How lazy workers climb the ladder of success

By Ted Malanda

Where I come from, when you meet a farmer hoeing in the hot midday sun, you greet him with the words, "Thank you for working! How are your chickens?"

Now just pause for a moment and think about it. Why would you thank someone for working on his own farm to feed himself and his family? Does it mean that indolence is so commonplace that you wouldn’t be surprised if the next fellow didn’t turn in a day’s work?

And would that, perhaps, explain why you are personally engaged in managing your own farm by walking around in distant places and asking people childish questions about their chicken?

The salutation is more amusing in Kiswahili.

"Pole kwa Kazi!" (I am terribly sorry that you are working!) Well, this may not qualify as sufficient research for a university thesis. But that shouldn’t stop me from concluding, in my own lazy way, that mankind is generally averse to work.

As a rule, school children never do their homework unless someone is hanging around with a big stick. In fact, they wouldn’t even go to school in the first place were it not for their parents’ constant threats of immediate and severe reprisals.

Lazy workers

Thus they grow up, a bunch of lazy loafers who would rather be left watching football on television and quaffing free beer but for the consequences of filling what my people call inda — the stomach. And it is they that turn up on your doorstep seeking employment.

The first thing about a lazy worker is that they are very smooth talkers, which explains how they convinced you to hire them in the first place. And they can be very funny, sending everyone in the office — including the boss — falling over their chairs with laughter. In this sly manner, they endear themselves to all and sundry and consequently become indispensable without breaking a sweat.

Curiously, once the boss’s back is turned, they crack the most ribald jokes about him or her, constantly whine about poor working conditions, the lousy salary and how hopeless the boss is. This is a yardstick voters can employ to gauge which Cabinet minister is a lazy oaf, you know.

They are equally skilled at working very hard at nothing. Here, we are talking about the clown buried deep in the crossword puzzle, of the genius poring with animated fixation at his computer screen, except that he is playing cards and making friends on Facebook.

Much as he likes him or her, the boss quickly discovers that this chap is a lazy oaf, the kind you wouldn’t trust with a difficult assignment.

Promotions

As a result, he gets relatively easy assignments, like showing the visitors from headquarters around. Meanwhile, the hard worker is buried in a pile of accounting books. So one day, the boss receives a letter from headquarters. "A new position has come up. Give us someone to promote from your staff."

You will be nuts if you imagine the boss will part with his hard working accountant. "No, over my dead body.

Too damned valuable, that Musyoki," he will mumble. Guess who will get the job? "Now, now… let me get rid of that lazy good for nothing bastard — big idiot, too, if you ask me!"

Next thing you know, Mr Lazybones is a parastatal chief, then a Cabinet minister flying the national flag on a brand new Passat.