of perusal because his flirty behavior was quite surfeit.

“So many kiosk universities have mushroomed in Nairobi in the recent past.” I recall one of our lecturers while a first year student speaking ill of and bad-mouthing the universities that were being housed on buildings that had formerly served as offices. Then as now, every form-four leaver wanted an association with Nairobi, especially the central business district. I bet that was the reason why many of them had started town campuses. To cash in on the many employees who wanted papers and the growing number of students who could not be accommodated in the congested public universities. And true to its billing and owing to matters liquidity, the quest for knowledge in universities is a goldmine that never ceases to bring in more gem. I should invest in a university.

As a former student in a public university, we had been brainwashed that we were the best students in the country having qualified to join the university. I remember a student leader boisterously making sense of words of how our campus was the place to be, the elixir of life in matters academics. You would imagine that upon completion of studies, employers would be hot on your heels in need of your services because apparently the university was the best in the country. Bulshit, if it were so, many of us would not be among the class of jobless graduates who are in search for internship (which I went for an interview for and failed like a genius having gone for swimming exams) because like Duale said, “Hii kazi si ya mamako” when teachers refused to go back to be recklessly butchered by a militia that seeks revenge through human souls. As a person with no contacts you start from somewhere.

Flash-forward and five years down the line, I am still jostling like a real Nairobi hustler hoping that someday lady luck will smile on me and I will reap the benefits of the roots of education. But even though I am not complaining, I want to transcend this apathy apace but hitting the jack-pot of being a proletariat has been a confounding tussle. I am indeed fed up with cyclical unemployment.

A blind respect for authority is sometimes the greatest enemy of truth. No matter how much I have tried, I find it sometimes too tiring sitting behind a computer. Just to type words that sometimes I am not passionate about. That was a by the way.

Life has ways in which it balances out everything that a person has to go through. Sometimes we crave for that which is beyond our might, which is right. Why? David tackled Goliath and he was successful in it. He used a weapon chastised for being less substantial in making one run out of time on earth. But it led to the fall of a giant.

When seeking knowledge, it doesn’t matter how smart you are in life. Knowledge is power, and should be appreciated for the sole reason that they better humanity. There is always something new that one gets in a classroom setting. Again going to class breaks the monotony of solitude and gives one a better perspective about life in general. You realize that you are in fact not alone in the dilemma of making ends meet.

Indeed, classes in Kemu were more skill oriented as opposed to being academic. Being in Kemu classes was an eight hour day of mindless drudgery. However, there were a few facilitators who gave a text-book approach by reading notes while in essence they should have given those attending the courses skills through endeavoring to inculcate practical ways of going about life situations. Some were very interesting.

Ideally, the youth generation is in need of skills that are quite deficient in them (peer pressure and hopelessness may kill this generation which should be the future of our country). This has led many to be vexed as a result of going through a tumultuous journey when they are not getting to the next level as quickly as desired.  

On the flipside, I must give the Kemu security detail a thumbs up for what they did in ensuring the institution is well secured. Their sentries and security detail were thorough. Entry entailed having a name tag or knowledge of the office where you were going. Frisking was done using metal detectors and even though I sometimes did doubt the severity of the gadgets, they in a way curbed crime to some extent.
However, there was a certain CID officer who told me he occasionally bypassed the scrutiny even though he had his gat concealed under his belt.

Then there were these Naswa crew who loved filming their caught unawares videos next to the towers along university way. Somehow, we had got wind of them and even though they tried had to NASA us, theirs were efforts in futility. We were too nifty for them. The first persons we usually spotted were the cameraman and the support staff who made a barrier to hide the camera from view. The problem with the cameraman was that he never let another person handle his gadget. As such, if you were a regular, you easily noticed them because they came at a time when we were having a short break from the monotonous classes that I felt were eating into my precious time.

One of their acts that caught my eye was a hobo who subconsciously approached some ladies and they ran helter skelter because they feared they would be smeared with excretion from the open executive chambers of release. He was carrying a dirty sack that was filth grey. Since we were aware of what was happening, we had to giggle. However some betrayed us as they sounded more like an evil cackle than an expression of amusement when they could not suppress the chortle hence bursting into loud laughter.

