WORKING FOR THE CHINKU

Urban dictionary states that the slang for Chinese is 'Chink'. In Sheng they are referred to as Machinku.  How about the fact that these Mao Zedong descendants are taking over the Kenyan business ventures sphere in a manner never seen before using tactics that are leaning towards Machiavellian tactics and like their fellow Asian compatriots, Indians, it can be agonizing working for them. Someone once told me that working for a Mhindi leaves you in a state where when you are paid, your wages get exhausted on payday due to many liabilities (bills) and you find yourself going back to the employer (stereotype, huh!). Ni kama wanatumia kamote ya kihindi (Just kidding). Take note this chaps never employ you as they never want obligations with the Kenyan government.

Some Chinese are the real “mkono gamu” (this maybe probably limited to the one I am working for). From the way they live to the general hygiene levels, the concept of capitalism is slowly being entrenched within their tendency. They are frugal to the core with their wealth in such a manner that they scare away those who have a prodigal propensity. You are left to wonder why you are still holding on because all the available signs indicate an ominous terminal.

Anyone who is jobless usually wants a situation where he can get a reprieve of working even if it means that it will be a transitory phase as you steady yourself before looking for better prospects that will be much satiating and aptly indulging.

You are in a sedentary job, alright. Working for a firm that makes the maximum use of all the appendable vit and skills you have acquired at minimal costs; maximize revenue, minimize costs is their maxim. The job is very involving and mind enervating. You joined the role as a social media strategist but now have to take up a majority of all the graphic design as they sacked the skilled graphic designer just like that (callous). You are on this sojourn pending a real job in the financial world, maybe working for a stocks company or in a company engaging in hedge funds (need for applying school knowledge here) or perhaps an investment bank or a stock brokerage company. That is to say, you are in a frictional kind of unemployment only that your hustling has not shown any symbiotic relationship to the place you want to be in life.

Ideally, you are allergic to working in squalid conditions, but the quest for the minimal cash being offered in order not to appear as if you are idle makes you stick for a while. Just to get six months experience before you roll down your sleeves and call it a day because you are on wage employment. The condition of the office in which you work in is filthy. The ambiance is stuffy and the general outlook deplorable. You are only being a stickler because you have no other option of making some easy cash.

There is no lie that these Chinku we work for are hell stingy. They operate on the intuition that Africans have no moral authority to deserve better. Even after realizing massive profits, they still give you peanuts because they are recovering back the profits after deducting all the implicit cost that they are very vague about. You have never seen the financial statements of the company and that is the reason why you will soon be resigning from this job even if it means you have no other way of survival.

That a casual employee who had taken up the role of a cleaner was sacked unceremoniously in a callous manner because the pay she was requesting for was way above the much they could give was not only heart wrenching but owing to the fact that you were willing to top up for the little pay that she was being given and your so called boss refused, you never saw the logic that it will be some time before you get the pay commensurate to the work you do.

Now you operate in an unclean environment. It’s probably one of those places that you’re looking around your space and wondering what the heck you’re doing here with your time. One that is prone to airborne maladies. The only respite is that you are a paperless office and your files are not scattered all over, with the trashcan almost being full, or your lunch wrappers stacked up on the corner of your desk (there is this guy who sells us bhajia at KSh. 20 that is worth KSh. 250- they look like remnants- its a cost cutting measure yawa).  You feel like a wreck in that situation, don’t you?  You cannot imagine of letting your friends know about this place even though you have this very expensive computer that is touchsmart and a not so bad office table but being photo-phobic, you have never taken a snap of yourself working behind the machine. They posting pictures of their nicely furnished offices in clean environs is a complete contrast of your current predicament which won’t last long.

Again, the office has no incentive to provide employees with tea and snacks. That is never in the budget. If that is not provided, even the daily newspapers are like a far-fetched dream only seen on the streets. Engaging in pep talk while in the office is also a banned and a de facto caveat is in place regarding the same. 

The worst times are those when the director who we are forced to call boss slowly starts an argument over the phone with his wife. It usually starts like a rolling stone, slowly, then his voice starts rising above the sacred silence that is the office. When you steal a glance over at his face in his office, there is usually something smoldering underneath his stony expression. His face usually turns yellow and it gets shiny, a sign he is sweating. Those are the times he speaks continuously for more than five minutes in a harsh tone. His rage seems pointless to you, although you never say so, until it turns into the destruction of valuables. You wonder how she condones the shouting at the other end of the line.

