Monday, November 5, 2012

End Month and The Kenyan Fascination Around It



On the 29th day of every month of a work calendar the employees in an office set up always seem to have a permanent smile as if the edges of their mouths were tapped to their ears. These serves as a reprieve after the long wait 28 days of turmoil and monotony of their so called professional careers. However not all employees can afford even a slight grin on their faces because some them all that it means is a low pay check almost going blank. The reason behind it is that they simply could not stand spending on their exemplary luxurious life and addictions to substances in life and therefore had to take advanced loans from the workplace, friends, shylocks and financial lending institutions a few days after their first pay check. While others get fat checks and smile all the way to the bank they wish that the dreaded end month could be scrapped from the working calendar as this reminds them of how they did poor budgeting and incurred expenses they would have otherwise avoided.

Some would say that even if an employee was asked to name his price the wants will always supersede the needs and they would always find themselves walking on a tight rope towards the last stretch of the month. But others cut the long wait of waiting for end month by working on a shoe string budget as they count days towards the end of the month. Its almost evident that most employees develop a tendency not to report to work or report late during the first few days after their pay as they are always busy trying to obtain self satisfaction from their hard earned money. After 3-4 days when they have partially fulfilled their needs and wants reality dawns on them as their wells begin to run low and they are bound to embrace normalcy and keep time at work with the hope that their next pay checques will elevate them to another level of fulfilling their obligations.
The middle days of the month often sees most of the employees agitated by obviously small issues, absenteeism, in some cases high turnover rate of labour as they are heavily hit with post traumatic stress, depression from trying to adopt to being broke and at this level most of them feel like their day- to- day job sucks. They are more likely to envy their entrepreneur friends who make money  most of the time without even having to wait for the end of the month not knowing that even with becoming an entrepreneur the wait still has to be experienced in the short run.
Like sitting on a chair across the room and waiting for the paint to dry, the long wait for end month is rater slow and cumbersome and most people would rather not tread along that road, buy hey wake up and smell the coffee nobody said that life is easy and besides good things are worth waiting for.