But there was one pastor who was role playing pretending to be praying like the ubiquitous fake preachers in Jevanjee or next to Hilton or near Archives. The ones with the ulterior motive of collecting alms from the unsuspecting public. And he did it as he took out an offertory collection bag and started soliciting from those unaware. This Naswa preacher was however not successful with the act as someone on the frustration benches near Kemu which we had branded our DSTV (to check out on the babes and cars) was almost slapped by a job-seeking vagrant whose visage had the wrinkles of a wretched chap even though he was trying hard to shrug and pretend stoicism.

One of my pals, Willy, was once a comrade in this campus (Kemu) and was able to help me  to cascade the building in detail. Like we sometimes went to the rooftop to bangaiz and eclipse from others. It was either to watch TV or just engaging in palaver about our frustrations with our predicaments and how someone was taking us for a ride.

Mark you, there are chaps in Kemu (Kemu comrades) have this flair of feeling hyper. Always twanging in some borrowed accents and feeling dope even though they adorn phony haute couture and cleats and quoins that give them some lackadaisical posture because they try to act that which they are not. Who knows, fake it till you make it. Life is what you make it.

Something about the ladies though. I never knew that some ladies are just plain Janes.  For once I appreciated the notion that even if a lady is not a looker, a little bit of makeup would just be fine, even research collaborates the same. Like there was a certain chic with very dark fingers that were also sandpaper like, you had the feeling she was either from Kano plains or Mwea because I have a feeling the combination of water and the plants leads to the sore distasteful look and feel.

The choice of Kemu for classes was a very bad decision. The general ambience of the rooms does not auger well for a classroom set up. Especially when the loo cleaners have not acted on the small rooms and the weather is torrid and the scorching heat from the sun meant that the door should be ajar. The classes should have at least been equipped with a fan to counter the stifling air to reduce exhaustion because the choice of glass used was a disaster albeit the fact that it should have contributed to placid air conditioning. Again the classes had very few windows which contributed to the rooms at times being stuffy since there was controlled ventilation.

Then there were Kemu elections. While I had though of it being intense. The candidates contesting for posts were callow and the air was not as tense as elections should be. One did not get the feeling of the euphoria that characterizes such occasions. One of my friends had a hot curvaceous chic who was a platonic friend. He wanted me to hit on her. She was contesting. She wanted us to go vote for her during the plebiscite (sic) but we couldn’t. The reason why I failed to hit on her was because she was material girl and my wallet was wallowing in aridity plus it being a Friday.

SITUONANE

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ATTITUDE: A REQUISITE IN LIFE

Matthew 7:7 “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened.”

If you have a job, you are through with the ask part. Probably, you have to act on the seeking and being opened the doors of your endeavours. 

Translating the bible is not what I am good at. If I was, my debut in the seminary would not have been an issue. I would have long gone there and hid myself behind the “Holy Walls” and immersed myself in the whole journey of ordination and proclamation of the gospel; prostration, anointing hands, giving of the chalice and paten and sign of peace. That oath of celibacy was what I cannot contend with.

However I had some disturbing stories of some of those popery priests and they are disconcerting.

Joinno Ten. I give it up to this man for his mastery of deception. If you want to manipulate people into buying your ideas, don’t be too boisterous and puerile. This especially applies to situations where individuals are not children who only think hypothetically instead of abstractly and intensively. This situation is usually untenable and  void unless you aptly have cognizance of the people you are dealing with to be of hunker down intellectual viscosity.

Any man who engages in conmanship should back it up with the way he dresses and also in his general mien, not forgetting to be as realistic as possible.

Joinno Ten, not his real name is a lecturer in Daystar University. He has a strong bias for business and he said he was in the process of clearing his PHD. That was a very good overture owing to the fact that he wanted to be a good tutor on core business skills.

“I am single and born-again.” Those were his first words upon entry into our class (job searching led me to a job training class). “I am standing in for your lecturer who has been held up somewhere.”

Impression matters. It is said that irrespective of what you do, the first 15 seconds of how you conduct yourself matters to people who have never seen you. Video evidence also corroborates the same as has been found out in most research carried out.

“There is a difference between lecturing in a public university and training students like you for the job market. I am not here to lecture; I am here to train you on the business skills required in the job market. I want to change your attitude. Yes to make you look at the bigger picture.”

“I love marketing. You were taught there are two Ps that matter in marketing; people and place. There are ideally 4 Ps in marketing. Product, Place, Price and Promotion. ”

He went on and intimidated on a practical approach on how the four Ps in marketing work. 