There was this day he got really mad boiling with anger. The arguing came right through the walls as loud as any TV show and since the office is partitioned with glass you virtually thought they would break or succumb and though he is a small man his voice is unmatched. It attracted guys from two floors above and below coming to find out who was on the receiving end. Ideally there are two massage parlours above and below respectively. With tempers rising, you would think guys were going to come out nude to find out what was happening. But they could not. The sentries were scared. They could not surmount enough courage to approach him, though he is a diminutive man. They feared he could turn on them the way Jet Li or Jacky Chan does and beat the hell out of them into smithereens. There is also a showroom and that is the time when shoppers began running out helter skelter thinking they were next in line. He literally took his laptop and threw it away as he overturned his table which landed on the laptop when they could not agree.

There was this lady who kept saying that in the event Chatur heard about this drama, it was an exit for us in the building. He became relieved once he had also thrown the phone which equally crashed. 

You are used to this, if you are a lady though, you will find the easiest route outside. Reason why you are ascribing about it. Luckily, after the small fight, he returns to being sane quickly and even smiles. The best thing is that he has never channeled his anger towards you. The frustrations are usually real.

Then there was this misplaced theory that the reason why he was overturning things and almost running amok was due to the fact that his better-half had called him a "monkey". Why? Is it because monkeys are the beasts that can be savage when provoked? When my guy Poloji intimated to this, we laughed like it was a Profesa Amo hilarious anecdote delivered to break the monotony of working in hushed tones while in the office.

On the flip side, working for the chinks is self-effacing and though they exploit you to that point you feel you are being used, you take courage that everything has a reason. These guys are also humane. The only folly is that like all start-ups, which majority fail, they have high human resource turnover. Their compensation incentive is quite skewed and subpar. They make you feel like they don’t need your services while in actual sense, you are in an oxpecker zebra relationship. Since they push you to the limit and come up with unending new frontiers of duties, you have given them much in terms of what you can avail. At least when you leave whether or not you will have found a better offer, you will rest assured that the much you did was well worth it. Sometimes pay may not be the only reason why you work hard and smart even though you are a rookie with no paper qualification in what you do but the passion outweighs everything else.

When it is said and done, you need to move on. My six months of having worked hard is coming to a climax soon and I will be looking for new pastures. Man is to hunting until a woman comes in so that you can adopt a sedentary lifestyle even if you are paid what someone somewhere makes in an hour.

PS: Juggling work, classes (which I rarely attend due to work issues), writing and reading is tricky enough without a properly adhered to rota. There is always a trade off in the indifference curves skewed to one dominant force. But compromises have to be made. Everything has its time. Reason why I will be writing very short posts now.

HASTA LA VISTA BABY

[Picture Source: My Own]

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REFLECTIONS

It’s almost a year ever since this blog got rejuvenated in terms of content posting after staying in hibernation untouched for close to two years since its inception. Actually, reminiscing the past, I can well say I have gotten more sluggish and indolent about the whole inkling of making an undeterred scribe. Not anymore. The dreams of going commercial or public are still under the woods or are underground in street parlance due to matters personal to the heart. I now wish I could muster the courage to write a book irrespective of the fact that I am even more than sure I may reach a point where I will be disillusioned and never write whatever I had in mind, because of having lost the motivation or imagination.

If this blog has become a struggle as I currently envisage my candour as a demurred grapnel at the onset of anchorage. This is because I have been sluggish to read any books and writing on a daily basis is now farfetched. Coming from a relatively middle class background, I have somehow developed deep feelings of inferiority and inadequacy. They decapitate my ambition sometimes much to my blogs chagrin because it has good content but no readers.

There is one kid I read about on the dailies but I have forgotten his name who kept his manuscript undisclosed until that point in time when he was published. My blog is still under such wraps until that point I will get a good designer to redo it and acquire a sensible domain name having maximized on effective search engine optimization or advertising on the social media platforms or the dominant search engines.

