THE BACHELOR STRUGGLES

Sometimes it’s a struggle being a bachelor. You are supposed to be married at your age or at worse having a reliable girlfriend who you are going to tie the knot with but you still are single. Yet, there is a lady you are in platonic relationship with who you catch feeling when she does not pick your phone calls or reply to your messages. Deep down, you feel like you should have settled down with a lady. Someone who loves you to bits that once in a while when you mess up, say those Jezebels happen which they will at some point in time, she will forgive and say that things happened. But, on your part, you will have to make drastic changes. Like, no conversations with girls anyhow, no two way step verification she does not know. It hence means that your phone should be at her arms reach, and other abnormal traits or deeds you are required to observe.

Yeah, ladies can make us run mad. They know our soft spot and they use it to deny us what we should be getting. At that point, mwanaume unatuliza mbokoyoyo. Matters that weakenwe men are so emotional more than we can handle. That is why a man who loved her wife so much follows quicker than you know it, God forbid, in the event the wife dies. We men love with all our heart. We may deny it but at the end of the day, we are like slaves to our women, especially if we have the one who controls everything in us. Once you find that belle, let her not know that you are like a ball she can bounce. If you let her know and she realizes that you are a giver, she will run your tap empty.

Thank goodness, I am a single guy. However, that does not mean that out there their is no woman I have not been eyeing to be mine. Obviously, there is that single babe I often wish I could settle down with, then focus on things like career and making money and a name. Though it may not be abundant, that I will make something satisfactory is better in the short term. Lakini, the good thing is that I have this lady I can tell about my struggles, my happiness, my lows and even hemorrhage some emotional stuff on her knowing full well that when I go back she will accept me. That lady keeps me going. Yet we are in a platonic relationship. Sometimes I wish I could have married her, but I still like the position she holds of a friend. At least, I can still mess around kidogo when opportunity presents itself without much ado. 

Therefore, I sometimes wish she got a nice, handsome, tall, dark and faithful guy. The kind of guy who will be by her side during the times when she is struggling. The kind of guy who accepts her and recognizes that I was first in her life before him and therefore I also need my space with my amour. Oh, before they officially start dating, she should introduce him to me and tell him where I belong. Lakini, when she is officially gone, I will have to accept the reality and move on like a gentleman and give them space. Even me, I would not like a guy who has some control and reign over my woman. I am jealous like Sir God up in heaven. If it is me, it has to be me. When we share, I am not part of the equation.

Living alone as a bachelor has some challenges in as much as it can be addictive. You are not answerable to anyone. You just feel free and like a bird you roam hoping you will find Mrs. Right. If things go right, perhaps you get a job. The problem with being a middleclass burger is that you set the standards of the jobs and income you want before you settle down. The problem is that you end up wasting time and money in the quest for what you want. You come to realize later that time and tide waits for no man. 

There are those times as a bachelor you get so broke, there was a time a friend told me he got so broke that he could not afford a sheath for some wild romp because, for real, who wants a baby he cannot take care of and the way babies are expensive and so involving. You have to forget about sleep until such a time when they are good to go. Again, with the average girl having like I don't know how many beaus, ukiongea na ka sponyo, unless you have domesticated her, and she does not let the cat out of the bag, contraceptives are a must.

Yes, settling down for a bachelor is hard, especially a guy who graduated from uni. The girls who are after you are really so many especially if you are in stable employment. Sometimes, you sample them to find out who really is loyal. Like there was this chic who sat next to me in a mat saying, 'Aki I was married for the weekend, now I am going to my house and then I will report back to school after kitu four or three days." Yeah, she was in a sleevelesss top, and I was in a fitting polo shirt with short sleeves, so our skin did touch occasionally. She was also having wide hips and they were really causing a scene down south I had to ginene.