I was impressed. I am that kind of person who likes seating on the right wing. And on that day he had influenced my emotions ideally in the sense that the emotional part of the brain is located on the right side.

While Joinno Ten was to facilitate on human resource management, he told us he had a passion for marketing and he therefore dwelt a tad on the topic. 

“I came up with the course manual of this program. I don’t like lecturing, not when students are looking at their watches waiting for the time when the lecturer will finish lecturing.”

I must commend Joinno Ten for being such a lively lecturer. He made two and a half hours have a segue flow as one never easily noticed that he was lecturing. It was engaging and fun listening to him (better than the lecturer he was standing in for). The anecdotes that he sneaked in occasionally while the lecture was in progress were delectable and invigorating.

“My nine year old daughter has a bank account with Sh.987000. She has her own car and knows the essence of managing it. In the meantime, I have told her that the car is mine but registered under her name.  I don’t want these Nairobi men to come cheat her when she has come of age with their small toys to hoodwink her using their cheap contraptions. In fact, she is well taken care of academically since the insurance cover I have taken for her lasts for the next ten years. I am paying a hefty sum for the same and I want her covered till the first four years of completing university”

Meanwhile, I was getting curious. This man was looking disheveled but dolce in his harangue. The kind you see on the streets preaching to earn a living when in reality they want fare back home having seen the gullibility of those seated on the frustration benches and their ease of giving if well motivated. He was lanky and looked elderly from afar even though his talk was grandiose and pompous. His bespectacled face looked funny since he had huge metallic rimmed spectacles since his face was thin making him look like a cartoon. Again his protruding high cheek bones gave the impression that he was indeed struggling to make ends meet. His visage did not accentuate the figures he was brandishing though. His belt was kind of cheap and the shoes looked dusty not forgetting the slightly torn trouser at near his zipper if one had a closer scrutiny. 

You can change Sh.1000 into millions. All you need to do is to effectively use the 4 Ps taught in marketing and you are good to go. When you know your temperaments, it’s easier to relate with people. But who wakes up every morning to read on the temperaments s/he got and relates them to the people he engages in business with.

“The journey of 1000 miles starts with a single step. I realized there is so much potential in the place I stayed. Being ingenuous, I hired the services of a cobbler who has been selling me Safaricom scratch cards for the past four years. I only buy him two cups of tea and two mandazi and he does the duty like a routine.” He did some quick calculation and from it, 

he earned a net of Sh.35000 after deducting all expenses.

“In fact when I usually go to collect my cash at the end of the day, if he has other things to attend to, he ceases doing them and attends to me. ‘Professor,’ he calls me. ‘Here is your money’. We then chat for a while before I leave for my house in Mountain View.”

“There are three thieves in this world. The hobos who smear their hands with stools and try to rob you off your money. The thugs who come to your house, or those who rob you in a matatu.”

“In fact the matatu  doli capax have ingenous ways of robbing commuters since they usually alarm those they are seated next to belt up through falsifying that the cops are a stone throw away while in reality, they are charlatans who are also equally kleptomaniacs. Their intention is normally to keep you involved as they steal from you while you are tying your belt. The third thief is none other than Joinno Ten. But I am very silled and like Safaricom, I do it subtly.” 

“Talking of matatus, since I have done marketing, I know what commuters want. I ensure that my matatu has shock absorbers each worth Sh.20000 and the rims rotate each time it is revving ready for leaving. Whenever it is waiting or passengers, it bounces up and down like a cock does on seeing a hen. It parks next to Graffins in Westie and has a loyal clientele that has become accustomed to it that they can patiently wait for it as it makes its way to town and back.”

“Nganya yako inaitwa aje.” I asked.

“Don’t worry. I have done law and psychology. I have financial management skills and can easily influence the thoughts of most of those I employ. Here is how I have been able to be rich while exploiting human capital.

I usually tell my drivers that I only want Sh.4000 every day. That amounts to a cool Sh.1200000 in a month. In a year I am able to make 1.2 million after deduction of all expenses. What do I tell my driver? I tell him if he is able to give me sh.4000, after four years, the matatu becomes his. This prompts the chap to work twice or thrice as hard. Before the end of the day, I am able to make about sh.9000 because the sh.4000 is usually in my account by 1000hrs. I am getting rich quicker. While it would have taken me four years to make 5 million. I make it in less than 2 and a half years. ” 

Joinno is not in the business of lecturing for money. While most lecturers are in the business to get money, he was in it to change the attitude of youthful Kenyans who are deficient of skills but full of hypothetico-deductive knowledge which they don’t know where to apply because firms have become too stringent with the experience requirement.