But hey! While I am not doing great in terms of the force I had started with in terms of writing, I can aptly say that just like whiskey, the more it ages and matures, the better I have become. When I consider the far that I have reached, I am no longer doubtful that it is something deep that drives me to do that which am doing. Money may be a major motivation but it ceases being a compelling force on my part. There is something about brilliance; it can never be replaced no matter what. If you are good, you are. But I also am sure that with hard work, the sky is the limit. Like I only spent say three or four months getting to know about graphic design and alas, while I may not be as creative and imaginative as some of those designs I admire, I can avidly say that the fruits of my labour have been partly achieved. Sometimes taking the initiative to learn on your own is rewarding even though the severity is what most cannot condone because learning something on YouTube or textbook and executing it can be a challenging endeavour.

Sometimes I wish I could have been a master orator, someone who can talk and capture the attention of an audience using banal anecdotes told in a passionate appeal, telling unmatched punch lines and with strong transitions executed smoothly with a vocal delivery that has a message that the audience is convinced of and will take with them. I want to get to that point where I can calmly adjust my delivery depending on how my audience engages with my material while on stage or on any other worthy platform.  There are times when I ponder how I will engage an audience, by getting them to laugh, cheer, gasp, or have any other emotional reaction. Since it usually takes time to get there, I am willing to patiently wait even if it means it will never see me do it while still alive. God forbid though! If it comes when am no longer in existence, then my lingering ghosts will be proud of what I did that is if I may never get to have children.

Oh! I know children make parents want to live to see them grow. I want my children to have a life that will not only be fulfilling but also worth living. Since I cannot deliver and provide that which I want for them, I will still give the marriage business a wide berth. It’s practical. Why should I let the mother and the child suffer because I cannot provide. I am not going to risk having a child. Not sooner. But again, no prospective woman is in mind. The one I had in mind is evasive and that is what I want. It takes me away from the troubles of thinking about someone else. She thinks I am unpredictable yet am as ordinary as the random Joe.

Ideally, women can't believe we men are so unobservant. This is aptly the reason why most people who get involved in accidents are men. Research shows that we are more a product of our biology than the victims of social stereotypes. We are different because our brain is wired differently. This causes us to perceive the world in different ways and have different values and priorities. Which could be the reason why the woman I am pursuing and I usually spend too much thinking about may find some of the very mundane things I intimate to her very fallacious.

'It's obvious that women are smarter than men. Think about it - diamonds are a girl's best friend; man's best friend is a dog. ' Joan Rivers

That was just a by-the-way. Onto more important matters now. How good it feels to know that beyond the shadow of the doubt I have, the information, strategies, philosophies, and skills that I have gained as far could assist any one of these people I envisage to indulge in empowering themselves to make the changes they desire most!

A flood of images and emotions will flow over me when I reach that point in time in life. I will have attained self-actualization, which some think has to do with having financial freedom or amassing vast wealth and assets which I cannot deny I am also in pursuit of, but the most important aspect is leaving an indelible mark in the hearts of people so that they will profess of how you aided them in overcoming one or two hurdles bestowed by mother nature.

Yet most people have no idea of the giant capacity we can immediately command when we focus all of our resources on mastering a single area of our lives. Controlled focus is like a laser beam that can cut through anything that seems to be stopping you. I wish I knew this earlier on in life to sharpen my skills so that they are at that level where they can no longer be flaccid.

When we focus consistently on improvement in any area, we develop unique distinctions on how to make that area better. Each of us has a talent, a gift, our own bit of genius just waiting to be tapped and harnessed to change the way humanity has envisaged itself.

As a matter of fact, I decided that somehow I must contribute in some way that would live on long after I was gone. I'm constantly figuring out how to communicate this knowledge with people in ways that truly empower them to improve their mental, emotional, physical, and financial destinies.

And I will succeed because I have understood the power of a truly committed decision that when acted upon, no matter what the conditions, on a continuous basis will eventually bring back the intended results.

Deciding to commit myself to long-term results, rather than short-term fixes, is as important as any decision I have made in my lifetime. Failing to do this can cause not only result in massive financial or societal pain, but sometimes even the ultimate personal pain. In that regard, I raised my standards, backed them up with new beliefs, and implemented the strategies I know I must. You may have heard of the Six "P" Formula. It says, "Proper Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance."

This post cannot be complete without the mention that I have many posts that are hanging and need to be acted upon like yesterday. They somehow make me feel bad because I usually never plan prior to doing that which I am supposed to be doing. I am so full of procrastination. More than ten posts are still hanging which was not the intention of this blog.

