Mphela! Vuvuzela! Kubeeela ,Mmmm!

OK, so its been a while. And yes, idle interns do get busy sometimes and I've been for the past one week. OK that last part was a lie. Anyways, I shall try to work up some bit of creative energy to write another cliche blogs on the biggest global concern at the moment , SA 2010.Well ,Of course there's the hum of random vuvuzelas from the streets below our offices as guys head off to watch World cup matches at the end of the day. Well believe it or not I happen to be stuck in the office while an important match goes on right now. What can I say, I kinda expected it. Even my pals are calling me assuming if I got a sneak card for this rare occasion..... nooot.

Nevertheless ,Friday was a luckier day at least. We all hurdled up at the TV room to watch the first match in the tournament. Mrs Big brownies, Head of the Risk dept was there an hour early to watch the opening ceremony which apparently to her is much more entertaining than the actual matches. But this unsoccerly perspective did not of course keep her from running all the way down the office hall each h time a goal was scored and the noise-making began. Yap, everyone including the big G.O was there. Of course it was a bit awkward at first till he started with his goofy remarks..” Mphela! Vuvuzela! Kubeeela ,Mmmm!” He bellowed abruptly as some South African striker labeled Mphela para-idiotically missed a goal despite being inches from the net and past every defender.But despite the expressions of growing disillusionment that had begun to loom into our faces after the sad event (soon to be followed by others of similar category) everyone burst out in laughter of course after the remark.

Well I guess you could call it the Friday spirit coz it seems like that was the end of it. No one seems to be displaying the least bit of interest in today's match. A Cameroon match. Weirdly enough I'm not exactly bothered enough about it either. But in my case its probably because I wasn't really expecting to watch it at the office anyways...not on a Monday at least. And again I can still catch the rerun later on tonight.

Which reminds me that I have precisely two weeks left inside this executive prison. That's exactly the time left before the big guns start blazing at each other. Or in other words, that's when the real games begin. Till then I'ma eat my canvossio..till the next scoop of course.

No topic in particular ,just random Monday rant.

Today ,I actually got up before my alarm clock and dreadfully waited for it to ring shortly afterwards though at the same time slightly hoping that I had miraculously woken up an hour early and would somehow get a chance to doze off again into another dream. Last week's dreams were very interesting to say the least. Almost all of them, if not all , involved a chic that I had a fling or relationship with. I was kind of hoping this week I would proceed to the sequels. But before the show tonight there is obviously the drag of another normal day in section #54 (random number) of this city's grey business community... and as usual I'm just lounging on my mid back swivel. So what's new this week? I'm back to the risk and compliance department. Away from the hustle and bustle of administrative routines and random calls from unfamiliar voices when you''re busy enjoying the tranquil yet all-
important balance of having a job and being jobless at the same time.

The office shift comes at the most opportune time. On Saturday ,I had just received a briefing of how to take care
of stuff while Kephs ,the operational assistant was going to be away on Monday and Tuesday for a training exercise. So in short I was going to be subbing in for Keph's dirty work and today that included standing in one of the super-convoluted queues at electricity house for an entire hour...thank God for facebook! At least it gave me a chance to breathe and enjoy the fresh air that circulates regularly amongst the free spirits of the city, giving me a brief reminder of what it once felt like to loiter uninhibitedly on the streets of Nairobi. So as soon as I was done, I was back at the office just in time to be off for lunch and late enough to come back. At this point I should inform you that a random but attentive glance at the previous sentence will definitely conclude my working term in this office indefinitely, so... moving on swiftly onto hot waitresses and snubby -**ches.

Why is it that the well dressed, hot legged, pretty faced babe with a divinely sculpted trunk has to be the one looking away unamusedly when you steal an idle glance at them while the badly dressed, under groomed, but pretty faced waitress with undone hair is totally checking you out at your regular lunch joint while beaming shy smiles ever so often along your way after quite hospitably taking your order and delivering it in record time. It kinda feels like a lesson in life. The best things in life often come wrapped in the most unseeming of packages. Luckily enough the waitress still had a pretty face working for her ,otherwise her prettier personality would never stand a chance in Mars at drawing the attention or any casual bird-watcher. Who would ever get to realise the awesomeness that lies within, when you actually attempt to get to know a person like that?... maybe the uglier than usual ,short dude with a big ride and a custom built mansion who cant seem to score a real romantic relationship with any of the random hottes he goes for, who knows?... yet.. I somewhat doubt that even he will give her a decent try. A few of the sad realities in a society we have slowly come to accept