Someone should come up with a course in university called experience. It will be a booming business as most youths have the knowledge but lack experience. Repeated knowledge and workmanship in some contexts add no value especially if the skills required are the same. A seasoned individual may possess the knowledge which may not have been augmented to handle the emerging trends while some rookies in the industry; train and even go for further training to acquire professional skills complete with the knowledge on current trends in the industry and still there are no jobs for the youth. Some analogue companies especially in the private sector hold onto the senile men and women who probably never know that their time is nigh. Still, they never retire. Some even know how to adjust their ages so that they are young forever. Those who work in the immigration industry have a way of easing this desire.

“My matatu is never stopped by the police. All the policemen in Westlands know me. Some even stop my matatu to the curb when it is empty even in places where passengers are not carried so that it can carry them because it is a car high on demand. It has a very wide screen inside. Since I know how to market, I also ensure it has the latest music and free Wi-Fi password glares at a passenger upon entry.” He continued.

“I have taught my daughter how to make money and save. Every Sunday, she calls the cab driver of her car to take her to the swimming pool. She needs not call me. She bought herself an Iphone 6 upon release in the market because she can afford it. Each time she goes for her swimming, she knows that the income from the cab business is forgone. I have taught her about opportunity cost. Again, she never swims in these polluted and congested swimming pools which are not heated when it gets cold, she goes to those located in high end five star hotels or to places she is invited because of her social class in society.”

He told us that he has taught her daughter responsibility. She washes her own dish after eating even though he has several domestic mangers. Her daughter never goes to the Kenyan education system. Her performance in British system was encouraging and motivating. She was mostly top of her class and that meant she was aware of most of the things children her age were not aware of. 

Her daughter had her own laptop and Ipad (I only got my PC when I got to campus). She knew what brand she liked and had settled on Apple products because of the aura of sophistication they portrayed. Every Tuesday and Friday were days when she was taken for Pizza. 

At that point, my suspicion was proved right. Tuesday and Friday are days meant for the plebeians to go and partake of the chow as they are offered in doubles hence those whose financial muscles are not brawn can be able to go and relish. 

Why? The few times I have gone for the same are quite different from the normal regular days when such offers are not offered. You will not have to wait for long hours before being served and the quality of what you are offered is usually very high and worth each and every penny spent. Undeniably, anything on offer is usually of very low quality if the price is slashed to half or the good is sale by date and the stocks are either not moving.

“I was teaching my prospective wife in a lecture like this and decide to use some out of the box seductive skills to ensure ‘ameingia box yangu.’ I did ask her ten things she liked about her brother and father. I was quietly noting them down. When she was through, I started aping what she had told me about the two. Since I never wanted to let the cat out of the bag, I convinced her to go out with me on a date so that she could be able to see my fiancé. She easily agreed for the date. Twenty minutes into the date, my fiancé was not insight. After about half an hour, I called my date. And do you know who I was calling. I was calling her and she was seated next to me.”

The lady was flattered and smitten and with no time she was her girlfriend and later she became his wife. He had taught her medical doctor wife in Daystar University. She mostly worked during the night shift in KNH. Do some doctors work only during the nightshift or the profession has no shifts? One of our personal doctors who signed my letters to join a certain institution told me that he was just from the wards and sulked at how he had to work tirelessly as a doctor. Sometimes he had to do without sleep.

“Kenyan men don’t know how to treat their ladies. Up until now, I have to open the door of my car to let my wife in. She also does the same to me when I have to drive in her car. That way, we have been able to remain as wife and husband for a very long time.”

Joinno was a good story teller. He told us that he never gives lectures on some of the things students can easily find on Google. As such, he told us to go and google the answers to some of the questions we were required to have gen on. But most lecturers hate pulling info directly from the internet. They abhor it because it is a rival to their eke. Again, that amounts to plagiarism. 

When the lecture came to an end, I exited and went to the Gents with my friends where we laughed and the careful choice of stories by Joinno Ten. However we were in agreement that he was a good storyteller. With regard to the authenticity of the stories, they were as cheap as the tie he wore, probably an acquisition from G-Mall (Gikomba).

