Hello Vayona…

As the scorching sun burns the earth outside today, I am in a positive frame of mind, and thinking back to the nice times I had in the past. Well, it’s been about three months. Good memories arrive in my brain in no time sequence, and no particular order. One thing about them; they need to be treasured, and I’m gonna treasure memories I had with this little girl during her brief stint at my workplace.

All right, let’s start with her name, shall we? She is called VMK. In there you’ll find Vionah and Mukeli, forget about the K. For the sake of this article, we shall refer to her as Mukeli. Promise you’re not going to ask what it means, because I do not know, neither does she.

If you’ve worked at all during your life, there’s a good chance you’ve had a not-so-great coworker in there a time or two. I’ve worked for the shortest time possible, but my time with this friend definitely stands out (in a good way).

F.R.I.E.N.D

I might still choose to name this article “the best person I ever worked with”, and it would still work. It required me to take a good look at my work history, and really, there is nothing to look at. So far, I have been fortunate to work with good people and for good management as a whole. One manager; however, stands out in my mind as superlative and worthy of the title “Best Team Leader I ever worked with. ” His demeanor was calm, he enabled individuals to act autonomously, and he acknowledged hard work and achievements. For this presentation I will address this person as Steve, so he may remain anonymous. Well, not really. But one thing that Steve did was to give me an enabling environment to know Mukeli (this’s the last time I’m using this Zimbabwean name) so well.

For clarity’s sake, I met Vionah the first day she joined this new workplace, and we became buddies for the entire time we were there. First impression; this girl was extremely shy. For the nearly one hour we sat there waiting for the order of the day, she was buried in her Samsung phone appearing to sink it deeper each time I threw a glance to confirm she was alright. Yeah, that’s all I wanted to confirm. She even sat facing the opposite direction, haha. Everyone else did, I just thought she was gonna be a lil bit smarter. In fact, she couldn’t even go for tea, which was served just an inch away from her seat. I later learned that she was a kinda anti-human, and anti-new faces. Most girls are.

For greater certainty, again, we were friends from day one to the last day she left. We are still friends. Apart from the obvious beauty, this lady is intelligent, eloquent, shy, calm, quite outgoing among acquaintances, and super hardworking. Oooh, and she is a lover of good music. Weeell, I influenced her taste a bit. She goes down the history books as the 33rd person I’ve introduced to the great tunes of Joyner Lucas.

I must point out that she was the youngest in our crew, and seemed to be more dedicated than most of us the oldies, lol. Youngins are so lazy out here, and it’s not easy to find a young beautiful girl having to wake up as early as 3.21 am to prepare for a journey that would transverse across three counties, the whole week. Honestly, I don’t know how she managed to survive on the road with the wild animals that used the same highway in the Great Rift Valley.

For the many days, I didn’t sleep to get to work earlier than her, she gracefully disappointed my gods. That was not good, kiddo. Remember one thing though; rich people don’t sleep eight hours a day. That’s a lie; to sleep is to be rich.

But Vionah was so consistent with her transport system and time that you’d always find her at work even when there is the worst traffic snarl-up in town. We guys from the Eastside would use 12 means of transport for the 6 days we’d be going to work. When you take a bus in the morning, you’ll look for a donkey to ride back home because of the crazy fare hike. You miss a train and decide to use your God-given automobile; FootSuBishi. Anyway, that’s Eastlands, let’s get back to this girl from the leafy side of the country. That’s place is not leafy, has never been. My bad. I think it’s just dusty.

But here’s another thing; she is in media and arts, my dream career, and I know she took it as a joke and sarcastic the 1001 times I told her that I’m happy for her and always proud of her. Well, I meant it. I mean it. Try and believe that. I kept asking her what she wanted to be when she grows up because I was just looking for ideas, I still am.

And just before I forget, I think she is a great storyteller. She had a way of narrating her day-to-day drama with some kind of vibe that you’d want to hear more. I remember her narrating how this one lady taking a morning nap, well, some kind of shut-eye in the train and she could neither feel nor see her glasses fall. Okay, she couldn’t see (the glasses fall) without the glasses on, that is agreeable, but why would one decide to suspend sleeping on the bed to take a nap on those not-so-soft SGR seats. It baffles me. It really does. VMK had at least something new to say every single day. There was always some drama in her daily commute to work. I miss the stories. I miss the good times.

For the short time we worked with her, she had to fight with something nearly on a daily basis; from the machines becoming so smarter than her to trying to avoid some two eyes always staring at her each time she made a move. And you know, she used to walk in a so focused way, calculated steps, though fast, super fast.

Apart from the machines, one human being, not so friendly human being, decided to ruin one of her days. I don’t know why I remember this day with a smile. I just do not know.

There used to be this utterly atrocious woman at my workplace, I guess she hasn’t left. We didn’t cross paths, but VMK was on her edge constantly. Let’s call her J. J was unpredictable and would be horribly mean completely out of the blue. I remember the first instance when this lady took her phone just as she was about to make an urgent call home, I guess. Hold on, has anyone ever snatched your phone when you are in the middle of connecting these two sentences; Hello and Mum?? Like “hello maaaa…” then you hear “bring that phone over”. Well, that’s what happened to Mukeli. And from there, she got quite adept at a little toilet cry. She would naturally deny it. It is okay; crying is healthy, especially in front of a mirror.

Besides the little toilet cries this amazing lady is good at, I’m here to remind y’all that friendships have a huge impact on your mental health and happiness. Good friends relieve stress, provide comfort and joy, and prevent loneliness and isolation.

But close friendships don’t just happen. Many of us struggle to meet people and develop quality connections. Whatever your age or circumstances, though, it’s never too late to make new friends, reconnect with old ones, and greatly improve your social life, emotional health, and overall well-being.

I just hope this article will help some clueless person out there. Look, before you diagnose yourself with low self-esteem or depression, first ensure you are not surrounded by assholes, just as Vionah did. She made the right choice. So be like VMK, you deserve better!