Of Domestic Braindrains and Corporate Monsters... part 2

Friday morning and I report to work late as usual. First things first, I check out my e- mail. What do you know? My telepathic powers of universal control finally seem to be proving themselves functional after all. The HR department downstairs has contracted a management consultancy firm to send in some HR pros who will come through to the bank and listen very caringly to our long spelt woes of inappropriate job stationing and unhealthy working conditions. After this they will take to group seminars and discuss possible reorganization structures that will ensure every worker leaves his office smiling and feeling like he is totally worth his payslip: payslips that will also be a subject of positive discussion so as so ensure unbiased diffusion in the guap-distribution process that takes place at at the end of every month (refer to part one of the series).

So these guys - correction- babes ( yes, the entire panel will be comprised up of young ladies only ), will be arriving today from the new Deloitte & Touche offices in the evening to kick start the evaluation with a presentation then beginning Monday the serious work begins, part of which will be describing deeply what it is exactly each and everyone in this building that goes under the category of staff is summoned here to do. They will define every single duty that you are expected to take care off and therefore in the same line of thought define every single duty you are expected not be bothered with or disturbed by members of the uninformed for.

Frankly speaking I highly doubt that I should be the one to speak of the collective delight that will sprout forth after this exercise is complete since I, at not the moment, am not part of the banks permanent staff list but at least it gives me substantial relief to know that the first steps towards a positive change are happening right here and now in my own work environment. I therefore do hope that within those seven weeks I shall get assimilated into the much more improved system that is to come of it. Till the next scoop.

Of Domestic Braindrains and Corporate Monsters... part 1

They say that every year this country loses a large portion of high school leavers to foreign universities and upon graduation from these foreign universities an even larger percentage do not dare to come back to the motherland. Dare? yes, is it quite a juggle of odds to choose a comeback to this beautiful kingdom of diversity to chase the lifetime career of your dreams over an easier sail upstream inn the land of dreams and opportunities.

Don't get me wrong at all ,I haven't completely lost my faith in this country. Employment rates have been on the rise of late thanks to improvements in the economy and efforts towards greater industrialization and that's a good indication of the decades ahead but. But before the decades find me a reality less of my long sought dreams, I believe its not too late to raise it to the people, even though those people are a few eager bloggers that make up a minute fraction of the Kenyan economic machine. All in all , This is the currently applicable Kenyan definition of braindrain as is purely misunderstood by most Kenyans. Well I think there's a very solid justification for this phenomenon which has been so wrongly described. The real braindrain my friends is what is happening every day in our city's offices as we speak. Thousands upon thousands of college and university graduates toiling till the setting of the sun to make a living through a redundant and unchallenging job they never thought they'd find themselves doing. The daily motions of underproductivity. Walk into a bank today and find a pretty law major smiling at you from behind the customer relations desk. Walk into NHIF and ask for the med graduate whose sorting out mail to different hospital locations for delivery. Sitting in your office ,sipping a cup of hot coffee you will probably recall some beat down looking dudes in cheap suits who came to talk you into purchasing a life insurance policy they were marketing, yap those were a bunch of Actuarial science graduates I went to school with.

So its clear that any naive shagzmondoz strolling aimlessly around town might easily befall the cleverly painted illusion of a glamourous corporate lifestyle that comes with working hard in the intellectual death race that has become our educational system. With the Mercs and Mark Xes, the X 5s and X6es ,the Range Sports and Lexuses, everybody in Nairobi seems to be living their dreams. Yes indeed ,everybody is living their dreams ..everybody in the back left of those cars that is and for all we know that chauffeur could be another first class honored B.A graduate. A BA driving an M.BA, I mean how long a ladder does he need to climb to add the M to the BA. If a foreign scholarship or green card was offered ever so generously to the chauffeur in question how long do you think it would take for him to ditch the big M.D for a ride on the wild side. This city is lined with block upon block of money solvent skyscrapers but of course the formula is so defined to ensure a consistent saturation of the guap-extract within certain higher offices. A classic case of

pseudo - economics. So in the mean time ,the underpaid and overworked community that hurdles up each day inside those less than flashy offices keep digging that hard rock for some more gold ore for the master hoping one day to become the master. The summit bound race of a hundred junior employees towards a big seat at the tip of a very steep power pyramid . Tragic, just tragic.