You see, having one woman who you don’t live with is good and bad. The bad part is that you may invest all your emotions in her and maybe she is in it waiting for the next big thing. Once she lays her hand on that bugger, she will drop you the way a guy drops a mike and leaves. There is that carefree face of a person who drops a mike. That is the way a girl drops you when she is finished with you. Yani, she does not care hata kidogo. The good thing with one girl is that there is a high likelihood you will get married if you are serious the both of you. So, all in all, it's always good to have your options diversified. Being an investment student, I know that an optimal portfolio is the one that is diversified. Make hay while the sun shines. Brother or sister.

Kenyan men, ati we are not romantic. I recently went to a certain friend of mine who is a lady. Then she started having a conversation with a certain odiero. They were video calling. I don’t want to think about what that jungu normally asks her to do in her digs once she is alone. She told me she does not love company. I know why she does not. That odiero sponsor hates company like all men. Pengine she just wants a guy who is a day scholar. No, a guy who will turn up, service her and she is good to go. This chic lives in a  big house that I wish I was the one living in. I would have by now got so many babes some I would have forgotten their names as a bachelor. But mother nature knows why I still have the energy and that is why I have to spend it before I get the money and once I have it, I will be in that state where I cannot be entertaining so many babes. Luckily for me, I am not a babe’s person. I would only love to have one then the rest as they say is chemistry and history.

About that chic I visited, she told me that there is a way Nigerian man does his thing, they call asking. "Babe are you okay?"  and the frequency and the way they give money and spoil their babes, they just feel loved. Kenyan men on the other hand don’t do that and still want to be treated with the same care as foreigners who know how to romance. Oh, they say no romance without finance. Well, the ladies who are going to get it in their ring fingers are the kind who will be patient for the finance, if you hurriedly go for finance, go to a place where you can’t spend all of it at a go.

Hasta La Vista Baby

[Picture Source: Pixabay]

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GATE CRASHER

Apparently, the easiest job to nail appears to be these low cadre jobs that experience does not count much. The only thing you need to do is present yourself, get interviewed and start the job. Pankala!

Well, you are probably looking for the wrong job if you still have not yet found a job. A dream job should find you being averagely paid, on peanuts or in an equal status. I have vowed not to immerse myself again in sales. It is something that is personal, yet not such a convincing reason.

Here is why, I am not the multitasking kind of bugger. It seems that I thrive well when I specialize. It's interesting to note that I however love being in the sales fraternity as a blogger. You always have something on your sleeves to write about. Whether it is chasing after pretty ladies you bump into while in the course of duty, frustrating customers you call for ages only for them to disappoint you, easy to sign clients and the pressure to sign new customers .

It is while looking for new customers that I met a certain lady who sells me counterfeit fragrances in downtown Nairobi. I immediately got smitten by her bootylious figure. A lady I admire more for her figure than her prettiness. But when I got close, you can imagine what happened. Or is it that when I started talking to her, the verve to pursue her just plummeted. Maybe it will result in in a J curve kind of intimacy if my pursuit of the main chic does not yield.

Ideally, she was the kind of lady I can do anything to get. Yet, she is not the one I would love to spend the rest of my life with. The one you want to be seen with because men would ogle and wish they were you. She is the kind I would love to be really good friends with. I already know who I want to handcuff with the hardest substance if mullahs come through. As for this ester lady, I will probably get to take her for a date one of this fine days once my repertoire with her solidifies, or gets to the next level. So, you see, sales is after all, a very promising job.

During the week, I attended an impromptu interview. You have no appointment, but because you are adventurous, you give it a shot having gone with a buddy. A friend who nudges you to pursue a venture even though you are lame duck about the future of the organization.

I once read an article or is it an oped by a certain job seeker. The bugger for lack of a better word intimated how he was able to nail the job that was initially meant for a pal he had accompanied to an interview. Actually, he had prepared for the job given that he had read widely about the company they were going to. He did regret somehow because in the end he lost on one end and gained on another. He lost the friend. He gained the job. Chances are this article was written by a lady. Rarely do men catch feelings when you slice them a job because they know that you will eventually come of aid. That’s an assumption that needs null and alternative hypothesis to be carried out to at least come up with an economic conclusion on this matter even though its more social than economic.

