Down town Nyeri is the place to be. A cacophonous place teeming with (confused) activity as pedestrians compete with delivery trucks, matatus, boda bodas and handcart pushers for right of way and where booming music coming from a myriad of speakers advertising the wares on sale deafens all but those with the keenest of hearing. This is epicenter of the matatu business, actually one of three, and affectionately known as ‘stage ya chini’, where matatus arriving from Nairobi, Muranga, Karatina, Othaya etc jostle for space as they pick up and disgorge their passengers like hungry beasts eating and vomiting at the same time creating an almost perpetual traffic gridlock and where the main parcel delivery pick up and drop off points for the various matatu Sacco’s are located. This must be how hell looks and sounds like on a normal day!
It is also where you have many micro and SME businesses located in a swathe awash with all manner of businesses from hardware, spares, used clothes, small supermarkets, wholesalers, green grocers, paper sellers, CD’s and VCD’s, hats, shoes, bananas and other fruits, assorted vegetables, restaurants, offices, cafes, hotels, opticians, drycleaners, mobile phones, airtime and so on. This is where the main Soko Mjinga market (no idea why it is named so) is located and where all manner of business is conducted by enterprising people who call this hodge podge, mish mash area their office or work place! In the evening this street becomes a large open air flea market where vegetables, shoes, clothes and all manner of goods are displayed on the pavements and on part of the road thanks to the largesse of the county government possible to appease the many disgruntled hawkers and other people who need to earn a living. God help you if you trample on someone’s wares so you have to look out where you step!
To add to this cacophony, Naivas Supermarket a national supermarket chain with stores across the country opened its doors recently (on 30th December 2014) to an almost tumultuous welcome from Nyeri residents – a New Year’s gift to them no doubt! This is the first building with escalators within the building and it looked like the grand stand at Immoler or Hockenheim what with the many residents wanting to experience the sensation of a first time ride on an escalator some even sitting down probably suffering from motion sickness. I am sure the other supermarkets did little business that day as a result of the excitement generated by Naivas because Nyeri residents now have a choice of supermarket to shop at between the existing ‘big’ three Kasturi, Samrat & Maathai and now Naivas so competition is bound to bring a lot of relief to the town residents and is bound to attract shoppers from other outlying areas in Nyeri County out to satisfy their curiosity and possibly get a good bargain in the process.
Welcome to Nyeri Naivas!!
Tuesday, 30 December 2014
Tuesday, 16 December 2014
The carcass count was high:
The carcass count was extremely high on my drive up one Monday morning. I counted at least 8 mangled and mashed remains of some unidentifiable animals on the 141 kilometer drive to Nyeri from my home in Nairobi. Usually it is only one or two unfortunate animals that have been dispatched to their maker on the same drive most days the question of whether animals go to heaven or hell notwithstanding!!
So could there be a logical explanation to this phenomenon? I have my theories.
Perhaps these unfortunate animals are in some form of torpor and in their frenzied state of mind find they are unable to resist the urge to jump into the path of a fast moving vehicle to a sure suicide. Many must be aware of the lemming effect where Lemmings, an arctic rodent, have become the subject of a widely popular misconception that they commit mass suicide when they migrate which is apparently not true. Or maybe our own animals here in Kenya just have the urge to see how adept they might be at dodging a speeding vehicle as they scamper across the road……a death wish so to speak. I wonder also how many more escaped unscathed or with some injuries in their macabre dance with death!
Now for those who are non-golfers stop reading right here since the rest of this post will make no sense to you because you have to experience golf to understand it fully!!
This insane lemming like behavior reminds me of that of a golfer because golf is one of those sports that is constantly looking to humiliate you, single handicap or being a professional golfer notwithstanding. From the time you pick up the sport and get started, it’s like you have been injected with a hormone or a drug that causes you to go into a state of torpor and lose all your sensibilities and makes you keep on coming back for more mistreatment, humiliation and punishment for I am yet to meet a golfer who at one time or another did not contemplate throwing their golf clubs into the nearest lake or water body after a particularly torrid round of golf!