When I started, I was very pessimistic about life and all that has to do with making in general. But as I progress, I am fully aware that courage and confidence will reinvent the person in me to achieve unmatched potential in life if well moderated so that it never reeks of arrogance. However, I am poignant that I will get there. I am not going to be chasing after nothing in particular with matters concerning life. Neither will I be betrothed to societal folly of peers herd mentality.

HASTA LA VISTA BABY.

[Picture Source: My Own]

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PARKLANDS

The number of Range Rover Evoque on this streets are far astounding. Mark you they are all brand new. Complemented by other Bavarian SUVs, and sports cars, you reaaly know you are not somehow in Kenya. These radically different types of machines owned mostly by Indians make you feel like there is something you are not doing right. Either you are hustling on the wrong job, or you are tied down to a form of employment which means you can never own such a machine because its fuel consumption on a monthly basis if driven daily is two to three times the net you take home. To make matters worse, it is usually Indian ladies or youthful dudes who are usually behind the wheels. The envy is real, add jealousy that they can make it in our country while we are busy working for them speaks volume. Let me check on the two because it may result into resentment. And apparently resentment gnaws away at us and can be a springboard to anger, hatred and even depression.

Albeit the machine (Range Rover Evoque) has never wowed me in terms of aesthetic values, it has uniquely designed sleek features and lightweight capability not forgetting that it is highly streamlined which makes it perfect for urban driving and a real beast on the road. Well, the guzzler is a trendy fit and breaks the monotony of Japanese littered roads that are synonymous with us Kenyans. Some say a machine whether cozy or not is for taking you from point A to B. Well they are idiosyncratic in my school of thought. But your arrival in such a contraption speaks boisterously of who you are regardless of whether you have hired it or own it to the mundane plebeian. If it evokes such desirability and oomph on yours truly, then you can be pretty sure that it has unmatched rivalry on our roads. As a breather, let me say that the Range Rover Evoque combines head-turning looks with awesome attributes, thanks to its blend of style, performance, economy and off-road ability. I had to emphasize the words in bold. Period.

Imbroglio. There is this man who KTN saw it best to say that he was hurling massive English (ENGLUO) and I was pretty much fascinated by his use of ubiquitous words which may well be vocabulary to some. Hitherto it had not occurred to me that he was that well versed until in his heavy jeng accent, he talked about some audit stuff being in imbroglio. However, his pronunciation was way out of how it should be said if in any way his insinuation was tied to this prodigious word that I knew but had to check with my lexicon on its intended literal connotation.

That is the state I was in on Monday when I was to take a car to Highridge where my new workstation is situated. Boy, it is ridiculous to even think of intimating the story. Like a rookie, I went to board vehicles headed to Parklands, totally different from those that are supposed to take you to Highridge. Thankfully, I made it to town early enough to mess up a little bit because in Swahili they say, “Kupotea njia, ndiyo kujua njia.” At this point there is so much temptation to switch to Swahili, however, that will be tantamount to calamitous because, ideally, there are words in Swahili so difficult to translate from English never forgetting that the flow of the prose will be subject to a lot of hesitation and Googling to find the right phrase using Google translator. And apparently, there are so many words in English that need a native Swahili name. Like I was once listening to a conversation and Lady Jay Dee was told to translate the word ‘tennis’ to Swahili. She said ‘tenisi’ ambivalently thinking there is a better word having done what is known as ‘kutohoa’ in Swahili. I was good in Swahili way back in high school. Now the remnants are still lurking somewhere though the real knowledge has gone to the dogs. I recall with nostalgia the makosa ya hijahi and ngeli. If the two still exist.

Ok, back to the main point. There are some conductors whose main motivation is usually the money and not the interest of the passenger they are to aid. As a person, you need to have some little bit of sense in you so as to be kosher. When you peg things on money at the expense of helping a friend in need, you might even loose the slightest opportunity of growth you would have been bestowed because it is better the hand that giveth than the hand than receiveth.

As a person who never knew where I was going to, I did ask him if he was going to show me the place I was heading to so that I could alight if indeed that was the route I was supposed to use. Unfortunately, he showed me the wrong place having entered his car. So upon alighting I had to ask the sentries the focal point of where I was to report to work. But at first, I went to a building that looked almost the same like the one that I was supposed to be reporting to having seen the images on Google. And speaking of Google, I was never even bothered to know where the place I was going to was situated, never mind that I had free internet in the house and a whole weekend to check on the google maps and ensure I got the exact destination on my fingertips.

