Point to Ponder: Of Coca Cola, Juggling, Family and Work

Some of us who have been castigated for spending more time at work at the cost of being with family like using the argument that success at work will guarantee future benefits and time with the family. How does the family expect me to provide them the finer things in life, let alone the basic needs, if I am not able to advance myself at the work place? How will I afford the best colleges for the kids, one or two holidays outside the country if I am but an average worker? Those making the noise should therefore cool their heels and wait till that time when we will be able to afford the time with them as they want. But as I have since discovered, it is not all that simple, and recently I received a timely reminder when someone posted this image on my facebook wall.

For those with sight problems it reads: "Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the air. They are Work, Family, Health, Friends and Spirit and you’re keeping all of these in the air. You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four balls – family, health, friends, and spirit – are made of glass. If you drop any of these, they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged or even shattered. They will bever be the same. You must understand that and strive for it. Work efficiently during office hours and leave on time. Give the required time to your family, friends and have proper rest." I might not necessarily be able to tell how genuine this speech is (with the internet you can never really tell what is fact and myth nowadays) but this speech certainly struck a chord for me. I hope it communicates something to all my fellow workaholics out there! In the meanwhile, I will leave this lying around the office where the bosses can "accidentally" discover it! In other news, it has been raining the proverbial cats and dogs in Nairobi. We generally don't trust the meteorological department here, that is why this picture brought a big smile on my face

Points to Ponder - On Waking Up, Courage and Happy Vegetables

As we move towards the end of the year, I am finding that I require more effort than usual to get out of the bed and go to work. My mind and body needs a break but work schedule does not allow it. I generally feel disinterested, and even tired, and cannot do the stuff that I would ordinarily do effortless, without some concerted effort. But to keep me going, there are 3 brilliant points to ponder that I have kept in mind. So let me share, you never know who else might need a push as I do at the moment.

Courage is no more than cussed stubbornness, and I have plenty of that. It means getting up each day and doing what you have to, going on when circumstances let you down, pushing ahead when others hold you back... Lamar Dodd

I have always felt that the moment when first you wake up in the morning is the most wonderful of the 24 hours. No matter how weary you feel, you possess the certainty that anything may happen. The fact that it practically always doesn't, matters not one jot. The possibility is there. Monica Baldwin in I Leap Over The Wall

People need trouble - a little frustration to sharpen the spirit on, toughen it. Artists do, I don't mean you need to live in a rat hole or gutter, but you have to learn fortitude, endurance. Only vegetables are happy - William Faulkner

I actually think I want to be like this!

Do you have an interesting passage that pushes you on when you don't feel like it? Please share

Why I Need A Good Recommendation!

The other day I was chatting up a friend who has been out of a job since late last year. I was surprised she was still out of a job as a few weeks earlier I had been told that her former employer had been interested in re-hiring her. So why didn't they re-hire her? I posed. Apparently she had received one bad recommendation from her former immediate supervisor. It was not the kind of recommendation that that said she had been incompetent or something like that. Actually the general recommendation was decent but her supervisor had pointed out one negative thing about her performance. Two other recommendations from within the same department had actually been glowing. Because of the one negative, she did not get the job. The supervisor later admitted that if he had known that the one honest appraisal would cost her the job, he would not have written it down as he would have liked to continue working with her. Who knows? She apparently will now find it very difficult getting future employment within the UN system.

This led to another discussion about how someone else had been employed in the same organization and had apparently done such a good job that the supervisor and the organization were greatly impressed. He was earmarked to be a star and many saw him soon taking over the running of the department. Then word came in from HR that after some months of investigation, they found out that the college he had gone to was not officially recognized and therefore doubts were cast on his qualification. They were all sad to see him go and everyone agreed that it was sad to lose such talent.

I am writing this because at times I wonder when should qualifications and rigid rules on processes give way to common sense and experience? I have employed someone with an academic background on science (Botany to be precise) on a community education dealing with social and health issues and he turned out just fine. I ignored the academic background and instead focused on experience. If you have the right experience and aptitude for a certain job, should the fact that you don't have the correct academic background or one bad recommendation out of several good ones stand in your way?

Image from Internet

In other news, commitments at the work place has meant that there has been no time to go over your blogs of late, so don't worry if you have not seen me visiting your blog. I will be passing by soon. In the meanwhile let me sign off and get back to work, before I get a bad recommendation.

Boy and Seven Things

It has been a while since I posted anything here, this is what happens when you get quite busy and don't have much to write about...ok, I have stuff to write about but just have not had the time. Anyway, a few days back I got to watch Taika Waititi's film Boy, and I will not be exaggerating when I say this is one of the best films I have watched in a long time. I am not saying this just because I had the privilege of meeting Taika and hosting him on a Q and A session after the screening of the film during the launch of the FilmAid and Film Forward / Sundance Institute festival in Nairobi but if you have ever seen a film done so simply, with crazy illustrations and fantasy yet still serious enough to drive home some universal values, then this is it.



If you can get your hand on this film, I definitely recommend it!

While I was away, one Woolie did a blog post and decided to tag me on it. Now I have been tagged on these kind of posts before (I must say am quite indifferent to this types of posts) and generally ignored them with the exception of one. Anyway, I thought why don't I indulge Woolie because she runs a good blog and so here I am (rather sheepishly I must add - no pun intended Woolie). These are the so called rules

Thank and link back to the person who posted you the award.
Share seven things about yourself
Spread the Love and honour
Contact these bloggers and tell them about the award.