The relationship of many amateur golfers to the sport is in a constant state of flux of love and hate because one day you can pull of a wonderful, flawless round of golf and make some good money from your betting friends in addition to being called up to the podium to receive your prize while congratulations and accolades come in from all those admiring your prowess. The very next day (and for two weeks to come) you are in golfing hell, struggling to stay out of the forest, the bunkers and the rough and hacking, shanking, topping and generally having a miserable time on the course. Your efforts after such a showing will be rewarded with a well boiled goat head or some other equally inane prize in front of all the guests & members as well as being forced to dig deep into your pocket to pay out on your bets with additional humiliation particularly today of your vain efforts being posted as a social media video a permanent record of your tribulations as you tried to get out of a bunker!
Golfers are therefore like the carcasses that I came across recently on the highway but this time victims of the golf course whose sole purpose it would seem is to place a fairway bunker at the nearest reaches of your driver, place the flag at the position most likely to attract your ball into the accompanying greenside bunker, create water hazards and out of bounds that magically attract golf balls, roughs that miraculously swallow golf balls, and other obstacles designed to frustrate the average amateur golfer into almost committing suicide as they attempt to navigate the gamut of any golf course around the world traversing whizzing golf balls, wayward hitters, difficult and wordy rules, bunkers, water hazards, the rough, out of bounds and etiquette rules that defines how one dresses, behaves, stands, marks their ball and generally ruining your well-ordered life as you struggle to make head or tail of it all.
Despite all the challenges, and like the proverbial suicidal lemming, you are bound to see the same golfer next week coming back for more punishment and humiliation, throwing themselves at the mercy of the golf course waiting to dodge another speeding vehicle in the name of the game of golf and hoping to come out unscathed on the other side for however badly you play you always want to come back to prove to yourself and the world that your golf isn’t really so bad or if you had an excellent round that it was not just a flash in the pan and you need to prove to yourself that you can repeat your excellent performance.
No golfer after all ever leaves home with the intention of playing a bad round of golf, but the reality is that the golf highway is plagued with numerous obstacles and speeding vehicles enough to make you throw a tantrum and forever heaping the blame on someone else…..anyone from your caddy, your fellow players, your boss, your spouse,your choice of club, your friends and your heavy head after a wild party the previous day…….anyone but your bad golf skills!!
But that is the essence of the game of golf and why golfers keep coming back for more as we are all gluttons for punishment like those trouble makers in school back in the day who, try as they may, always found themselves on the receiving end of a punishment. If this isn’t madness doing the same thing and hoping for a different result then I don’t know what is and all golfers should get their head examined every so often for their own sanity sake!
So remember to keep them straight and on the fairway lest you become part of the carcass count that I passed by enroute to Nyeri not too long ago…....……and for those non-golfers who have continued to read this post until the end, take on the fairways to understand what this post is all about!!
Adios!!
Tuesday, 9 December 2014
The Brits have failed........
I am not surprised at the emerging evidence that some people ate ‘chicken’ a few years ago through inflated pricing for the printing of ballot and examination papers. I am however surprised that the people called the British whose language we inherited alongside a slew of our own ‘native’ languages thanks to several years of their colonization in the early part of the 20th Century and who are supposed to be the defenders of proper diction, command and vocabulary required of the English language could fail so miserably when it comes to identifying someone to represent their business interests. ‘Willis the Wordsmith’ is probably furious they did not choose him!
It would be assumed that for an agent representing the business interests of a British company, the very basic requirement for such an executive appointment would be a suitable candidate identified after a well defined recruitment process who would be at the minimum someone with a good command of the English language in both its spoken and written form and well versed in the idiosyncrasies, grammatical requirements, sentence construction and rules required of being able to express oneself in the Queen’s English. After all, how would you be expected to converse with someone who cannot talk the same language as you?
But it looks like in their haste and probably without due care and regard to what would be considered proper employment practices, they have settled on a fellow whose command of the English language at least in its written form (since I have not heard him speak) could at best be described as wanting. This company is now a candidate for 'laughing stock of the year' in the British corporate world!
The diction and spelling of this agent can be best compared to that of a 6 year old just learning his alphabets. His keyboard continuously and shamelessly slashes, hacks and distorts what he is trying to say in his broken, grammatical style with no flair, no capitalizing of his proper nouns and no full stops and commas as required under the stringent rules of business English. It must have caused his employers to grimace now that every correspondence is being scrutinized in a court of law every time his emails and any other written correspondences that he may have penned are read out because with defiitely no secretary and no secretariat he must have been forced to write letters and emails himself.
