I have noticed something very disturbing
with SOME men that I have had the displeasure of working with in the past
month. That is the habit of using terms of endearment like dear, sweetheart and
darling when addressing me, never mind the fact that we are not related in any
way. These words wouldn’t sound so bad or fill me with so much indignation if
they didn’t follow it up by trying to touch me.
I understand in the city people are
lovey-dovey, huggy-huggy, kissy-kissy, feely-feely and we are one big happy family but some
of us village folk find this a little bit too much. Like when you meet someone in town in the morning they hug you, you meet again in the afternoon they hug you. You meet in the matatu in the evening they hug you again. I mean how many times can someone hug you in a day?
Or like when the Kondi ushers you into the Matatu while lightly pushing the small
of your back, which for the life of me I do not understand. Or when you are so
squeezed in a Matatu, so much so that
you’re literally exchanging epithelial with you’re seatmates. Then the Kondi again, God bless his heart, has
his arms around you and his arm pits of course don’t exactly smell like peaches
and cream. The butcher guy also keeps asking me when he will come over to my
house we have dinner and he makes sure to touch my hands while handing me the
cow wrapped na gazeti ya kitambo.
I’m a serious believer in not mixing
business with pleasure. The only pleasure you should get from your work is the
satisfaction of having successfully completed the project that was assigned to
you by your boss or clients plus the salary/allowances of course. You could
also add the privilege of being able to be civil with your fellow colleagues at
work in an ideal work situation, but that’s as far as it should go. Anything
more than that is a sexual harassment suit waiting to happen.
What is so hard in just addressing me with
my first name or calling me Ms or Madam? Will it kill you to keep it strictly
professional as a man when dealing with a fellow woman in a professional
environment?
I think some men try to fraternize with
women they work with to get some favours and not necessarily sexual favours.
Not only is it condescending and rude but it really annoys the ladies enough to
hinder some of them from being effective in their place of work. This is
because men who address them this way probably do not really expect or think much
of them.
This person that I was working with had
this habit of always telling me things that makes me want heave like
“I trust
you that is why I am giving you this work”
(like
I was soooo... lucky that I got the project-guess I should have jumped up and
do the hula for him huh?)
“Please don’t let me down am, depending on you”
(For a moment there I had to wonder if it’s
about the project at hand or he wanted a kidney or something)
I
hate being begged to do work for which am going to get paid in the end. It is
your right as a client to get your moneys worth. When you beg it not only shows
you’re weak but it implies you do not believe in my abilities to go the extra
mile hence the need to appeal to my conscience. There’s a very thin line (read
China wall) between being courteous and grovelling as you ask for services that
many customers have erased over the years.
I remember in my old place of work a
man tried to bribe me to deliver a service which was his right to receive. He
could have easily reported me to my superior and I could have gotten the pink
slip. I was pissed that I explained to him that he did not have to bribe me
because he qualified and had a right as a Kenyan citizen to access that
service. I have even had calls this year from people claiming to work in
government offices holding senior positions, asking for bribes so as to give me
a job. I mean do I look like I have the word idiot written on my forehead? This
is ridiculous considering that I need to get money not hemorrhage money.
That’s why we keep getting shoddy work from service providers in Kenya because
we do not know that as consumers we are the boss.
What burns my biscuits these days is when
political aspirants promise voters stuff that is supposed to be our right to
get. I don’t see any of you promising your boss to do your work because you
already know what is expected of you. Don’t get me started on the sycophants
who kiss their bottoms every day making some leaders feel like they are gods.
We really have created these monsters. gawd!
One young female MP once complained that
when they(female employees) are in
some official functions, the mature(read
old) male MP’s call them “my daughter” before proceeding to send them on
errands like to go get their tea from the table that most of the time are a
walking distance from where they are standing.
God forbid they should miss anything as the other minister who is
narrating some story which of course can wait but nooooo...
When this genius who insisted on calling me
dear every time he addressed me realized that he did not succeed in buttering
me up to do extra job for no pay, he had
the marbles to tell me that there was something wrong with my writing. I know I
really need to improve on some areas but I will definitely not be taking advice
from him. I mean Mr. genius cannot even write a simple email in clear elementary
English so forgive me for taking offense when he had the gull to criticize my
writing style. He realized since I refused to be super friendly with him he could
do the next best thing by making me doubt my writing ability. This I also find
funny because in the past my writing has never been a problem.
Yeah I know I do not have a chip on my
shoulder, I have the whole dang tree trunk!
If we ever hope to co-exist in the business
world both sexes and achieve our goals then there better be some kind of
respect. Come to think of it, I have never heard this man address his fellow
men as dear so clearly it shows just how he perceives the women that he works
with in the office. I was tempted to ask
him if I have a tail on my back just to annoy him but I doubt if he would have
caught on the word play. My kid sister has this clever habit of always
correcting men who call her ‘sweetheart’ at work - “sorry my name is Helen not
sweetheart. Gets me every time!
So lovely people as you go about doing your
work in the office this week please refrain from using terms of endearment or
pet names to address those ladies in the office. I’m sure most of them hate it but
are too polite to tell you. Hence yours truly steps in her super woman cat suit
to save the day. What would you do without me ladies? What would you do without
me?J
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