Social ‘notworking’ spy busted

By Joseph Maina

Kenya: Facebook is the champion of all social networking websites, enabling millions of people to connect with their relatives, colleagues, prospective voters, ex-girlfriends, clients, former schoolmates and so on.

The site boasts a range of exciting features, which explains why it has generated tremendous heat over the years.

My boss has blocked all office computers from accessing Facebook, saying it encourages ‘social notworking’ in the workplace.

Despite this, like many other people, Baba Jimmy joined this online fraternity a while back, and has since amassed a whopping 200 friends. The fact that I have never met most of these ‘friends’, and the fact that the majority would not step out of their beds if they learned that my house was ablaze is neither here nor there.

Two people, however, have declined my offer of friendship on this website; Mama Jimmy and Jimmy.

On Wednesday, I came home to find Tiffany watching cartoons. The comptroller had escorted Mama Deno. On the table was our laptop, which the comptroller had left running. Not only that, but she had logged into both her email and Facebook accounts.

Now, I remember having told you before that Baba Jimmy is like King Midas, which is to say I love to touch things in my hacienda. The problem is that most of the things I touch turn into trouble.

On this particular evening, I first ran through Mama Jimmy’s email. There was mail from her pals, work-related correspondence, spam and tonnes of those forwarded emails that claim to inspire and brighten your day.

I then jumped to her Facebook, a golden opportunity I had awaited for the past year. First, I ran through her profile, which was laden with untruths and half-baked lies, especially the parts about her age and workplace. All the same, her profile photo was stunning.

I turned to her messages, but there was nothing to write home about, so I quickly navigated to her list of ‘friends’. She had a staggering 1,260 of them, including colleagues, siblings, several neighbourhood women, a handful of chama women and several gentlemen, who I am really curious about. Her list of friends seemed to include almost everyone in this county except me.

Feeling a little piqued, I navigated back to her wall to catch some gossip, while trying to swallow the giant potato that had lodged itself in my throat.

The latest comment was by a colleague of hers named Sally: “Guyz inakaa Mama Jimmy ameanza kuongezea kilo….or wat do you think?”

This comment had been posted only 15 minutes earlier, but had already generated 25 comments, ten shares and several hundred ‘likes’. Most of the comments were incoherent or plain irrelevant, but a number left me in stitches.

I was almost beginning to feel like a clever hacker when the door swung open, and the comptroller waltzed in. She took one look at the laptop and I knew I was in the middle of a thunderstorm — with no umbrella in sight.

“Darling, have you been spying on me?” she asked coolly, her eyes running all over the screen.

In my haste, I had minimised the wrong windows.

 ‘DELETE’ KEY

“Er… I think there’s something wrong with this laptop. The ‘escape’ key does not seem to be working,” I answered while absent-mindedly tapping the ‘delete’ key.

“Yeah, right,” she agreed as she pulled the laptop away from my sweaty fingers. “I noticed that, too. But are you spying on my wall?” she pressed, ignoring the thin bead of sweat that had started trickling down my forehead.

“Darling, I’d never do that. I just needed to Google something,” I said solemnly, only for little Tiffany to open her big mouth: “Daddy alikuwa tu anasoma computer halafu anachekacheka.”

Mama Jimmy picked up the laptop and left the room. Let’s just say that since that time she has been making use of the log-out hyperlink.