This agent may have been brilliant in obtaining business for his employer in Kenya but the High Court in Britain should also bring charges of ‘assaulting’ the English language against both he and his employer to teach the British Corporate world a lesson in executive appointments!
It would be assumed that for an agent representing the business interests of a British company, the very basic requirement for such an executive appointment would be a suitable candidate identified after a well defined recruitment process who would be at the minimum someone with a good command of the English language in both its spoken and written form and well versed in the idiosyncrasies, grammatical requirements, sentence construction and rules required of being able to express oneself in the Queen’s English. After all, how would you be expected to converse with someone who cannot talk the same language as you?
But it looks like in their haste and probably without due care and regard to what would be considered proper employment practices, they have settled on a fellow whose command of the English language at least in its written form (since I have not heard him speak) could at best be described as wanting. This company is now a candidate for 'laughing stock of the year' in the British corporate world!
The diction and spelling of this agent can be best compared to that of a 6 year old just learning his alphabets. His keyboard continuously and shamelessly slashes, hacks and distorts what he is trying to say in his broken, grammatical style with no flair, no capitalizing of his proper nouns and no full stops and commas as required under the stringent rules of business English. It must have caused his employers to grimace now that every correspondence is being scrutinized in a court of law every time his emails and any other written correspondences that he may have penned are read out because with defiitely no secretary and no secretariat he must have been forced to write letters and emails himself.
This agent may have been brilliant in obtaining business for his employer in Kenya but the High Court in Britain should also bring charges of ‘assaulting’ the English language against both he and his employer to teach the British Corporate world a lesson in executive appointments!
Friday, 21 November 2014
Exams for 5 & 6 year olds?
The children of today are a hardened lot. My colleague recently informed me that she needed time off to take her 6 year old daughter for an early morning interview at one of the leading private schools in town. The trend in private schools in Kenya is for children to undergo an interview (written) to determine their suitability to join a particular school. Yes, even 5 & 6 year olds joining Standard 1 & 2 in these schools go through this interview process I learnt. I am not sure if my grown up daughters underwent the same interviews at the tender ages of 5 & 6 years old. It was too long ago for me to remember!
I began chatting with my colleague and she brought up an interesting issue that I had never thought about. While it is the right of every private school to prescribe entry level requirements to join their school, what happens to such a child who fails their interview process? Since the school is in all likelihood going to disclose the results of the interview to the parent and not the child, how does a parent break this news to the child that they have failed? Does a child of 5 or 6 years even understand the concept of failing at this tender age?
If I were the parent of a child who failed in such an interview, I would lie to my child that the school was full and could not take any more children, which means that my conscience is also pricked by that lie since I cannot tell my child the truth that they have failed a simple interview where numbers, alphabets, drawing and coloring were their undoing (how mistaken I was. see footnote herebelow!). What psychological trauma would my child suffer on account of the truth that they have failed in an interview at such an early age? Would the truth as told to them be then ingrained in their sub-conscious minds that they cannot possibly succeed in later life? Would it make them feel later on in life that they are good for nothing failures?
I honestly don’t know but this business of interview tests for very young children is just another money making scheme for the private schools similar to the practice of sale of tender documents in the corporate world supposedly to discourage time wasters and it should be discontinued because it is a source of worry to the parents should the child fail and a possible contributor of long term psychological trauma for the failed child and their lying parents!! Kids should be left to be kids at tender ages and subjecting them to tests that last throughout the day is surely taking things too far.
I am not an educationist and would like to understand the rationale behind these things because surely this must have the approval of some body within the government seeing that it has been happening for a very long time. Since all schools issue report forms to their students in whichever class they are in why aren’t these results taken as a record of the performance of a child and their ability therefore to proceed to the next class in a new school? Call me naïve if you wish but as a social commentator I need to know if this is right, just and fair!
Footnote: By the way, my colleague later disclosed to me that the interview tests are real and involve papers in English, Mathematics, Kiswahili & Social Sciences. Social Sciences!! No wonder these kids lug around those heavy school bags loaded with tomes of school books with many suffering from back problems at tender ages. And yes my colleague’s daughter passed the interview tests and shall be admitted to Standard 2 in the school in question.
