Fired or Fried; I don’t know

Having standards is cool until you have to drop them because you really have to. I remember one time when I was actively looking for a job - (I’m still looking for one) ; applying to any role that I came across. I never got any feedback from any of my applications and was loosing my hopes in finding one.

So that’s just when my girlfriend’s sister sent me a job advert poster of a moving and fumigating company based in Juja which I won’t mention, leave alone recommend. The company was looking for individuals who would be packing house/office stuffs into the vehicles for moving; you know how those moving companies work, so it was like a mass recruitment.

The recruitment process was so smooth no experience needed no CV, just you, your ID and a printout of the contract form duly signed by the applicant. Given that I was leaving in Ngong at that time and the company was based in Juja, I was excited and had thought of moving to juja juu why not? Si hii kazi ishaingiana?

The first day ilikuwa ni orientation pale pink house Juja, training kidogo how to wrap furniture, mount tv, safety nininininiii and finally how they pay their employees. So day one we were like 45 newbies or so. The agreement was kuliko you buy their uniform, which was a shirt with the company name kwa mgongo at 700 shillings, you could just work the first day free then you get the shirt - it was the companies policy btw and the job was paying 700 to 1500 per day. I really needed the money so I jumped in headfirst.

That same day in the evening, I’m already added in the company’s employees WhatsApp group. 8pm they send the names of people with different destinations on different company’s vehicles. Excited enough, I scan the names mbio then tadaa! There’s my beautiful name. I’m in Grouo D, with vehicle KCN 989Z, moving a client from Witeithie to Ruaka. Arrival time 5a.m.

The next day I woke up early enough about 4am nilikuwa stage ya Embulbul waiting for the first Supermetro iniingize jiji. Corporate this one. Luckily I made it to juja by 5am nikiingia nyuma ya Lorry hadi witeithie. The client was living in a three bedroom home and we were only 5 in our group. All of us newbies except for the supervisor. Ndugu yangu I tell you we worked kama Punda from hio 5am to 6pm. Na hio ni day one, doo zote zinaenda kwa shati ya company. Eey chest pains.

So jioni we go back to the office in juja, we take our new shirts and go home as we wait for the next work call. No call came through, no update on WhatsApp. Three days went by , no calls from work no update on group. I got impatient and that Friday went back to their office in Juja. That’s when I found another group of very different newbies on training at their offices very ready to start their duties too from the next Monday. This was the norm, the company getting free labour just like that. Eeey sikuamini nilifanya kazi hio yote ngumu Ndio nipate shati. Anyway the next week we were all removed from the group for the new members to be added. We were rinsed😭😭 I still have the shirt hadi wa leo 4 years down.