Which reminds me, I remember getting lost on my way to search for Oshwal last year (Let’s just say, am not cognizant of this suburbs). That I have ended up in Strathmore is a story that has a close relation with Oshwal. My destination was supposed to be Highridge and the mat left me at a point where I was as green as the brown “Kidero” grass. Last year, it took me more than an hour to trace Oshwal College. Luckily, with the help of some very cordial sentries, I did find the institution which did not ooze the kind of flamboyance in terms of façade as I had thought and expected. It was too plain and it never seeking attention made the probable look kind of too much jejune. But what made me want to go to the institution was the beautiful girls who spoke splendid English using their noses and their light skin complexion. I love seeing beautiful girls. Beauty makes life worth living. Otherwise, if there was no beauty, what else would we be look for in life? Maybe we would have been reluctant to even work hard for better our prospects in life.

Away from last year reminisces. The sentry at Oshwal Primary was the most helpful. His accent sounded like that of a ‘murume’ and I did wonder how he ended up in such a pitiable situation because I rarely see people of this ethnicity plying their trade as watchmen. Had rather they sell Mogoka or Mira in the filthy streets of downtown Nairobi. He did give me the right direction of how I had to walk.

On reaching the point where I was to board a mat for Nakumatt Highridge Supermarket, the Thomas in me decided to hesitate in order to ask someone who maybe had the knowledge of where I was headed to. At that point, I felt like taking a ‘nduthi’ so that I could arrive at the job in time. But something told me not to be in a hurry. I asked someone who looked like he had the geographical coordinates of the area at the palm of his hand. However, he was the kind who take so many things for granted and was even more confused than I was. I thought the place I was headed to was still far because I was next to the administration offices (Later I knew it was Mwisho, Kwa Chief)

At that point, I decided to go ask a certain conductor to take me to my intended destination. Luckily, she was helpful. Ever realized that the number of ladies plying their trade as mat and bus conductors is biased towards Saps. The amount I was to be charged was a paltry Ksh. 10. I realized that sometimes, patience pays. If you hurry you might end up eating the entrails instead of the lean and tender parts of meat. Like I would have probably paid Ksh. 100 for a motorbike ride instead of saving Ksh.90.

The week also saw me search for a passport which I had started looking for the previous week. You see, I did not have a birth certificate which is a prerequisite for having passport. Luckily, I had the copy of my birth certificate. Again being broke and not intending to borrow money because am working, Mshwari came in handy. They are currently lending me a 5 digit figure which is not bad considering I am sometimes in a fix and need to use the service to solve one or three problems.

My old man being in town, he did aid robustly in the quest for a passport. As the first person in my nuclear family to own one, he was really proud. Never mind that it is only for exam registration which I found out later even though I had vague memories that I needed a passport.

In order to get the birth certificate faster, we called one of my aunts who works with the immigration department. There is always a queue of people looking for passports. I usually bypassed them because I knew people. In Kenya, if you act courageous and confident in what you are doing, not even the marauding and haughty Administration Police can bar you from making entry in the busy department while others are queuing.

My birth certificate was prepared in less than two hours on a Friday evening. But because I couldn’t be able to pick it, it was agreed that the person making it would deliver it to one Ben who worked at the immigration and was to be my acquaintance in the search for a passport at Nyayo. All this while, I was thinking of how I was wasting time not being in the job place. I was AWOL.

The person who was supposed to be receiving the certificate got too drunk to report to work on Monday. Civil servants sometimes do have a rosy time at the workforce, right? For the birth certificate, I forked out Sh. 1500. The other charges for the person preparing the passport at Nyayo house were settled by my old man because he is still more chummed than me.

To make matters worse, the invoice I had printed was not the one required. However, because I was being served by a person who knew there was kitu kidogo, he did not mind printing the required invoice which I found very relieving because if I had used the right mechanism instead of going backdoor, I would have probably spent ages looking for the passport owing to the shortfall that I was having.

So it took me like thirty minutes to have all the documentation certified factoring in the time spent for waiting for the officer who was to check the documents. Now I am only waiting for a foreign country to let me let me travel to it because am well armed.

