By Ogova Ondego
Published June 17, 2023
Twenty-two-year-old Anne Iminza was thrilled when she was offered the job of a film officer upon graduation from university. Bubbling with joy, she was always the first to report to her 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM work and the last to leave. But soon her work grew so routine and monotonous that going to work became the drudgery she loved to hate.
Like her older and senior colleagues, Iminza would report for work in the morning, read the newspaper and then leave her jacket on the seat to hoodwink others that she was in while, in reality, she was away attending to her private affairs. Soon she started receiving letters of warning from her supervisors on her unbecoming misdemeanor.
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Never being a person of routine, young Iminza quit her job. And so did secondary teacher John Otieno, police constable Mary Chemweno and factory assembly line worker Stephen Kilibwa.
Yes, too many people are bored stiff with their jobs today but cannot quit because there are no jobs waiting for them. So they just hang in there just to pay the bills.There are no prizes to predict the productivity of such people who torture themselves in doing what they hate.
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Whether you are a clerk, a receptionist, a guard, a matatu driver or a salesman, you can make your job enjoyable through enthusiasm and a positive attitude, so says The Plain Truth magazine
The Christian publication says some jobs are naturally interesting as they are filled with variety while others are routine and could be done by robots. Whatever the job, the periodical says, one should look not for routine but the variety that the job offers. Boredom is offered not by a job, the magazine says, but by the way the worker reacts to it. Don’t you agree?
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For many workers the job of a guard or watchman is routine. And so is that of a mass mailing worker or primary school teacher. Right?
I held that perception till I met David Dimba Jakobuya, a young man who had risen from the position of a guard to that of aide de camp to the late Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, the first Vice-President and Father of Political pluralism in Kenya.
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What was Dimba Jakobuya’s secret?
He was enthusiastic about his job and went out of his way to learn more than wasrequired of him. He says he learnt more about the home and even gave special tuition to primary school-going children in the home he guarded.
Ralph Onyango, another watchman, became a mechanic supervisor by just observing how lifts were repaired at his place of work.
Many employers, The Plain Truth magazine says, do not know how to make their employees fulfilled and happier but that this is no reason for any one to feel bored or quit one’s job.
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