I work in the night, late night actually.
Its not what you think. It is a legitimate job and I am paid per month, not per
round.
The limited time I have spent in the
customer service center of a telecommunication company, serving the low value
customers has given me a fresher perspective of my beloved mother land… and it
is not an encouraging picture. We are so lacking as a people that we may need
the second coming of Jesus if at all we are to have any glimmer of hope. I mean
the situation is so bad that sometimes I break down and cry (take that with a
grain of salt, or two for that matter)
For starters, the
levels of illiteracy are alarming. I honestly maintain that it is more a result
of a crippled education system as much as the lack of one. So you will pick up
a call, about twenty minutes after mid night and the sub is in need of
help.
– “My Facebook is
not working. Every time I try to visit the site, they tell me that
‘error’!”
–Have
you used the internet on your phone before?
_No! –Do you have an internet
bundle? –No!
Of
course after running the number through the system, you will discover that the
sub is using a Nokia 1200, a rudimentary non-internet enabled device.
I have also realized that the poverty is biting.
It is so loud it can be picked up on a microphone. The poverty is of an audible
kind. One of the results of this is a people so susceptible to deceit they are
wonderfully gullible and prone to petty theft. It is normal to pick up about
ten calls a day of people who have been conned clean of their yearly savings.
The man comes on the phone, and from the deep solemnity of his voice, you can
tell he is in the mid-thirties. They will usually ask if it is true that they
have won. You will proceed to ask them if they have been part of any promotions
and they will repeat in the negative. You will ask them then why they thing
they have ‘won’ and they will dive into the well-known story.
“Someone called me today morning at about
three thirty in the post meridian, he said that I have won with this company.
That I am a lucky winner of three million shillings and a brand new Toyota Premio. He said that in order to claim
my rewards, I should buy airtime of ten thousand shillings and read out the
voucher pin to them so that I can be registered. Then I should also send them
one hundred thousand shillings on their mobile wallet so as to be insured
before I claim the prize. I did not have the money so I hurried to my wife’s
purse and borrowed the ten thousand and then ran to the shop and purchased the
airtime, which I read to him.
I could not solicit the latter part of the
funds so I told him to deduct it from my bounty. The man has disappeared in
thin air. I have tried calling the number now and it is off! Can you imagine?”
What you really want to shout to the man
is how stupid they could have been but you cannot. First of all, it will get
you fired and well you know it is not their fault. Any poor man will light up
at the sound of a few shillings and famous people have been conned before, only
on a grander sale. They have been already robbed anyway, and the only thing you
can do is apologize and issue stern advice on the level of vigilance needed
when it comes to the matters of ‘abafere’,
like they are usually termed in one of the local dialects.
This kind of job opens you the doors to
the lowest rung of humanity and all the salient issues that rock their world.
Of people that neither read nor write, yet they are the back bone of the nation
and they live and die like that, only slightly aware of the basics of
civilization. May be I will become a humanitarian, in my next life, if
reincarnation is a theory to be trusted. This all breaks my heart and it is
literal this time.
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