I began chatting with my colleague and she brought up an interesting issue that I had never thought about. While it is the right of every private school to prescribe entry level requirements to join their school, what happens to such a child who fails their interview process? Since the school is in all likelihood going to disclose the results of the interview to the parent and not the child, how does a parent break this news to the child that they have failed? Does a child of 5 or 6 years even understand the concept of failing at this tender age?
If I were the parent of a child who failed in such an interview, I would lie to my child that the school was full and could not take any more children, which means that my conscience is also pricked by that lie since I cannot tell my child the truth that they have failed a simple interview where numbers, alphabets, drawing and coloring were their undoing (how mistaken I was. see footnote herebelow!). What psychological trauma would my child suffer on account of the truth that they have failed in an interview at such an early age? Would the truth as told to them be then ingrained in their sub-conscious minds that they cannot possibly succeed in later life? Would it make them feel later on in life that they are good for nothing failures?
I honestly don’t know but this business of interview tests for very young children is just another money making scheme for the private schools similar to the practice of sale of tender documents in the corporate world supposedly to discourage time wasters and it should be discontinued because it is a source of worry to the parents should the child fail and a possible contributor of long term psychological trauma for the failed child and their lying parents!! Kids should be left to be kids at tender ages and subjecting them to tests that last throughout the day is surely taking things too far.
I am not an educationist and would like to understand the rationale behind these things because surely this must have the approval of some body within the government seeing that it has been happening for a very long time. Since all schools issue report forms to their students in whichever class they are in why aren’t these results taken as a record of the performance of a child and their ability therefore to proceed to the next class in a new school? Call me naïve if you wish but as a social commentator I need to know if this is right, just and fair!
Footnote: By the way, my colleague later disclosed to me that the interview tests are real and involve papers in English, Mathematics, Kiswahili & Social Sciences. Social Sciences!! No wonder these kids lug around those heavy school bags loaded with tomes of school books with many suffering from back problems at tender ages. And yes my colleague’s daughter passed the interview tests and shall be admitted to Standard 2 in the school in question.
Tuesday, 18 November 2014
For Men Only: Do you drill a hole in the ice?
This is a post that ladies shall not be able to understand because it relates to a closely guarded secret relating to a room frequented by men. So ladies stop right here……you have been warned!!
Now guys, I am sure you have all visited those high end hotels and restaurants that have sprouted across the country in the last few years. I am talking about those posh places where you are either invited as a guest for a cocktail party or a corporate event and where the price of a beer would afford you two beers at your local pub. I am specifically referring to those that now have the practice of conspicuously consuming huge quantities of ice……………………………..in their urinals which only happens in the men’s bathroom!
Before I continue, ladies………..…especially you over there in the corner (no names mentioned but you know yourself), yes you, stop reading now for this post is directed at the men!
I wondered for a long time why the waste of perfectly good ice in the men’s urinal. The secret can now be revealed. The main reason from my online research (yep…even such questions can be answered on google!) is that the melting ice acts as a slow, continuous flush washing away the warm piss as it melts the ice and more importantly leaves hardly any residual smell. It is also cheaper than those urinal balls that we are all used to. Inane as it may sound, many men also forget to flush away their piss even when the flush is provided at the urinal and in my opinion also prevents back splatter when your aim is off for reasons of trembling hands or being in drunken stagger mode or any other reasons. It also discourages flies from swarming since they cannot stand the cold air generated by the ice cube filled urinal.
Since I know that the ladies have heeded my warning and stopped reading this post after my initial warnings, I hope the guys can forgive me for revealing this secret of the men’s washrooms!!
But it doesn’t end there! I feel that there is a nefarious reason for the use of ice and it is also a plot to punish those who are getting on in age and are therefore unable to maintain a stream of piss strong enough to melt a substantial quantity of ice that a younger bloke would easily decimate in no time. The older you are the lesser the power of the stream so the possibility of drilling a hole clean through to the bottom of the ice should not be attempted lest you sprain one of the muscles that powers the piss stream!
I was reminded of this over the weekend when a visit to the urinal in one of those posh hotels revealed that the occupant prior to my visit had drilled a perfect hole right through to the bottom of the ice. My own lame attempt to emulate that fellow hardly seemed to shift any significant numbers of ice cubes much as a summoned all my reserves leading me to the logical conclusion that I was clearly in the over the hill league when it comes to powering my stream which is hardly solace to someone trying hard to pretend that he is still very much in the picture when it comes to macho matters!!.
