Chatterbox: Does your child really need that office job?

Look at yourself and these questions. Are you happy at your job? Are you happy waking up at 6am, to follow the same routine of showering, combing your lovely hair and getting into your Audi to struggle with the traffic jam, then sharing the same jokes with the same people at your office for the last five years?

Do you feel a sense of accomplishment having worked in a telecom company for the last decade? How do you define accomplishment in relation to work? Being a sort of house-boy who’s sent by the boss to do his errands? Being cautioned if you mess up? Having to play so-called “office politics” just to make sure you survive another day at your work-place? Having to rely on a salary loan and the top-up that comes with your financial discipline to make your dreams somehow pan out?

Is that what you want your child to go through? Would you want your child to define accomplishment by staying in the office apparently in endless meetings and if she were a girl, having to contemplate sleeping with the boss if she has any chances of promotions? Would you want to have your child get a job? If yes, have you prepared her for the vicious cycle (that at-times looks hopeless and painful) that comes with a job?

Could there be another alternative to the above? Well, how about having your child being responsible for over 2,000 Kampala residents consuming her mixed fruit juice per week courtesy of her ingenuity, hard work and marketing skills and a blender?

Isn’t that as a parent such a satisfying feeling, seeing a Kampala resident pass you by as you relax in your car, with a bottle of your daughter’s juice?

Look at where Uganda is heading in terms of finance! Do you honestly see more of chemistry teachers, or accountants or Mulwanas? Isn’t the chance of your poor soul making it in life higher, away from the office job?

Actually, what is the chance of your poor soul spending nights at Luzira quite far away from the Prime Minister’s Office…read OPM Scandal!

We need to teach our children that the life they are heading into has totally changed. If they lack innovation, ingenuity, hard work, all the virtues our schools don’t teach and all the virtues you never find at a job, then they will be totally lost in this life. There only saviours, that will be temporary, will be selling off those 20 acres in Semuto you left them after your demise.

Now someone will say can’t you have a career on the job and succeed in life? Well, that is possible if only you live in a sane environment. Have you ever visited these office jobs? These people want to kill themselves over promotions; they sleep with bosses to reach the top; they back-bite each other to gain favours from whoever matters; they even pretend to be “saved” if that can get them anywhere to the top! It’s totally madness.

Now is that the definition of career or a semblance of a hunt for Kony in the jungles of Congo?

Question is, would you want your lovely soul to enter such a jungle.

features@ug.nationmedia.com