We ‘chambuad’ him and came to a conclusion that he could make a good pastor in down town Nairobi. What with his braggadocio on his adeptness in writing people winning CVs and Cover letters.

All in all, the next day, the genuine lecturer came and intimated on the ease of getting lecturers in Nairobi for a paltry sum. I looked at my friend and smiled. Joinno Ten was actually a hustler (high chances are). And he was full of wishful thinking.

SITUONANE.

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THE INTERVIEW

There are companies that you never knows exists and if they do, they are tacked in the middle of nowhere where a prospective job seeker may have no opportunity to drop a CV if you intended to. This reminds me of Courage the Stupid Dog. Always ready to rescue his master even though the senile bugger would never appreciate the efforts of his only source of solace with his equally aging wife when things went haywire. Nowhere Newspaper and their house located in the desert made the cartoon a must watch even though I was in high school.

As usual, when you are called for a job interview, there are usually two things; it is either you qualify or fail. Someone said that ‘Interviews are conversations in which one person is trying to obtain extensive facts or information from another, usually by asking questions. It bridges the gap between geniuses and the common understanding person. The interviews should be conducted in a professional manner for the complete flow of the dialogue and interviewers should take note that they have to use simplistic language to avoid the issue of interviewees discomfort with vulnerability.’

A mate told me of how he attended a job interview and I was really fascinated. Since it was a referral, he went to the interview and arrived late. He used the wrong vehicle to deliberately arrive late. Obviously, his heart was not in the job. He was attending the interview as a partial fulfillment to a call he had been obliged to adhere to. He never got the job, partly because he found that it was paying peanuts and the second reason was he performed dismally in the interview premeditatedly.

How can someone arrive thirty minutes late for an interview and again all sweaty? Being a heavily built individual, walking is not his thing. He was also dressed semi casually and again, his shoes were full of dust as a result of the long walk he had gone through to make it to the offices where he had to be interviewed. Poor boy, he degraded his sender and later told me if he had known the place, he would have gone with slippers, ouch.

Then there was another chap who quoted a very huge figure to deliberately scare off the prospective employer not to employ him. When asked why he wanted the sum, he clearly gave out procedurally the reason and qualifications not forgetting his desire for a better standard of living even though the company could not clearly afford the sum he had stated.

In all the two cases, there was a common factor. All the two individuals were not passionate about the job they were going to do. As such, they deliberately flopped in the interview even though they were not sure of when they would be attending another with the ever competitive job-market where it is tricky to get employed or even get to be interviewed by a prospective firm.

Having whiled away enough time, I was therefore ready to attend an interview as an intern. Indeed, even internships are like jobs where several people are interviewed because the labour market is flooded. I remember watching “The Interview.” It was indeed a very assertive movie full of intricacies because it is virtually impossible to interview Kim in reality.

Dave Skylark gave it his all and even though it was full of fiction from the start to the end, it gave me an idea of how to approach an interview. Interviews are everyone’s Achilles heel. They cause stomach spiders and anxiety. Few have the courage and stamina to attend such important occasions in life without preparing in advance. And I am among those who appreciate the fact that interviewers are also human likewise the interviewees.

I got a message requiring me to attend an interview on Mombasa Road (as an intern). Having been jobless for a very long time, this was an opportunity of a lifetime. I was imagining getting the requisite wealth of experience that almost all companies want irrespective of the experience being recurring. The firm was large, owing to its roots to Uncle Sam and having been established at the wee years of the 19^th century. However, I was not very excited. Having been a good reader of Business Daily, I had read of the closure of some of its plants. All in all, when an opportunity comes your way, you invite it in and take it with open arms. Just like a visitor is to a conservative African house.

That meant I had to do some research. I did call a buddy who had some gen on the firm and who also had some pal working for the said firm. When my buddy got back to me, he did not have any soothing words of the impending interview. I was awestruck. ‘Why was I among those to be interviewed when all along the gender of the potential interns had already been determined?’ I did meditate. In fact, many companies have this silent requirement that ladies should be given the first priority. Indeed, the constitution has caught up with a majority of companies that never applied the gender a third rule of ensuring that they have one third of women as part of their employees.

I also did hit Dr Google, the answer to all questions whether banal, simple or byzantine. Alas! The situation was neither portent or grim as I had earlier envisaged. Its prospects in the bourse were also laudable. Linked In did give a detailed profile of some of their employees and what more could I expect. When you have nothing, something no matter how mundane it may be, it becomes lemonade.