So, if you are no longer able to drill a hole in the ice you are not alone but have joined a growing list of dribblers whose abilities have taken a pounding in many fronts over the years. As for the ladies who could not follow simple instructions contained in the beginning of this post, you can be the ambassadors of the little secret that men have been hiding all these years.
Now guys, I am sure you have all visited those high end hotels and restaurants that have sprouted across the country in the last few years. I am talking about those posh places where you are either invited as a guest for a cocktail party or a corporate event and where the price of a beer would afford you two beers at your local pub. I am specifically referring to those that now have the practice of conspicuously consuming huge quantities of ice……………………………..in their urinals which only happens in the men’s bathroom!
Before I continue, ladies………..…especially you over there in the corner (no names mentioned but you know yourself), yes you, stop reading now for this post is directed at the men!
I wondered for a long time why the waste of perfectly good ice in the men’s urinal. The secret can now be revealed. The main reason from my online research (yep…even such questions can be answered on google!) is that the melting ice acts as a slow, continuous flush washing away the warm piss as it melts the ice and more importantly leaves hardly any residual smell. It is also cheaper than those urinal balls that we are all used to. Inane as it may sound, many men also forget to flush away their piss even when the flush is provided at the urinal and in my opinion also prevents back splatter when your aim is off for reasons of trembling hands or being in drunken stagger mode or any other reasons. It also discourages flies from swarming since they cannot stand the cold air generated by the ice cube filled urinal.
Since I know that the ladies have heeded my warning and stopped reading this post after my initial warnings, I hope the guys can forgive me for revealing this secret of the men’s washrooms!!
But it doesn’t end there! I feel that there is a nefarious reason for the use of ice and it is also a plot to punish those who are getting on in age and are therefore unable to maintain a stream of piss strong enough to melt a substantial quantity of ice that a younger bloke would easily decimate in no time. The older you are the lesser the power of the stream so the possibility of drilling a hole clean through to the bottom of the ice should not be attempted lest you sprain one of the muscles that powers the piss stream!
I was reminded of this over the weekend when a visit to the urinal in one of those posh hotels revealed that the occupant prior to my visit had drilled a perfect hole right through to the bottom of the ice. My own lame attempt to emulate that fellow hardly seemed to shift any significant numbers of ice cubes much as a summoned all my reserves leading me to the logical conclusion that I was clearly in the over the hill league when it comes to powering my stream which is hardly solace to someone trying hard to pretend that he is still very much in the picture when it comes to macho matters!!.
So, if you are no longer able to drill a hole in the ice you are not alone but have joined a growing list of dribblers whose abilities have taken a pounding in many fronts over the years. As for the ladies who could not follow simple instructions contained in the beginning of this post, you can be the ambassadors of the little secret that men have been hiding all these years.
Saturday, 15 November 2014
More insurance at my age. No thank you!
“Good morning Sir. I hope the Lord has been merciful and kind to you thus far!” the guy mumbled! At first I didn’t hear what he said so I asked him to repeat himself. This young man was probably in his early 20’s fresh out of college and raring to go out to make an impression in this big bad world selling life insurance. Why does everyone think that Bank Managers are always in need of life insurance and are therefore the first port of call for any aspiring insurance salesman?
Back to the young man! I stopped him dead in his tracks after he repeated his initial greeting unsure of what I had just heard and then proceeded to lecture him about his sales technique. You see, in sales and unless you are very sure of the affiliation of the party you are selling your products to never, ever invoke religion as a tactic to get empathy or whatever from your potential client more so now after Pastor Kanyari has been exposed for what he is though I digress!!
Invoking the name of the Lord to help you sell your product is unnecessary and unprofessional simply because you are telling the person you are selling to that you do not respect their religious beliefs. They could be atheists, agnostics, pagans, Hindus, Zoroastrians or Hare Krishna’s for all you know meaning that reference to the Lord could inevitably create a barrier with them. The fact that you have pre-judged a person as being of a Christian persuasion simply because of an assumption based on predominance, name and vocation is wrong and unacceptable and is like assuming that all those people that you meet in a bar are there to partake of an alcoholic drink!