Oh, and our graphic designer got fired. Just like that because of some nonsensical reason. We used to laugh together, and narrate stories but one story I intimated about a deaf prostitute made her laugh to tears. Sadly I was added some roles which I was not feeling like taking, of graphic design. I am still pondering on how to make graphics that stand out even though I am not highly skilled in this field (self taught). There is a lot of nitty gritty in designing. Color combination, using the right font, alignment of objects, and knowledge of how to use all the tools and coming up with an image that will capture the attention of the person you picture is intended is not an easy job. You really need to think in 3D using 4G now that our boss said that consulting is like eating into the time of another employee and he needs the results faster.

As our human resource continues to look for an employee who will fit the bill, I am still going to act on the role in the meantime though my work has really been compromized. Luckily, I have honed my designing skills and I can well say I am doing just fine.

Yes, I discovered a new eating spot in Highridge. It is made of iron sheets but much smaller than the Mama Mswahili’s place. Since it is the only place serving us. It sometimes get so full we have to wait outside in order to let those who are in to finish so that we can partake of our chow. The meal is not as delicious as Mama Mswahili’s. But it is a little bit cheaper. For some reason, I may not have the money to eat there daily but sooner, things will look up and I will move to something better because there are some Swahili dishes being made by a certain lady and even though it is actually the figure I spend on a day, I will be tempted to eat it.

However there is one incident that made me love our mat drivers. There was this traffic cop who wanted him to halt by the curb for some nonsensical reason.  But the bugger was quite sly because he did pretend to be stopping but accelerated entering into the nearby T-junction as we sped off. We kept on looking at the back but the guy knew panya routes and left us at a place you walk five minutes to work. Ideally, I usually take a minute for the distance.

Oh, and I am going to sometimes be boarding the Strathmore bus to school in order to save on fare. Who knows, I might just get a big break when the year blossoms. When I sometimes see my classmates in 4*4 and am doing route eleven to catch a mat, I feel that I am more challenged than ever before to try and be in the right class. I will ask for the tricks of getting there. But in the meantime, I will accept the status quo even though there is this chic who told me she find old moneyed men who reside in suburbs and drive fuel guzzlers with several businesses as the equal of who to marry her. It made my heart sink in destitution and I am on a legit mission to make real big money that my woman cannot spend. If I am not going to make it in the meantime, I will look for one lady who wants to grow with me steadily. Money is more attracted to people as they age. Ama sivyo?

HASTA LA VISTA BABY

[Picture Source: Google Images]

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WHAT TO DO?

I think thoughts beget ideas, ideas when acted upon can result into something worthwhile or that which will not be substantial enough to see the light of day.  The excitement of conjuring ideas is that we tend to develop a backtrack approach when things are not working. We end up looking for the easy route as opposed to being patient and persistent to reach the desired objective even when the going is tough and emaciating.

Sometimes I regret having left the noble profession of teaching. I am enthused about the fact that it one of the most imperative careers that we cannot do without. However the doors are not closed as such. They will be open in the future. When another door opens, you grab it with open arms. And in the event they do open (lecturing), I want to have a large student base. Not teaching a single student which is not only boring but also very less on boosting one's morale. I now know how PHD tutors feel when they have a single student in class. It truly its demotivating, but that is behind me now.

"What to do?" Exactly, that is a question. One which you must answer in terms of providing solutions that are tangible, profitable, long-lasting and dependable. Ideally, it is quite funny when you are talking with someone and when she is stuck, she asks you, "What to do?"

Albeit I am clearly not under this boss who frequently asks us what to do, never mind that our boss has been in the country for the past few years and she still has not yet acquainted herself to the Queen's lingo due to factors ranging from being conservative, old age because it makes it difficult to master the language of other or utterly looking down upon it. Her grasp is belligerent and amusing. Still she is madam boss in the meantime.

Either way, methinks continuous interaction with this employer will have Grammatical consequences on the kind of English we speak. What with the elimination of very essential elementary components of language all in the name of communication? It is not even fair that we insist on making the employer not taking steps to improve on her spoken language. We are a letdown to ourselves and to the employer. Even some of the employees have been affected by the lingo and easily never realize it.

