Types of employees in the modern Kenyan workplace

By Mark Mutahi

There is no place with greater variety than a Kenyan workplace. You will find people of all shades and characters. Though they vary in tone, style and manner, they sing the same tune — that of employees everywhere in the world:

Amy Whinehouse: This is the breed that is always whining and complaining about this or that. They are also always finding fault with everyone. At a restaurant for instance, however good the service is, they won’t fail to complain to the waiter that the toothpicks are upside down. A moment with them is more depressing than being sent to cover the Darfur humanitarian crisis.

Anita Baker: With this breed the most distinguishing feature is that, at the office, they have their own supply of confectionary from home. This bread, I mean breed, is predominantly female and is always carrying a huge handbag, for their cakes and mandazi, which of course sometimes makes her a suspect in stealing office stationery.

Barley White: This character has more alcohol (forthwith referred as barley) than blood in their systems. If you get transfused with their blood, you will wake up from the operating table drunk. He is a jolly, likeable fellow but you can’t go near him because of his breath. The joke in the office is that the reason he is yet to be fired is because HR people are afraid of suffocating under his breath when giving the marching orders.

Cocoa Tea: This type is the leading beverage consumer in the office, a stark contrast to Barley White. If the tea and coffee bodies in the country ever needed to encourage consumption of the said beverages, they would not have to look further for product endorsement.

Kanda Bongaman: This is the office storyteller and has more ‘Bonga’ points than all the radio presenters lumped together. Exaggerating is their virtue and their biggest contribution to the organisation is keeping colleagues from sleeping in the afternoons with their tall tales. If the MD has a nickname it most likely originated from this guy.

Madilu ‘Operating’ System: With half of their pair of hands always on the mouse, they are the Y generation. They receive more dirty email forwards than anyone before forwarding to the rest of the office. Most of their social life is on Facebook and they keep having panic attacks when the Internet servers lapse into downtime.

MC Hummer: This guy’s overriding ambition in life is to drive a big car. Rumours from the women say he is compensating for something but no one really knows. Lenin said he would rather die on his feet than live on his knees; MC Hummer says he would rather be shot to death in his big fuel guzzler than surrender it to some armed punk from Eastlands.

Pepe Kale: This is the breed that is decades behind in fashion. He still wears something called ‘pepe’ jeans of ‘kale’ times. Of course he has an Afro hairstyle and ‘old school’ to him is not the alma mater but a way of dressing.

Snoop Dog: This is the type that has a habit of snooping on everyone else so that they can have something to report to the boss. This breed believes that the only way they can look good is if everyone else looks bad. Snoop Dog is always wagging the tail sucking up to his seniors. You would think he was a vacuum cleaner in his previous life.

Tabu Lay: This is the smooth operator in the office. He will chase anything that has the double X chromosome. His positive contribution to the organisation is to assist the beautiful young interns and other new female employees settle down after which he starts trading the ‘loyalty points’.

Thinner Turner: This breed is always watching weight since their fear of adding weight is greater than their fear of Al-Shabaab militants. She loves attention and can survive on the moon without oxygen as long as there’s attention. She has considered donating her body to medical school because it affords her the opportunity to be gawked at even in death. You can tell where she is by following the scent of the strongest perfume. Other than church this breed uses the workplace as the place to show off the latest fashion.