The phone rings. Satellite or whatever it still’s a phone!
“Hello!”
“Hello, it’s me!” “Me!’ we have many me’s these days. Which one of them is this one!
“Who am I talking to?” No sorry, no niceties. Well, usually when you’re ‘the dark employer’ and you remote control every single one of them you don’t need no niceties.
“It’s me rom Nairobi.”
“Oh, Nairobi! What are you guys over there doing?” This is one angry ‘employer!’ I mean the guy at the other thing is deep in “I just called to say I love you,” mood, and that’s what he gets!
“We’re doing our best.”
“No you’re not! You’re not doing your best!”
Now doing ‘the best’ is subjective; the ‘employee’ thinks he’s working his #$% off and the ‘employer’ thinks he isn’t working it hard enough! (Oh good old Lenin where art thou? It is time we could use the revised version of that “You lose nothing but you chains!” slogan of you guys. You know, something like “You lose nothing but your checks!”
“You don’t seem happy with us!”
“Happy! You’ve the guts to mention the word happy! How can I be happy when you guys are messing everything up?”
“Were we that bad?” Now this guy cowering like some creature on four legs is a ‘name’ in his own right. His friends and relatives across some ocean or sea are talking so highly of him you’d thing that ‘Big Library, would throw about all of Plato’s and, yes why not, Shakespeare’s works out and replace them with the ‘works’ of this guy.
“Bad is an understatement. Who are you people working for anyway?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean exactly what I said. Who the hell are you guys working for?”
“For…for you, of course.”
“And would you tell me why you aren’t writing exactly as we tell you?”
“We’re doing just that! You know that it’s not always as easy as you want it to be.”
“Can you explain that to me…?”
“What’s there to explain? You see…”
“Wait! Wait just a minute!” (At this stage “I just called to say I love you,” mood has gone all the way down the drain. “Are you walking out on us?”
“No! How can you even think like that!” Walking out on those beefy checks!”
“Then you better do as we tell you. You should know there are many in line waiting to take your places.”
“Look,” (How many creatures have six legs?) “These days, things aren’t as easy as they used to be.”
“What has changed?”
“Some editors in the head office are asking too many questions. In fact just the other day one editor threw out my story about…”
“What! Tell me his name and we’ll work our contacts. I promise you he will be lining in front the soup kitchens!” Now this one is ‘big game!’ Too big for this cowering creature to shoulder. He should wriggle his way out of the mess or else he’ll be the one sleeping the soup kitchen doors.
“Look, the reason I called is for you to give me the latest and I assure you every word will make it into the paper.”
“Ok, I want you to write about….”
You know what I think, one of these days I am sipping an ice cold beer for red-hot price when the TV anchor blares… “Our viewers, now follows the special report of our investigative reporter and the above script is played out! Until then any interested film maker can find me in the downtown bar named…!!! My cell is ringing. I just hope it is someone with the wonderful words… “I just called to say….”
The Ethiopian herald 15/2021