I continued with my lecture to him that at the age of many Bank Managers it would be very expensive to purchase a life insurance product on account of our relatively advanced age and having been in the financial services sector for a considerable length of time then they would have long realized that the employers pension was never going to be enough on retirement and would have therefore already taken out a long term investment linked life policy as they plan for their retirement. In any case, I went on, I already had employer group linked policies for personal accident, medical and life and in addition I had three separate investment policies (one of them with his employer), a personal accident policy, a Domestic package policy, a motor policy, a separate medical policy and a golfer’s policy! All I now need is an insurance policy guaranteeing a reduction in my handicap in future!
The fact of the matter is that anyone over the age of 45 years is probably already in a relationship with one or more insurance companies on a long term investment policy to mature when they are in their 60’s. The focus therefore for the young aspiring insurance salesman should be on their age mates fresh out of college with hardly any commitments and get them to buy into a term life investment linked policy however small the initial premium. It looks like they believe that only the Bank Managers who can afford higher premium policies are the quickest way to riches! No wonder insurance penetration has been hovering around the 3% mark in Kenya for such a long time!
But this young guy was persistent I must admit and he must have been in the front row of his insurance sales class because after I was done, unfazed he asked me for references………………….. after offering to sell me WIBA! What, hadn’t he heard a thing I had said about age? I was now tempted to boot him out of my office because my friends are my age mates and the same argument as above holds true with many of them already having investment plans in place and sending them a fresh faced insurance salesman to sell them another policy would just piss them off royally!
What I told him in resignation at his persistence was that he was better off looking for people his own age that he could engage with and fascinate with the insurance products that he had to offer and forget about the guys who were already through with education policies and school fees policies because this is where many of my age mates are since they in all likelihood were already investing considerable amounts in investment linked life policies.
So my friends, you are safe because I decided a long time ago that I would not provide insurance references of my friend to salespeople to come and bother you in your offices. This is out of empathy since I know you feel the same way that I do when confronted by them yet you feel you are upto your ears in premium payments already.
Do however take out inpatient medical insurance for your aging parents since there are still some insurance underwriters that accept to have someone on cover so long as they have not surpassed a certain age. If my memory serves me right the one with the maximum age limit allows those upto the age of 75 to continue on cover so long as they signed up before that age but subject to certain restrictions on the scope of cover.
It would be appreciated if the same spirit of not referring me to any insurance salespeople would also be observed as a quid quo pro and with all due respect to the hard working people in insurance sales out there!
Back to the young man! I stopped him dead in his tracks after he repeated his initial greeting unsure of what I had just heard and then proceeded to lecture him about his sales technique. You see, in sales and unless you are very sure of the affiliation of the party you are selling your products to never, ever invoke religion as a tactic to get empathy or whatever from your potential client more so now after Pastor Kanyari has been exposed for what he is though I digress!!
Invoking the name of the Lord to help you sell your product is unnecessary and unprofessional simply because you are telling the person you are selling to that you do not respect their religious beliefs. They could be atheists, agnostics, pagans, Hindus, Zoroastrians or Hare Krishna’s for all you know meaning that reference to the Lord could inevitably create a barrier with them. The fact that you have pre-judged a person as being of a Christian persuasion simply because of an assumption based on predominance, name and vocation is wrong and unacceptable and is like assuming that all those people that you meet in a bar are there to partake of an alcoholic drink!
I continued with my lecture to him that at the age of many Bank Managers it would be very expensive to purchase a life insurance product on account of our relatively advanced age and having been in the financial services sector for a considerable length of time then they would have long realized that the employers pension was never going to be enough on retirement and would have therefore already taken out a long term investment linked life policy as they plan for their retirement. In any case, I went on, I already had employer group linked policies for personal accident, medical and life and in addition I had three separate investment policies (one of them with his employer), a personal accident policy, a Domestic package policy, a motor policy, a separate medical policy and a golfer’s policy! All I now need is an insurance policy guaranteeing a reduction in my handicap in future!
The fact of the matter is that anyone over the age of 45 years is probably already in a relationship with one or more insurance companies on a long term investment policy to mature when they are in their 60’s. The focus therefore for the young aspiring insurance salesman should be on their age mates fresh out of college with hardly any commitments and get them to buy into a term life investment linked policy however small the initial premium. It looks like they believe that only the Bank Managers who can afford higher premium policies are the quickest way to riches! No wonder insurance penetration has been hovering around the 3% mark in Kenya for such a long time!
