Dear Boss; I’ve told the last time I managed to write a piece to you. I told you questions like “Where are you from?” are inappropriate. I’m in the place you rune not because I want to ask your daughter’s hand in marriage but to earn my daily bread. The only thing you need is my skills at doing the job and my discipline. And when it comes to both I hold my head high, my chest out and say I’m proud of my skills for the job and my work discipline. So why are you so adamant trying to learn where I am from! What’s giving you the sleepless night many of which I am sure you have?
I’m a law-abiding citizen but I have come to discover you scoff at this fact. Yes, I publicly say that I’m a law-abiding citizen and in the present times where breaking the law seems to have become the new normal I’m proud that fact. If you ask around you’d even find people who look up at me as role model. I know you’d scoff at hearing this and it wouldn’t surprise me. That could be giving too much credit where it isn’t due! Why am I writing this? I’ll tell you why. Someone should remind you your position doesn’t give you any right to break the laws and regulations that are supposed to govern all of us in this building. But then how is it possible to have a staff of law-abiding citizens when their boss likes kicking everyone around as if we work for him and not the organization which writes us our monthly checks! The last time I applied for a raise that has passed me more than a couple of years, you didn’t have the humility to give legitimate reason as to why I’m treated as some kind of an outcast. Shouldn’t you have! You didn’t try to send the message through your one of your private surveillance team. I know this would get me in to some hot water but it has to be said.
With the price of everything having already crashed through the roof as a boss you should have asked yourself how we’re managing the whole thing they call life. I’ll tell you; by now you should have been looking for ways to help your staff bear the financial burden. Do you know how a sorry piece of bread coasts, ten birr! I beg your pardon? That’s a very senseless question to raise. How can you ask me if I’m wailing for such a ‘small’ sum! Yes, I’m wailing about ten birr bread. In a family of six can you imagine what it means to keep the bread on the table daily? With average ten pieces a day you know what the monthly bread expenditure would be, three thousand birr! I wouldn’t talk about teff which is supposed to be the ever-present food in any household and we’re seeing less and less of it every month.
I could go on listing at how life really looks like for us out here. Of course I’m sure nothing would ring the bells for you. If you were such a considerate person you’d have been looking for ways to help us through the difficult economic times. Have you any idea about the taxi fare we bleed daily to travel to and from work? No, you don’t. How could you! You don’t even want to know. The only thing you’re capable of is cutting our reputations to pieces just because we raise very simple questions.
A couple of times you’ve seen my wife and commented positively about her looks. You should have seen her now. She is a different woman. She is managing with practically no makeups, even the very basic and inexpensive ones! Some items she looks like someone has dragged her through the streets face down. But she is holding her head up and going around with her head high. Not that her makeups and my weekend night-on-the-town ‘adventures’ are priorities. But isn’t my wife entitled to some makeup if not all possible; am I not entitled for a few drinks on weekends having worked my &*^ off throughout the entire week! Aren’t my kids entitled to the smiles that should be on every child’s face? How can I enable them enjoy that when I am finding hard to feed them adequately as I used to?
Your employees are leading life of in practical economic straightjackets and all you worry about is the proverbial ‘mystic’ enemy behind the curtain!’ That ‘enemy’ trying to unseat you from that comfortable chair which sinks almost a full seven centimeters every time to you sit on it! That ‘enemy’ which is spreading gossip about your alleged extracurricular activities while you are doing it out in the open for everyone to see! That ‘enemy’ who is trying to derail your ‘solid marriage’ while almost every member of the staff could come up with credible lists of females with whom you have been ‘discovered’ in the wrong place and at the wrong time, if the rumors are anything to go by.
Dear Boss, no I’m not going to tell it as it is. I’m not our here to drag your name all over the place because after all this isn’t personal. Of course I’m aware you think otherwise. Every application, request, demand that hits your table is about the ‘mystic enemy’ out to get you. Of course, we don’t need someone reading the crystal ball to know that you consider half of the staff as your enemy. Maybe you think all of us are being manipulated by others; others only you know the identity of. But however bad you think of us, however negatively you take our every well-intentioned, positive actions one fact remains that you can’t deny; there are those inefficient and ineffective staff members who are so below-par in their performances and yet still get raises and promotions faster than the organizations rule books set while most of us are left out in the cold to freeze. There’re many of us whose performances are proof to what we’re made of. There are a lot of us who, if you indeed were the kind of boss who acts by the books and the books only, should have been given raises and promotions to higher levels three, four years back. Maybe in your eyes we’re the undesirables who should remain locked out however efficient and productive we might be in the performance of the duties entrusted upon us.
Ephrem Endale
Contributer
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD SUNDAY EDITION 22 OCTOBER 2023