 After Dr Google, I went to a trustworthy site, YouTube. Again, I went to the video site for purposes of interviews. There are so many subscriptions I had subscribed to on how to conduct myself when attending an interview. Mostly it had to do with body language, diction and possible questions to expect and how to answer them. Generally, it did not let me down. Ahoy, I also remembered Carol Musyoka’s article on inane questions interviewers ask. It had been adopted from influencer Liz Ryan’s article on ‘Smart answers to stupid interview questions.’ As such I could succinctly say that I was indeed well prepared.

When you are to attend an interview, you need to be much spruced and look chic. You need to be in your best; be it clothing, shoes et al. Your confidence and self esteem should also be at its best. Even when you are never among those who adhere to being conservative in clothing, you are obligated to be in those clothes you have placed somewhere unknown in your wardrobe.

Oh, a day before the interview, I went to my barbershop. The one that offers very many services you pay an arm for the service because you not only go for a shave but also you go for exclusive treatment (I love the experience because it’s one of a kind). I don’t regret having spent the much I did to look elegant. Are we not supposed to look well groomed and modish for an important event like this in life?

On the day of the interview, I woke up very early, say 0500hrs. Something unusual happened. I did not know the offices of the place where I was to go for the interview. I had enough time though. Time to Google because Google Maps gave me the exact time I would take (devoid of jam which was absent anyway) and the location of the offices. That done, I was good to go and very conversant.

It being a Friday, I had this feeling that adorning a suit would not be worth it (Chances are it did cost me the position, maybe). All in all I was smart, dressed for whatever lay ahead. I did board a mat to Nyayo and from Mombasa road to the offices. Unlucky me, I was not observant enough and the mat went with me about five miles away from the place I was going for the interview. I had to take another matatu back to the place of appointment.

The offices had this flair of flamboyance. The sentries were quite receptive and cordial. The kind who treats you like a boss even though they can qualify to boss you over matters papers. You feel good and saunter like a peacock even though you know you will only be a statistic in the job interview because the gender had been predetermined.

Ideally, you arrive ten minutes before the designated time and realize that this is a dream place to work in. What with the spacious rooms that are well air-conditioned in the dried out and lonely location near Ukambani. This complimented by the fact that the lawns are well maintained and in the event you get to drive, you would never have to part with hefty sums for parking fees.

Inside, the doors are automated  and well secured and upon arrival, you are given a form to fill on the job you want. Instructions are very important. You read all the instructions and get excited by the question requiring you to state the pay you want. In fact, while answering the questions and giving your bio data, you long gone forget that male candidates are not eligible. The only eligible candidates are female. Statistics never lie and the number of ladies chosen to attend were double that of men.

You feel like telling the dude that this thing is for the ladies but rescind. You never want to dash the hopes of a job seeker because you are not sure of how the chap is going to perform. There is something about earning a position. It has to do with being extremely good and convincing. Being extremely good is not something that you wake up and find existing in you. You need to nurture it with time. The best of the best usually take their time to hone their skills. Which reminds me of the movie ‘Whiplash.’ Neeman had to fight for the position of being a drummer. I also thought that in this interview, I had to give it my all, who knows, the panel might change their mind altogether.

I did chat with the dude and even though I never got his number, he was quite buoyed. He was called in before we could engage in further discourse. He looked timid but I could not be able to read his mind.

When he went for the interview, all the ladies who were gibbering loudly all of a sudden went mum. The waiting room was pin drop silent. I remember writing a poem on the behavior of the ladies but felt that it was not all that worth it after all. Soon the ladies forgot about the tension and did engage in their banter, yakking loudly you thought they had got the internship already.

One of the ladies came and sat next to me. She was anxious. She told me about the fact that she had never been in a panel interview and as usual I did try to give her hope. Hope that those who were to interview her were human and all she needed was confidence.

Since I had taken tea with some wheat products while at home, I was feeling very thirsty. I looked around the reception but never saw any water dispenser. Unlucky me. I had to contend with the situation. I talked with the chic for a short while before I took a leave from her. I was feeling thirsty, I knew that the washrooms had some water so I went and inquired from the receptionist on the location of the washrooms.

Being a little bit nervous, I was also feeling like peeing and farting. I went to the WC and was shocked to be greeted by two sausages of stools that had not been flashed. I closed my eyes, flashed the toiled and went to the urinals and did my thing. I felt like going for a long call but realized I had nothing to pelt.