Looking at the bigger picture however, this platform provides us with the necessary experience in the event we find greener pastures and the experience bit will demarcate us from those who have never worked before. It is also a way of being busy. Man must be busy. Working or thinking.

You realize that most employers never 'sink' sorry, think, that someone can stay at home idle while there are many jobs to do (Just realized we most people don’t look for jobs thoroughly. Mtafuta hachoki, akichoka keshapata). They want you to at least be doing a job, whether it is mjengo or anything constructive. Yet not everyone can do these jobs or want to do them. Most of us love to hustle less, we want things on a silver platter. That is why I sit from eight to five everyday behind a computer looking for ways to earn a living. But who does not want to earn money? Unless you have no needs, you can afford to sit and do nothing because you are being provided for everything that you need.

However, unemployment is real- we bury our heads in the sand like an ostrich feigning it does not exist when we get employed. Just the tag that you have somewhere you are doing a job is better that sitting slothfully waiting for someone to bring in what to eat. Reminds me of a certain chic who refused to sit at home even though she was employed, she could not be able to raise enough transport to bring her back to Nairobi because the figure she was earning was paltry. But since she had nowhere to go and earn some better pay, she was hanging around till that time when she will be smiled upon by mother nature and get that big break. Money is scarce. We can do virtually anything to earn it.

Which leads me to the question: How to people who get a big break earlier on in life behave? Do they feel like they own the world? Or is it that they realize that with a breakthrough comes what we call, class association. Where you want to join the clique and act like them because of the new found status. Yes most of us want to be employed, but looking at the bigger picture, employment is never satisfactory anywhere. 

When you are at home unemployed, you usually have worries, like why am I the only one going through this hard moments? Why did I have to struggle in school to become a person the society belittles with the education I have? Then when you get employed you realize that your employer is not quite elite (in some cases). He pays driver more than he pays you even though you are a graduate and employed at the same time. But he pays you end month, right. He speaks broken English yes, has uncouth demeanor you wish he was schooled to a certain level. Whatever ideas he has are quite parochial but you weigh the options and after introspection, you come to a conclusion that the world is not static. So are the ideas of the employer. 

There is something about being in the workforce that many fail to understand. We need to be in a continuous stream of updating ourselves with that which will aid us in not being utterly redundant. Learning in the workplace is even more harder because if you are not meeting the targets, you are a being a general waste to the company which may mean being shown the door anytime.

Job security is not normally assured. However, when you are in the workplace, you need to do your able best until that point in life when you cannot do it anymore. In most scenarios, we focus on what we are being paid rather than what we can deliver. We are of the opinion that since we earn less, we cannot stretch our elastic limit just a little bit more. We are not like a rubber band which when pushed hard, it breaks or a ductile object that deforms when it goes past its elastic limit.

But the pay is not equal to the qualifications? The labour-force is too congested we are told. Those with the requisite skills however are not many. They are few. That is the reason why someone sticks to a job because of the fear that there may not be another place in the event you quit or get sacked.

Working with no aim is however not good. I am a slave to my work for the short while I will be doing it. The short while maybe years, decades or even jubilee. What is for sure is that the much that I will have learnt will be able to demarcate me from those who never take stock. Since I used to lament about wanting paid employment, no matter how little the pay may be, I realized I need to be making steps towards moving to the next level and ameliorating my status quo. That I will figure out when life smiles on me abundantly given I know the measures I need to take.

What I however will never forget is the fact that I have grown in breath and width with this blog. Now I am not even thinking of being unemployed. I am thinking of how I can unleash my potential to splash it like a mustard seed does in it being a tree. 

HASTA LA VISTA BABY

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INTERNET AND ADVERTISING

Nothing is for free is in this world. Hitherto, I had always presumed that Facebook was the best medium to advertise online in terms of taking a business online. Not anymore. The rules have been tightened and those guys who man the social media site have come up with things they call algorithms that they use to ensure that anyone who presumes that the site is going to offer a leeway for advertising will be hell shocked.

Facebook is no longer a place where you can go and advertise for free. When you open a page, no matter how many people you have as friends, the same will never be reflected on your page. Facebook is fully commercialized. So in short, use money to get people to know you on Facebook. If you cannot do the same, then, suit yourself for some  nothing constructive. Anyone who does not spend money should not be on Facebook. Okay! If you are spending be wise. That is if you are operating a page.

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