I was destined to go to study that day but I was not feeling the vibe (ni ile wakati masomo haiingii). My head was full and I just felt I needed to do something different other than going to study. I hence decided to accompany a colleague to an interview in the city even though I had not even been called for it. Hizi ni zile mi huita interview kienyeji. You are only required to show up and since it is a sales job, you sure can get it just like that.

You see, in many interviews, you must find out details on what the company does, and that can be found online due to internet where you can easily upload information on the company whereabouts. Reminds me of a certain real estate, Simple Homes, a Special Purpose Vehicle that fleeced gullible Kenyans of hard earned shekels. In this case, there was none, just a brochure we were provided with while waiting to be interviewed. In the waiting room, we found ourselves only dudes inside. Now I wish I had recorded the conversation we had with the guys in that room.

There was only one guy in a suit. A rather beat up suit that looked like he is truly struggling. To make ends meet because the sheen on it was not palatable. You know you are dealing with hustlers when the conversation degenerates to how guys have been conned and how crafty conmen incorporate these fictitious companies they use to swindle Kenyans without much notice.

There was this guy who told me of how he once sold jiko okoa carrying three of them going door to door selling it to women at a price relatively high in comparison to the normal jiko. I only wondered how he could carry the load, still be able to seductively sell the benefits and close a sale without even getting a retainer. Given he was in casual wear, I did understand his plight. He had even plied his trade with Delmonte and am here cursing myself for being a bank salesperson. He could sell a jiko at 4 thousand, then be given 200 for his troubles. When shit came to shove, after being trusted with the products, he took five. What happened next is that he changed his phone number. After selling the stuff at throw away price and playing cat and mouse games with the landlord seeing him in branded shirts yet he could not afford to pay rent.

I still think my current employer is among the best that I have ever worked for. Yet, when I ideally look at what I was taking myself to, I was kind of jittery. When you find yourselves in a room and all of you have no idea about the company that you are being interviewed for, then you have to be alarmed. I was not. Since I was feeling like going for a short call, I decided to go ask for the place. Apparently, this office has more modern facilities than our current office, a colonial relic that was first opened more than half a century ago.

The first thing the sentry told me was the acts of a certain lady and a guy who took the opportunity to go and engage in the devil’s dance having found a good opportunity to unleash the tension within. I laughed kimoyo moyo knowing full well that the location of the two sexes toilets was a contributing factor given that most youth are in the experimental stage where raging hormones make them want to engage in dare acts to quench their thirst for commerce.

I was assigned a number. Everyone else in the room was. It was presumed that we had all been invited.

What prompted my decision to go for an impromptu interview? I had been in the office having lost form and deliberating on where to go next in terms of selling. When you have no appointment in the field of sales, you need to strategize quickly. So, I called my colleague who told me to meet him so that we could go and prospect in companies that may open doors later in our quest for figures. Apparently, I hate this idea of being asked for figures why lie.

I found him at our usual meeting point and he looked noncommittal on where we could decide to go. Then he showed me an SMS he had been sent to go for an interview just next door. Initially, I had speculated that the organization was in network marketing. The message had been structured in such a way that I thought it was an organization dealing with investing then invite and the cycle continues.

Apparently, it is a startup. The interview office looked quite good. It was like those things you consider to be too good to be true. When I looked on the door, it was written Space International. I bet this was hired space if am not wrong. We had looked for the building without much notice yet it was just where we were.

