Construction Worker
According to Hamisi Abubakar, a sub-contracted Supervisor for H Young, this is the most unstable career path anyone can take. “It’s not even a career,” says Edmund Okoko who foresaw some construction work when he was with East Africa Breweries. “It’s a job. Yaani kibarua.” Hamisi had been with the East Africa Portland Cement Company (EAPC) before he moved to H Young, a company that had been contracted by Portland to do some work on their behalf. Having worked for 4 years as both a Casual Employee and a Construction Worker and an Assistant to a group of Auditors, Hamisi has seen a lot of employees in his department come and go.
“Watu wa Crusher, wote walienda,” he muses, mentioning that he once worked on a team that shoveled rocks into a machine, which crushed them into fine powder. “Ma-Casuals wote walichujwa na watu wa mkono walienda Bamburi.”
He says that contracts win the construction industry can last as short as 2 weeks and as long as 6 months. He notes that no one survives a full year without some help from an influential party.
Edmund says that road and building construction jobs are even worse because their tenure is limited. “Kazi iki-die, jamaa, kamata miguu. It’s over.”
2
Auditor
Hamisi, who assisted during an audit in EAPC’s Packer Department knows that not many people keep Auditors on a retainer basis. In fact, some of them are only hired once a month and sent off the moment they finish crunching their numbers. His former colleague, Moses Ambatsi has worked as an Auditor for EAPC and an Interning Accounts Clerk, doing the same job for EPZ. He, along with a team of 14 others, was given a contract for a 2-week audit with EAPC. They were fired and told that the next audit would be in 3 months. “I went back after three months,” says Moses. He found that an entirely new team of Auditors had already filled the slot. “Book keeping,” he explains, “is a temporary job. Nobody retains Auditors unless it’s a big company.”
3
Sales Representative
Wycliff Irungu says that there are two ways to leave a Sales job: “You either get fired or you quit.” He got his first job with Airtel back when it was still referred to as Celtel. He says that the commission was less than what was advertised. Like every other Sales job, his salary depended on his hard work.
“They said 25K a month but they wanted us to sell lines and airtime,” he remembers. “The commission was 3K.” The pressure of meeting a specified quota caused him to clash with his boss on many occasions. “Yvonne, got fired,” he recounts, naming an employee he used to work with. “Muya wanted to get fired. Some guys just left. Me, I stayed but when my turn came, I didn’t care.”
4
Watchman
KK Security Guard, Nicholas Migosi argues that Watchmen may have the least difficult jobs but a simple mistake can get them sacked. He explains that private security guards are evaluated by their firm’s clients as well as their Supervisors. “Mkubwa akisema ni hivyo, basi ni hivyo,” he says.
Something as trivial as borrowing some soap from a client’s house or going to the loo when someone is waiting at the gate can leave you jobless. Nicholas has been transferred 6 times since he started his job in 2010 because the clients he works for are quite irritable. One client told his Supervisor that he stole clothes from a washing line when he covered the night shift. “Niliona akianika manguo lakini sikuona akitoa.” Nicholas managed to plead with his Supervisor and was later assigned to a different client. Some of his colleagues have not faired as well. He mentions that if a client pushes hard enough, he can get a Watchman fired.
5
Consumer Product Model
Rebecca Wangeci was once a model for Nice and Lovely during one of their product campaigns that lasted less than a month. As soon as the hype died down, she was fired. She did the same job for Axe body spray but that job only lasted a total of 8 working days. “You take your money and go,” she says. “It’s not something you can do forever.”
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