But I believe a huge portion of the blame can be directed to the Society for Human Resource Management in Kenya - SHRMK which Kenya actually has a institutional equivalent in the The Institute of Personnel Management and its many little minions of HR units from various Kenyan business organizations.The simple question that troubles me is why do HR departments jointly choose to post highly talented individuals in such low life dead end positions when they know that with just a few investments in workforce training projects they can completely harness the potential that these individuals have to offer and steer the bank's productivity to new heights. Now isn't that the traditional job market rhetoric? Answer it and I will promptly revoke this blog.

The Office - Kenyan Temp's Version

This blog was due like a month ago. So, this is where I spend most of my life for the past one month and I'm already complaining about the annoying drag that is the modern corporate lifecycle. Months before I landed this job (read internship) I would have given up a limb just to get it but now it seems I would totally have been begging for a limb refund.

So what do I earn? The lowest intern rate I've heard to date anywhere in Nairobi; .. basically 5 dollars a day. Even for a continental bank like this,that's some serious staff under-appreciation. But I'll call that a pro because I didn't even receive a single cent while at Jubilee Insurance and I know a lot of my pals simply enjoying the working experience and getting no guap.

Second perk? Tea and Porridge. I'm not even a porridge guy but I guess you just find yourself taking whats offered when its all that's offered. This kind of mentality you only get from peeps who were raised in the projects...yes, and that is yours truly.. Third Perk, the occasional sympathy transport arrangement for workers clocking extra hours,which is a taxi voucher signed to Kenatco taxis when I happen to be chacking the office at 9 o'clock onwards. Now, I do recall it being mentioned in one of the numerous multi-interviewer interviews I had to go through that I would be required sometimes to push extra hours on the job because of the enormous work loads but I didn't think that 'sometimes' was an nonoperational utterance to entice the meek inexperienced job seeking undergrad lamb that presented itself so humbly yet ultra-eagerly to the slaughter. Which hence brings me to the cons.

Well, I don't know what they told you before you got your first induction into a working environment but I have a huge feeling they didn't secretly construe to turn you into the proverbial bat. To date I could somehow claim to have fit the role of a semi-vampire, a Mungiki clerk of sorts. Yani Ive become fully inconspicuous to the outside world. I only get out in the light of day on my lunch break which I take full advantage of until that Safcom operator (read- my boss) alerts me that I have reached the grand-time threshold (read -I have taken too long to get back from my lunch break and nikizoea nitapewa a non-returnable unlimited one-off lunch break ;yani ,get fired.). So humbly I return to my desk till the clock hits the seventh digit and then proceed to execute my exit.

Then there's the anti-idleness campaign policy which has been severely integrated into the entire organization with special ''thanks'' to the IT department who have configured a network that detects Facebook or Facebook resembling website users and diligently cuts off all internet access to suchlike employees (or maybe just me ,cause among the most junior of workers) hence diverting their attention to more business related thoughts, specifically business they were employed for in the first place. So, now I cant leave the office by any means fathomable, physical or cybertronic. Kumurder madot com, thats all I can say. I'm the only intern on the 13^th floor so idle chat with the rest of the super-busy staff is kinda out of my territory ,though I had managed to find a relatively idler dude to babble with when I was working in the risk and compliance offices ..well, not anymore after they decided to take me back to Administration to work right under my bosses eyebrows. Great!

My only mental escape route from the ferocious teeth of redundant boredom now are the blogs I write ,mobile Facebook and maybe a few flips through today's paper. Depressing ,just depressing. And lets not even get into the sexual-psychological trauma of an entire day of redundant data entry and data tabulation and data arrangement... you don't get more molested than that.

So my fellow brethren and sistren in the actuarial intern's market (dysfunctional as it is) trying to cope with the daily emotions of overworking ,under-appreciation and lack of self fulfillment, remember that that lame office desk full of paper to photocopy and file is just another step in the ladder to some serious fortunes up ahead on the journey to success. Till the next scoop.