When it was my turn to be interviewed, I felt some little bit of guilt. I had stomach spiders but not the lethal ones. It was going to be like gate crushing. One thing I noticed was that the interviewers did not have any shortlist of individuals they had in mind for the interview. There were two gentlemen and a lady. I tried peeping at what the lady was writing but she looked like she was not at all in the mood. Actually, she was lost. What she had written was not convincing enough. Her attire and shoes made me judge her, which I am not supposed to. You see, she was in rubbers and some cheap top that made me feel like I was lost.

The gentleman who was in charge of the interview was also in a broken suit that seemed it had been procured from Gich. That’s probably how startup are. The night before I had listened to how a certain guy grew his start up and thought this was just what I had listened to.

I won’t delve into the questions that they asked in detail. I have even forgot some. But the pay and the quantity of effort you put to me does not add up. In short, even if I will be called to take up the job, I have already developed cold feet. Apparently, getting a sales job should be among the hardest but this looked so easy.

I was in again for the adventure now I have a blog post.

Hasta la vista baby.

[Picture Source: Pixabay] 

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SHORT DISTANCE TRADERS

It's the rainy season. Right! And there is something I never knew about it. That this is a time of long rains in Kamba land. Well I grew up in the sprawling plateaus in Rift Valley and this is normally a harvest season. That means it is a time for the short rains as opposed to the long rains. I do not know whether the long rains phenomena also apply to the great city that is Nairobi. This weather should be a preserve of the grain basket of the country especially to those areas that serve the county that hosts the capital city with vegetables, grains, cereals and the list is endless.

So, during the week I decided to go on cold calling to prospect for new clients in the corners of the city. It was quite a walk. In the company of colleagues who were also interested in getting new markets for the products that we were selling. Well, it has been months ever since I lastly walked for such a long distance. The only human baseness we committed was to prospect on an already encroached market. 

Walking can be fun at the start. This is because you get to find out many things about the people who you are doing the walking with on the streets. As time progresses, there is something monotonous at this age where automotive has eased the hustle of mobility. What arises in some instances is that it can be very easy to make a decision but to stick to it is another thing. That is how herd mentality destroys that which should never be finished off. Sometimes you need to walk it alone. 

We chose the suburban bliss that is Nairobi even though we come from the what I can describe as the shanty town. Even rap stars are normally from the ghetto and they aspire to rule the music industry with their lyrics in as much as some may never do that. Trekking in this weather is not easy. The setback comes in terms of having shoes that are laced with mud and if you do not have something to wipe them, you are sure to tell where you are from. 

I noticed people in heavy machines, fuel guzzlers staring at us. It was likely to rain and they were sneaking snail-pace due to a jam that had slowed down movement because this area has narrow roads which are not expected to serve many people.

A couple of times I sometimes ask myself why I this suffering. Well, the day I was prospecting, I was in my best suit. Since it had rained the previous days, I could not find what to wear for the day. My pullovers were all wet and so were my other jackets. At some point I was walking in the rain where matatus would come and hoot to find out if we were thinking of boarding.

We were not. What's worse is that I was revolving around the same place. Something about matatus is that they abhor those who deny them revenue. Never mind that they may not know that you are between a rock and a hard place in terms of finances. When a matatu driver sees you walking next to a pool of water next to the road, trust you e the unexpected will happen. Instead of slowing down, they will ensure it splashes so that you are left at limbo.  

Since I knew this tactic, I ensured that I walked on the kerb and very far from those pools of water that were next to the sidewalk. Honestly, there are those times I wished the opposite of my situation was happening to us. Did I want to be among those being chauffeured in those fuel guzzlers as I watched salesmen who were not able to make commissions trek in the cold weather? I know you know the answer.

Once in a while, I mistook the depth of some water on the surface and when I accidentally landed on it, my shoes did let in the sludge. My socks know how it feel. Incidentally, the mud also smeared on my trouser and I looked like a rookie who sell insurance and has been going without commissions for days on end. Never mind that I also sell insurance as among the products that I need to hawk around.

 To be continued.....

Hasta La Vista Baby.

[Picture Source: Google Images]

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