Thread by @Wamagaisa

Of Student Life & odd jobs

1. The totality of my experience as a postgrad student in the U.K. gave me new perspectives. It’s what I learnt outside the lecture room that made an indelible mark. I had left Zimbabwe as a lawyer, complete with my own office & private secretary.

2. Now I was back at school, receiving a modest stipend which was enough to cover basics. I observed that students were doing some odd jobs here & there. I had never seen that in my time at college in Zimbabwe. We just chopped our payouts! We even paid staff to do our laundry!

3. I decided to take up temporary jobs. One of the jobs was “envelope stuffing”. Those were days of transition from regular mail to email so there was a lot of paperwork. You sat on a desk & spent hours putting letters in envelopes, sealing & stamping them. £3.90/hour!

4. First time I did it so quickly to impress, but the supervisor kindly advised me it was a better idea to pace myself. “Remember you get paid by the hour, Alex” she said, with a telling smile. I got the message, alright! Next time I got the gig, I decided to bring my Walkman.

5. I could listen to music on my Walkman while working. Dembo, Chimbetu, Mapfumo, Tuku and others were faithful companions as I performed this mundane task. I enjoyed this job because there was no pressure. But you can only do it for so long. I decided to try out something new.

6. I had applied a bit of good old Zimbabwean charm and struck a cordial relationship with the lady at Unitemps, the work placement agency at my college. She would let me know when something came up. One day, I joined a team that was removing old computers from a computer lab.

7. This particular job had many surprises. Here we were removing perfectly functioning computers and chucking them into the skip. We were throwing them away! I struggled with this part. What a waste, I thought. Some people back home had never seen, let alone used a computer!

8. When we were doing that job, one lad was over-eager so that when he completed his row, he joined others “so we can finish quickly” he said. “Mate, we are paid by the hour” I whispered to him, good old advice from that supervisor! He understood. I smiled. I was now a veteran!

9. Later, I did a stint at an upmarket conference centre at college. Scarman House. It catered for high end market. London firms went there for their retreats. So the service had to be top notch. That’s where I learnt to do Silver Service. It’s an art :-)

10. Silver Service is where you balance three trays/serving plates in one hand while using the other hand to pick and place food on the plate. To say the first time was tough is an understatement! But eventually I was a pro! I learnt to give even more respect to waiting staff.

11. That gig was also good for culinary reasons. The food was of the highest order. For perspective, I had worked at a college chip shop before this gig! Naturally, we were not permitted to take out any food, but we could eat as much of the leftovers as we wanted!

12. Next week I will talk about the gig at the college chip shop & another at a departmental store but enough for today. Let me end with the lessons I drew from these gigs:

• no job is too small or useless; • every person matters, respect their job

13. More lessons:
• be kind and gentle to people who are doing their job. If you are in the habit of shouting at waiting or cleaning staff, please change your ways.
• you’re going to make mistakes. Don’t beat yourself about it. Learn. People will usually help you.

14. More lessons:
• you think you have done it all? Try something new. Do something you thought you would never do. I’m a village lad, so I had always treated others well but these gigs placed me in unfamiliar shoes & gave me even more respect for others. It’s good experience!