Africa-Press – Lesotho. If you want to enjoy your life, if you want to learn something, always strip yourself of your privileges. When I joined UBL as a graduate engineer, I was attached to the technicians.
There is something humbling about engineering. Because while in school, everyone tells you sciences are worth the struggle. Suffer now, you will enjoy. You get to campus, they say, well continue enjoying the suffering, heaven is coming once you graduate.
When I graduated, I was there dressed in my overalls, my colleagues in procurement, marketing, finance, they were enjoying themselves, wearing make-up and the best clothes.
And you know once in a while we would meet at lunch in the canteen. And there you would be with your overalls and grease. So, then the culture was, the engineers often would come late for lunch, when the smartly dressed chaps have left.
I remember s one time, we were working on a pump, some bikanja were stuck, and when we unblocked the pipeline, I was showered by the bikanja. I laughed at myself.
You mean, I had solved Fourier transforms to come and be showered? Then there was working in the milling section; the flour in hair. But there was something beautiful about working with my hands, holding those spanners, lying on the floor.
Later when I was elevated, I would miss it. I read that the Talibans are bored of office work. I got to the point where I was tired of that computer. I loved the thrill of being on the ground, aka gemba.
You learn many things, you learn that the bosses can sometimes be detached from the actual situation on the ground. A machine would break down, and the official reason would be totally different from what really happened.
It is from here that I learnt that in life, there is always two reasons. The reason people will give and the actual reason. Last year, I read an official statement from one of the hydro-power dams.
I laughed because I knew that could not have been the reason. But I also realised once I got up in the ranks, that the hardest work is mental work. Sure, you would get tired working with your hands and all that, but working with your brain the whole day, shuffling through that computer.
It was exhausting! I also learnt that the people down knew information that people up did not know. But the reverse was also true. The best thing in life was having both perspectives.
But I also realised the hardest thing as you grow in life is to keep grounded. Whenever people get promoted in an organisation, they start to lose touch of the ground.
First of all, you just cannot keep up. As you grow, you become more and more dependent on people. You have to learn to perform through others. And to trust them to do a good job.
That is sometimes hard to learn. Because there would be days you tell someone to do something, they tell you it will take a week. You wonder, since when boss? I used to do this thing in hours.
When did it go to a week? Those are the moments as a manager when you fold your sleeves and join in the work. Once they see you can do it, you will have earned their trust.
If you want to see life with new perspectives, find a way to strip yourself of your privileges. Go out of ‘character. ’ It is also adventurous, because you see things people will never see. Stop hearing about Kisenyi, visit it. I have always strived to see for myself, I do not want to be told!
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