But this young guy was persistent I must admit and he must have been in the front row of his insurance sales class because after I was done, unfazed he asked me for references………………….. after offering to sell me WIBA! What, hadn’t he heard a thing I had said about age? I was now tempted to boot him out of my office because my friends are my age mates and the same argument as above holds true with many of them already having investment plans in place and sending them a fresh faced insurance salesman to sell them another policy would just piss them off royally!
What I told him in resignation at his persistence was that he was better off looking for people his own age that he could engage with and fascinate with the insurance products that he had to offer and forget about the guys who were already through with education policies and school fees policies because this is where many of my age mates are since they in all likelihood were already investing considerable amounts in investment linked life policies.
So my friends, you are safe because I decided a long time ago that I would not provide insurance references of my friend to salespeople to come and bother you in your offices. This is out of empathy since I know you feel the same way that I do when confronted by them yet you feel you are upto your ears in premium payments already.
Do however take out inpatient medical insurance for your aging parents since there are still some insurance underwriters that accept to have someone on cover so long as they have not surpassed a certain age. If my memory serves me right the one with the maximum age limit allows those upto the age of 75 to continue on cover so long as they signed up before that age but subject to certain restrictions on the scope of cover.
It would be appreciated if the same spirit of not referring me to any insurance salespeople would also be observed as a quid quo pro and with all due respect to the hard working people in insurance sales out there!
Wednesday, 12 November 2014
Is this the side of Nyeri that I have never seen?
Is this the side of Nyeri County that I always hear about but have never really seen first-hand, of young men too drunk most of the time to do anything meaningful with their lives? This story shall have to end rather abruptly because I have no conclusions and I am at a loss because an inheritance of the amount that he received would indicate that this is not your normal story of someone from a poor family being jobless and therefore unable to fend for himself and thus being reduced to a life of perennial drinking and partying.
Recently a man hobbling on crutches walks into my office. He looks to be in pain and do I detect a whiff of alcohol? You see I operate an open door policy (even if the physical door remains closed) where anyone, client or colleague, can walk in without an appointment and so long as I am not busy on something else.
As is my custom I welcome him into my office and he sits down. Now the smell of alcohol is undeniable and hangs heavily in the air. I suspect that this is another sob story to the Bank Manager and I can bet a million bob I will not be disappointed. So he starts off rather hesitantly about how he has recently had an accident with his vehicle and now the car requires to be fixed so that he may sell it, the quotation for which is a princely sum of Kshs. 125,000.00. He is expecting some money from another bank being his share of his late father’s estate and does not have the money in his account at present but would like a loan that we can then recover when the estate proceeds come in ‘soon’!
The guys is obviously inebriated, actually plastered would be a more apt description, despite it being only 1.00 pm in the afternoon and is repeating the same story in a different version trying to get me to see his side of the story. I tell him that I require to see evidence relating to the purported transfer of money to his account with us which after some fumbling and mumbling he claims to have understood. I then ask him in Kiswahili if he has understood me, “Umenielewa” to which he belligerently responds “Sijalewa” (I am not drunk)!! It takes a lot of my considerable will power for me not to burst out laughing because he is either hard of hearing or is hearing his own things but like the serious sot that he clearly is, he is denying his drunkenness even when he has not been asked the question!
Before I continue, let me retract a little and put this story into perspective as I found out after he had left the office on his merry way Kshs. 500.00 bob richer thanks to a loan to him.
The father passed away recently and was a businessman of considerable repute in town owning various businesses and properties. His assets were distributed by the administrators of his estate and the visitor to my office had inherited some good money in cash as well as the accident prone vehicle which he now needed to repair. It was probably just sheer luck that had kept him alive after the accidents as shall become clear shortly. God after all supposedly takes care of drunkards and children!
Immediately the inheritance was transferred to his recently opened account with the bank he started on a spree of heavy drinking and partying and wasteful spending if his current state was anything to go by. This ensured that a small fortune of over Kshs. 2 Million in cash was no more a few short months later. Daily cash withdrawals either at the ATM or at the bank counters while accompanied by a group of 2 or 3 henchmen no doubt out to share in the spoils was the order of the day and with no credits to the account this tap had to eventually run dry. Probably abandoned by his friends now that he is penniless he appears desperate to resume some semblance of a respectable life style and with no apparent income sources had visited the bank on a mission to spin me a yarn and convince me about some money coming to him as a further inheritance that I suspect is just a tale as tall as Aesop’s fables!