After finishing, I looked in the mirror and saw that I was well groomed and ready for the interview.

Two ladies went to the interview after the dude and they took approximately fifteen to twenty minutes with the panel each.

When my time for being interviewed reached, I went inside. It was a conference room. Initially, we had been given some leakage on the type of questions that the panel was asking by the three who had gone for the interview. They were the usual questions; tell us about you, tell us about this company and questions relating to the profession we had been called to interview for.

Upon entry, I realized the barrier that existed between the interviewers and me. The huge conference table did not allow what I would call an intimate handshake to create that vital repertoire. Even if I was to give the firm handshake, I was clearly disadvantaged. I would have struggled for nothing. As such, I was told to sit without having a chance to apply the same force on the palm that I had intended to shake. Again the interviewers were seated a distance from each other and that was also a drawback.

I took my seat. It was a seat that clearly gave me the inferior position. I was facing the interviewers and my back was facing the door. I was seated in a position in such a way that we formed a triangular like figure with the interviewers being the base and I the apex. I was caged. But I decided to feel at home. This was not the first time I was answering a panel. I had previously.

The first question was on personality, schooling, experience and all that. I did answer. It is like going to an exam room and realizing there is a question that you had all along been preparing for. You give it your best, right. I was asked a number of questions which I thought were stupid because almost all interviewers ask them. Questions you think were directly pulled from Google. But a STAR analysis question caught me off guard. I thought of a situation where I had to perform a task and the activity that would enthrall to give a good result, but my mind went blank. My creativity and swiftness had been nabbed. Ok, I wanted to impress. I wanted to give a creative masterpiece that would leave their tongues wagging. Something only McGuiver could pull off when caught in a tricky situation.

The most inane question that I had to answer had to do with, ‘If you were an animal, which would you be and why?’

I had been expecting this question. Only that I was not able to give it my all. In the stupid questions interviewers ask, there was an answer that had impressed me. It went like this. “Is that part of the company interview script?” That way you shift the goal back to the interviewer. But I never asked the question.

I answered that if I was one (an animal), I would have been a cheetah; Reasons, one because it is fast and swift and two because if it sets its eyes and mind on a target, it never misses. Initially, I had thought of saying a human being. Because a human being is rational, knows how to follow instructions. Has feelings and will talk about things because human beings are also animals. However, I thought wise not to appear too brazen and know-it all. So I answered like a meek lamb to gain the much needed acceptance and result even if they had set their minds on having ladies; the job. It would have given me a head start. I would have kissed hustling goodbye, I would have got the temerity to start on a journey of financial independence.

On completion, I realized my mouth was dry. Saliva was abating and the more I talked, the more I appeared uncool. I wanted water. The pastries I had eaten in the morning had turned against me. When I exited the room, I went straight to the gents to wash my mouth even though the water is usually not so pure because of the germs and waste that is associated with the room. It was a relief.

Looking back, I am happy because I attended the interview. Ideally, I should have performed very well. For instance, I had heard of cases where there were some predetermined candidates in interviews, but as fate would have it, the candidates never earned the position as those who went for the interview who outshone the former. Unlucky me, I was a pale shadow because I never even got a regret call or message. That’s how dismal I was in the interview. Perhaps I should concentrate on things I know best. In the meantime, life continues. Maybe, just maybe I will be called for another interview. Who knows? Life is so dynamic and full of surprises. Today’s adversity does not have an effect on tomorrow’s luck. But if tomorrow ever comes, I will sing the song of joy. Like “This is the day that the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it. This is the day; this is day that the lord has made.”

Not being served with a hot drink with some snack was a let down on the part of the firm. Again, there should have been gender parity in those interviewing. How can men only be conducting an interview? I did comprehend why they wanted ladies in this firm.

After getting the results of the interview from my buddy that I had failed, I did listen to Whitney Houston’s ‘Where do broken hearts go’ and Michael Learns ‘Breaking my heart.’ But as they say, the best things in life never come easy. You have to sweat and when you get them you will get a leeway to a goodstart.

Maybe the HR manager should have contacted me as to why I had not made it. A regret letter on what influenced them not to consider me as a candidate of choice would have been welcome. As such, I would not have based this on probable surmise. Sharing the information on my weakness to improve on the same would have been very vital as I would have made use and acted on the gen provided.

SITUONANE.

[Photo Source: Google Images]

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