Flakes from a CV…

Working for Joe and Sonia, was not what I would call a typical job. If anything, I did not have a job description. Or to put it into proper perspective, my job description varied to suit whatever circumstance the company was facing.  And circumstances were a quite a number. Suffice it to say, I was a Jane of many trades.

But it worked out fine, especially at the beginning. In South Africa, many employers did not appreciate the rigorous effort it took to process work permits for foreigners. Many interviews I attended usually ended at the point on my CV where I became a Kenyan. Everything else they liked, so they told me. It was not funny.

Joe and Sonia were different, or perhaps they were appointed by God to process a work permit for me. I was nearly giving up, and God must have heard my prayers. The moment I was interviewed by Joe, everything else set in motion, and before long, I had a valid 3 years work permit. Pure bliss.

When he called to offer me the job, I did not bother to negotiate more money than what he had offered. That must have surprised him. What kind of person does not negotiate a salary? He must have thought Kenyans to be a little daft. But he did not say it. I figured he would never comprehend what it meant for me, to have a chance to leave the house for an important reason other than to shop for groceries!

Joe  was kind too. I lived quite some distance from their office. In reality, the distance was not much, but in South Africa, especially Johannesburg, the distance from home to office was important to the employer.. No employer wanted an employee that phoned the office every morning at 8.30, to report being held up in traffic!  And getting up 5 minutes earlier could make a whole lot of difference on those roads. In fact, on many job advertisements, part of the requirement was that the applicant MUST own a car. This ofcourse compounded an already growing problem, the deeply congested roads.

Joe took the map and together we charted a route that would ensure that I made it to work on time. It would mean I criss-cross various residential areas at a speed of about 50km per hour, slowing even more at the numerous ubiquitous security barriers, as opposed to the bumper-to-bumper traffic on the highways.  The irony was, at that time, I did not mind sitting in traffic. It afforded me a rare un-interrupted opportunity to listen to Kaya FM, and often, I chuckled out loud at the funny comments made by people who called-in. I liked the presenters. I did not care that the driver on the next lane saw me laughing by myself. Being out of the house was good. I was going to work, dressed up in my pretty low-heeled but pointed shoes, and then I had a valid reason to dab perfume behind my ears.

I managed to consistently get to work in good time, which pleased Joe and Sonia. The girl who worked before me, was ever late, they told me once. Theirs was a family business. Infact, Mr and Mrs Joe lived on the very premises where the office was. They occupied the ground floor, while the office was upstairs.  What’s more, their son, Paul, ran his business in an adjacent room upstairs, though he lived elsewhere in the city. The two companies shared the only toilet upstairs, as well as the coffee machine. It was an interesting arrangement.  Paul and his dad played golf every monday morning. Every morning when Paul would come in, he first went to his mum’s desk whereupon a kiss would be dropped on Sonia’s cheeck.

Four of us occupied a single open-plan office. That included Joe, his wife Sonia, myself and another employee called Flo. Flo was of British origin, as was Joe and Sonia. But Flo had grown up in Rodhesia, the present Zimbabwe. Ofcourse it was different than it is now. She would never bring herself to say Zimbabwe, and I sensed she was bitter with Robert Mugabe. But she had fond childhood memories which she frequently recounted. At its best, the office was tiny, and whenever two people talked on the phone simulataneosly, it could turn chaotic. Joe, especially talked louder than average. I often wondered whether he had a hearing problem.

Sonia was british to the core, even after having lived in South Africa for slightly over 20 years.  She still missed British-made goods. For instance, South Africa does not manufacture Imperial Leather soap, which was a convenience that Sonia found great difficulty living without. Whenever someone would visit them from Britain, they had to bring her several bars, together with some breakfast cereal. She wouldn’t believe it when I told her that Imperial Leather soap is also made in Kenya, until I brought her some, after a visit to Kenya.

Though I gave her some benefit of doubt, I thought Sonia had a deeply ingrained colonial mindset. I had grown tired of her complements on my accent, which she said was very unlike a black person’s. She never shied away from commenting how badly the black South Africans spoke English! When I made mention of my own father being an alumni of a British University, she gave me her permanent seal of approaval. I was ok in Sonia’s books. But when she asked me whether every homestead in Kenya has a donkey to fetch water down from the stream, I did not know what to tell her. Ofcourse I let an opportunity pass, where I could have extended the truth to create some humour, but at times like that, I really appreciated my cool restraint.

At 58, Sonia was struggling to keep up with their family business. I was surprised to note just how cruel Joe was to his wife of so many years. He querrelled her openly, frequently in our presence. I loathed those moments when he clearly made her feel very stupid. Cringy. After one such incident, Joe had gone downstairs, to cool off perhaps, when Sonia broke down into tears, explaining, more to me than to Flo, that Joe had continuously treated her like that. I honestly felt sorry for her, and henceforth, I made an attempt to help her with her Excel Spreadsheets. She was in charge of money, and occassionally got confused with the formulas. Poor soul. Joe never had time for her confusion.

If there is one word I could use to describe Joe, stingy would be it. For a couple that should have ideally been on retirement, that was non-sensible. Especially because the company earnings were everybody’s knowledge, and they were far from critical.  (All company documents were accessible to all staff.) Joe did not want to spend a cent, even for the most obvious costs. If the colour printer cartridge dried out, we had to go without some for a while. While at it, each of us purchased their own stationery out of our pockets. This was especially aggravating to me, because I love pens and notebooks. I scribble a whole lot. According to Joe, I would scribble at my own cost, never mind the profits were his!

So, you might understand my discomfort when one late afternoon, Joe announced that the following morning, we would have a breakfast meeting in a restaurant. (Cost on the company) To strategise on how to increase our income levels, he said. Secretly, I wondered whether we would strategise on how we would bring costs further down, which may or may not have been the same thing. I wanted to laugh. First, because it was just four of us in the office, surely why not strategise in the office? Second, we would have to spend money on breakfast, and Joe was extremely stingy with his money. Let me confess,  on the said morning, I ate my breakfast at home. I figured I would enjoy it more with my family, at my own cost, rather than having to listen later, to Joe’s rant about how expensive it was, to buy breakfast for four!

 

Continued…