I have actually done the first one already I think. I will do the second one and then pretend I did not notice the last two. Seven things about myself

1. I don't believe in organized religion (but strangely believe in both the creation story and the fact that the world has evolved over 4.5 billion years)

2. Contrary to perception that all Luos are in love with fish, it is one of my least favorite dishes

3. I am quite shy and fear being in front of crowds - despite the fact that I have been a stage actor, storyteller and recited poetry to packed auditoriums. I am quite lousy at making friends as a result.

4. My secret ambition is to be a writer - everything else is just but marking time (over 30 years and 2 kids later!)

5. I find snakes beautiful (but would still love to eat one cooked in a proper way! - ok, just kidding about the eating part)

6. I once starved that I ate bread gone stale with mould and untreated water

7. I really did not believe I could come up with 7 things about me

Now y'all can tag yourselves and enjoy!

Small Talk, Plastic Smiles

Many people who meet me for the first time say that I am a quiet person. My wife often tells me that her friends say that her husband is the shy and silent type, never speaking unless spoken to. And that even then, my responses are short and curt. She tells them that they don't know Charles. Those who know me better hold the opposite view. That I am talkative, full of opinion and argumentative. I quietly smile to myself when I hear these comments.

To be honest, my problem has always been with small talk. I find myself in many situations where I am just there, with nothing to say. It is for these reasons that I hate cocktails or networking events where I hardly know anybody. I find it quite difficult to walk up to a stranger and start chatting without any specific agenda. When I was a kid, whenever I joined a new school, I would keep to myself for sometime,not really mingling with other kids until much later when we got to know each other well and I identified those that I thought I shared with a common interest. When I actually think about in now, both in my primary school days, high school and even through college, my friends were drawn from a small circle. I was not the type who was friends with the whole school.

This set-up suited me fine until I started to get into management positions. When I worked for FilmAid as the Programme Manager for their Kakuma programme, I suddenly found myself being invited to events simply by virtue of my position to represent the organization. Now I had to serve some bitings and wine and mingle with other heads of organizations and government people and make small talk. I survived this however because Kakuma was a small community and everyone soon got to know everyone. Furthermore, I more or less interacted with these people in the course of my day to day work. After a few weeks I was familiar with everybody who mattered. But after sometime I was moved to the Nairobi office as the Country Manager. Now I was being invited to all manner of events to mingle with new sets of Country Representatives, Government people, donors ambassadors e.t.c. And because these were not people I saw on a daily basis, the conversations became even more difficult. I remember once being invited to an event at the US Ambassador's residence and discovering to my horror that I knew almost nobody at the event (luckily my wife had tagged along). I was relieved when later in the evening I met two guys I knew and they were able to introduce me to more people.

Networking in events has always been the most difficult part of my job descriptions. Don't get me wrong, I can seek out an organization that I think will be useful to me, make formal contact and discuss business. Later we might even become friends. I am talking about the appearing in an event and suddenly laughing and being familiar with everybody type of networking. I find that it involves pretense and wearing a fake smile. After some time my jaws begin to hurt.

When I moved from FilmAid, I thought I was now going to spend most of my time implementing projects and doing less plastic smiles. But with transitions in the organization, I once again find myself having to do this. As I write this, an invitation to an event at the end of the week has just landed on my desk. But as is the story of my life, I just have to keep learning, even if it learning some of the stuff I find ridiculous. I wish I was my smaller brother Biko...He is the type who walks into a room full of 100 strangers and in less than 10 minutes, he knows all of them...and they know him!

Image courtesy of this site

King, Prince or Pauper: The Week's Point to Ponder:

Growing up, one of my favourite fiction authors was Jeffrey Archer. I especially liked his short stories, most of which always had the most unexpected of endings. I wonder whatever happened to him, the last I heard of him I think he was off to jail or something like that. My point to ponder for this week is therefore based on a quote from him, having felt low on energy the last week and getting this feeling that I might be slacking on work a bit.

“Never be frightened by those you assume have more talent than you do, because in the end, energy will prevail: My formula is: energy plus talent and you are a king; energy and no talent and you are still a prince; talent and no energy and you are a pauper.” (quoted by Michael Levine in Take It From Me)

Another reason why this quote impresses me this morning is because of a conversation I had with my brother last night as we watched Tusker Project Fame (my first time this season I must confess). We kept wondering why a majority of young kids who win these competitions never attain the great heights of stardom that these competitions promise. They just disappear into obscurity months after the show has been wrapped up. Is it because they don’t put in a hard shift like those working from the bottom up?

I have never considered myself really talented but everything I have ever achieved is because of a hard shift. Today I see many young kids thinking that everything will easily fall into place because they have some talent. The culture of just having to work hard to attain whatever you aspire for is no longer there. The mantra is more of “don’t work hard, worker smarter”. Not that I begrudge that, put in some context I agree but in the end, it should not be a philosophy of get shortcuts at every opportunity for nothing beats good old fashioned culture of honest work.


As I slack off, my daughters have been taking over my work!

Finally:
Sow a thought and you reap an act; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny. – Ralph Waldo Emerson