I was having none of his story which was disjointed and clumsy in any case and interspersed with tirades against other family members in successful businesses nearby and bitter denunciations about them all pointing to a rather troubled man. As I had figured out all along he changed tact and cut to the chase and openly asked me to lend him some money with promises of repaying me ‘soon’ which I parted with glad to get rid of him from my office which was now literally foggy with alcoholic fumes!!
As I sent him on his way with a Kshs. 500.00 loan (which I am sure I shall never see) and profuse expressions of gratitude from him I couldn’t help but feel sorry and wonder what had led to this troubled man being where he was. Was it a lack of financial discipline as he was growing up? Did he have a very disadvantaged upbringing? Or was he just a careless person?
Tafakari hayo!!
Recently a man hobbling on crutches walks into my office. He looks to be in pain and do I detect a whiff of alcohol? You see I operate an open door policy (even if the physical door remains closed) where anyone, client or colleague, can walk in without an appointment and so long as I am not busy on something else.
As is my custom I welcome him into my office and he sits down. Now the smell of alcohol is undeniable and hangs heavily in the air. I suspect that this is another sob story to the Bank Manager and I can bet a million bob I will not be disappointed. So he starts off rather hesitantly about how he has recently had an accident with his vehicle and now the car requires to be fixed so that he may sell it, the quotation for which is a princely sum of Kshs. 125,000.00. He is expecting some money from another bank being his share of his late father’s estate and does not have the money in his account at present but would like a loan that we can then recover when the estate proceeds come in ‘soon’!
The guys is obviously inebriated, actually plastered would be a more apt description, despite it being only 1.00 pm in the afternoon and is repeating the same story in a different version trying to get me to see his side of the story. I tell him that I require to see evidence relating to the purported transfer of money to his account with us which after some fumbling and mumbling he claims to have understood. I then ask him in Kiswahili if he has understood me, “Umenielewa” to which he belligerently responds “Sijalewa” (I am not drunk)!! It takes a lot of my considerable will power for me not to burst out laughing because he is either hard of hearing or is hearing his own things but like the serious sot that he clearly is, he is denying his drunkenness even when he has not been asked the question!
Before I continue, let me retract a little and put this story into perspective as I found out after he had left the office on his merry way Kshs. 500.00 bob richer thanks to a loan to him.
The father passed away recently and was a businessman of considerable repute in town owning various businesses and properties. His assets were distributed by the administrators of his estate and the visitor to my office had inherited some good money in cash as well as the accident prone vehicle which he now needed to repair. It was probably just sheer luck that had kept him alive after the accidents as shall become clear shortly. God after all supposedly takes care of drunkards and children!
Immediately the inheritance was transferred to his recently opened account with the bank he started on a spree of heavy drinking and partying and wasteful spending if his current state was anything to go by. This ensured that a small fortune of over Kshs. 2 Million in cash was no more a few short months later. Daily cash withdrawals either at the ATM or at the bank counters while accompanied by a group of 2 or 3 henchmen no doubt out to share in the spoils was the order of the day and with no credits to the account this tap had to eventually run dry. Probably abandoned by his friends now that he is penniless he appears desperate to resume some semblance of a respectable life style and with no apparent income sources had visited the bank on a mission to spin me a yarn and convince me about some money coming to him as a further inheritance that I suspect is just a tale as tall as Aesop’s fables!
I was having none of his story which was disjointed and clumsy in any case and interspersed with tirades against other family members in successful businesses nearby and bitter denunciations about them all pointing to a rather troubled man. As I had figured out all along he changed tact and cut to the chase and openly asked me to lend him some money with promises of repaying me ‘soon’ which I parted with glad to get rid of him from my office which was now literally foggy with alcoholic fumes!!
As I sent him on his way with a Kshs. 500.00 loan (which I am sure I shall never see) and profuse expressions of gratitude from him I couldn’t help but feel sorry and wonder what had led to this troubled man being where he was. Was it a lack of financial discipline as he was growing up? Did he have a very disadvantaged upbringing? Or was he just a careless person?
Tafakari hayo!!
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