#giveathought

Someone is lounging in a high-back comfortable office chair, rocking back and forth, considering whether to put his feet on the table. A Mac computer connected to the Internet sits on the desk in front of him. His Samsung Galaxy phone is connected to the office WiFi and he flits between WhatsApp and Facebook wearing a very bored look. He chides the tea-lady for that stain caused by a splash from the overfull cup. It is becoming his daily habit to turn up late for work, especially when his boss is out of the office, and when he sits down, the first thing he does is either read the newspaper or do social media for an hour or so. And when it comes to lunchtime, he chews away heartily as he launches into a whinge about how the conditions at work are stifling his creativity, about how the pay is too low, about how so-n’-so is not doing his fair share, about how the long working hours are wearing him out, about how this food tastes so bland, about how …
No wonder everyone has started avoiding him, and these days, he’s the one asking his mates if he can join their table.

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Do we ever stop and take a minute to consider that there are people doing ‘undesirable’ jobs, the dirty jobs, the bottom-of-the barrel jobs, and very low-paying- I’m talking Uganda?

Jobs like cleaning toilets— the Americans call them janitors (polite, eh?) - subjected to out-of-this-world sights, the sounds they hear, the smells they have to endure;

Those who are contracted to bury unclaimed bodies (revolting, eh?);

Rubbish collectors carrying worn-out gunias filled with three weeks worth of trash, including stinky diapers, and teeming with maggots (nasty, eh?);

Plumbers who unclog your grimy sink drain blocked by wads and wads of rolled-up hair and grimy with grease (eeeekk!, eh?);

Bus drivers who do miles, and miles, and miles of road without a rest because their greedy boss is only thinking of the ching-chings in his bank account (Midas, eh?);

Vending on Kampala’s streets and having to decide between two evils- a rainy day or KCCA’s bulldog enforcement officers (pitiful, eh?);

A doctor in Mulago hospital’s casualty ward for who the smell of blood is a permanent fixture, and broken bones, slashed chins, and torn flesh are what he calls a normal day at work (gross, eh?);

The mukene or mpuuta monger whose body odor is akin to that of the fish he sells (phew, eh?) and it has now stuck on to his plates, his pillow, his bicycle, and the chairs in his house (yikes, eh?);

The farmer who toils in the fields, and then bicycles his produce to the market, only for the vendors to make fun of his food and dismiss it, then ‘help’ him and toss a few sad shillings in his face (hmmm…, eh?);

A fisherman for whom a change in the weather is a matter of life and death because if he is caught in a storm on the lake, it doesn't matter how good he knows the waters, the waters will pretend they do not know him (scary,eh);

The sewer worker who dives into manholes to wade through excrement to look for that pesky blockage (yucky, eh?);

Pit-latrine diggers who go deep into the earth’s bowels as they scrape and fill buckets and buckets with soil, and sometimes the walls of the hole decide to get tired and cave in, and make them their mealy-meal (kitalo!, eh?);

Call-center agents in the service industry who are barraged with tonnes and tonnes of curse words when the electricity as little as flickers (kika, eh?);

Taxi conductors who ply the rural routes, the dusty potholed roads, the scorching-hot kameeme and abusive passengers who don't want to pay, and the words “mu maaso awo" are continuously ringing in their ears when they lay their heads down to sleep (buzzzzz, eh?);

Morgue workers whose companions are the corpses packed in trays with tags on their toes in that cold chamber (spooky, eh?);

The askari who treks to work where there will be no seat, no lunch, no hot cup of tea, and at the end of the month his pay-packet cannot even allow her to send money to her mother in the village. And woe betide you if you work at night and Kifeesi crew pounces and makes off with your bow and arrow (heeeeeh, eh?);

The nurse who tends to TB patients, and whose health is at risk any time any of them as much as clears their throats (risky, eh?);

The boda-boda rider for whom the sun and rain are not his friend, and who drivers in their guzzlers can knock him over at will just because he happens to be in their way (dangerous, eh?)

The prostitute (but this may be out of choice) whose body is on display for her to be able to attract clients who may refuse to pay her for her services, clients who may be carrying an incurable disease or clients who may have long-unresolved issues and heap them onto (and into) her. Pity the ones who stand in the dark street corners in skimpy dresses with no underwear and call themselves ShopRite on those cold dark nights (not sexy, eh?).

I recently watched a video about a crime scene cleaner in the US.  Even though he owns the company, he wipes up the spatters and the stains, deodorizes the gory scene. And earns THOUSANDS of dollars for his “undesirable” work.