AGGREY NSHEKANABO: Transitioning from the Corporate trappings to the Jua Kali world

First things first, in the years gone by, organisations would bond workers whom they have trained or helped acquire skills. When I joined New Vision newsroom, I was a novice. No skills at all. All I had was passion. I cannot enumerate the various hands that guided me to find my own rhythm. As I move about today with my head high, it is never lost on me that someone out there took a gamble on me. Like in the soccer world, I think prospective employers who want finished products (employees), they ought to pay the organisations that acted as our academy! In October, 2023, it will be 22 years when I walked into that newsroom! It was the beginning of my many life transitions, which is what this write-up is about.

I was transitioning from the classroom at Turkish Light Academy. I had been sending my articles and poems to The Monitor and a one Adam Robert Kasozi would once in a while publish them. I didn’t even know they were earning me some money! All I cared for was to demonstrate to my students who I taught creative writing, that once your piece is good enough, it could be published. I had sent several articles to New Vision. Probably over 100 of them and only less than 10 had been published.

Anyway, within three years I was appointed a Sub Editor and I was posted to Mbarara Bureau office attached to Orumuri. And the corporate trappings began. I was told there was money I needed to sign for; “For your transfer from Kampala to Mbarara!” It was much more than I needed. And then, even when I did not have car, I was given a total fuel card (no wonder, until recently, I was a committed Total client). I qualified for health insurance even when I rarely fell sick. I could insure up to four dependents whom I didn’t have. My loyalty for New Vision was cemented. I gave it my all.

But the illusion did not last long. On the 5^th of the new month, a message from accounts office would come through. “If you want advance please register/send an email to Ms. Mukasa before the 7^th. Your advance request should not exceed 30% of your gross” For months, I never registered. When I would be bringing accountabilities for office, the guys in accounts wondered why I was not taking the monthly advance. They would say; “You now qualify it, unless of course you are rich or you are getting bribes from the field” And I wondered; “Why not?” I fell for that trap. Oh! Did we define what those trappings are? These are offerings from your corporate employer to buy your loyalty. They could be items or a lifestyle that shows the world you have some money. One of those was that you needed to have a necktie! Imagine a necktie in the tropics! We needed to look corporate.

By the time I joined the NGO sector at the tail end of 2009, it was clear for me. Reality versus the illusions. Even when my salary more than doubled, I never changed my lifestyle. I still boarded taxis and jumped on the bodaboda. I would even walk to work before ‘walking to work’ was criminalized. I continued to stay in my tenement (Muzigo) at North road in Naalya. However, this did not last long. I bought a car and got a girlfriend I did not need. I was trapped in lifestyle. I even started building a bungalow! Imagine a UGX.200M house to just sleep in. I was however jolted out of my dreamland when all positions at the NGO were declared redundant and we were asked to re-apply for the few that were retained on the organogram. Thankfully, I was retained.

I reverted to living not within my means but way below my abilities. I ditched the fancy car and got myself a wheelbarrow (that is what my boss called my car) that could move me from point A to point B. And I could only drive it only when it rained or when it was inevitable. I had to grow my side hustle; www.kyamburasafaris.com which, today runs Naalya Motel and God willing, we may have a boutique lodge by this time next year in my home village of Kichwamba Bunyaruguru at the edge of Queen Elizabeth National Park.

In the process of transitioning, I got all the children off health insurance save for one. Have you wondered why every Saturday, clinics and hospitals in Kampala register high numbers? Most are Corporate Health Insurance clients who do not need hospital visits. So, we have weekend medical tourism. I have gone to those weekend clinics and hospitals and they have put play centres for the ‘sick’ children as their mothers are on their phones. It is a family day out for mother and children. Some hospitals now have WIFI! Your employer pays for it as you swipe that card and press your index finger on the swipe machine! So, many of us are stuck in the corporate environment because we must visit the clinic every Saturday and because it is from these perks that you can pay rent for your side hen or chic and finance Friday night fever outings. And there is nothing wrong with that really. If you can enjoy it while it lasts, keep in. The fear for financial ruin and social standing is real.

For example, some of my relatives know I sell katogo in Kampala, so they never bother me when there is a funeral or a wedding to finance. My sisters and my aunts stopped ‘falling sick’ and their children stopped lacking school fees when they learnt I no longer have a corporate job. Oh! I am waiting on my church! I am no longer a big tither! Some calls will stop coming through and your ‘at work girlfriend’ will stop sending you ‘good night love’ messages. The office assistant and driver will no longer pick your innocent calls. And you will know you did not have friends at that workplace but work colleagues. But, be careful; do not sever relationship with your former employer. You need them more now than when they employed you. I have seen it. I have done more business with former work colleagues and employer. Only a silly employer will be happy seeing their former employee in the hot sun unless of course, you parted badly. Ensure you leave well. They may call you for a consultancy gig.

Keep in touch with people you were with or during the times you were in the corporate world. You need them than ever before in this Jua Kali world. But if you start now because you have left the corporate world, they will smoke your intentions out and they will ignore you. Naalya Motel has been sustained because of past relationships and associations we belonged to before we left the corporate world. They own the enterprise. They call and say; “How is our Naalya Motel?” Some of them have offered invaluable advice, a recommendation, a referral. We are so indebted to those associations; church, school and work related partnerships that we built.

When you find yourself in the hot sun that self-employment is really about, cut the lifestyle. Sometimes, it is not by choice that you are in the jua kali world. But should the corporate world eject you, how prepared will you be? Look at those trappings and start throwing them away now so that when the employer finally asks you to handover the fuel card, the health insurance card, the health club membership card, you are a little prepared. Finally, start working on what you will transition into now when the corporate job ends. Many have asked me how I could easily transition into the hospitality. They probably don’t know that this is the industry I entered into in 1992 as a pantry boy (kitchen runner) to waiter, housekeeper and guide. And the transition started in 2013 when we registered Kyambura Safaris Ltd and by 2017 we had a website that was up and running.

However, every Jua kali enterprise aspires to formalize. Our informality is not by choice. As we stabilize, I will begin by firing myself from the various positions I hold at Naalya Motel and Kyambura Safaris Ltd. Such positions include; waiter, delivery man, barman, booking clerk executive, marketing executive, logistics executive, driver/guide and safaris planner. Oh! Sometimes I am the purchasing officer. As we grow as an enterprise, I will grow in incompetence in some of these positions and I will fire myself.

Aggrey writes about destinations in Uganda and is the team leader at Naalya Motel

Tel: +256703688447 Email: anshekanabo@gmail.com, aggrey@kyamburasafaris.com