Although unemployment bites very hard, I would not like to be an employee where my post is that of a Jack of all trades! Many years ago, I happened to have been employed in a company owned by an arrogant rich family. This family had baptized me as the chief accountant of the company. But the truth of the matter is that I was more than a chief accountant!

At this company, I was also performing the roles of cashier, office messenger, debt collector, tea boy, cleaner as well as the main doorkeeper. Now, I even wonder why I am still unemployed here in Kigali considering this wealth of working experience that I possess.

Where else will you find someone, who used to commence each day by walking through the fog very early in the morning so that he could prepare the office for his bosses? I would fill the bucket with water and soap and proceed to mop the floor from corner to corner. Then, I would wipe away all the dust from the furniture and computers.

By 8am, I would quickly slip into my nice shirt and neck tie and settle down like a real executive. The first client would come in and I would give him my best smile ever. I would ensure that his dossiers were well catered for so that he could commit himself into writing out a cheque. I knew that this cheque was not only important to my employers but to me as well. I knew that my meager salary would probably come out from this particular cheque.

Just as the morning progressed and the streets became alive again with sounds of honking cars and yelling vendors, my bosses would come in. As the professional doorman himself, I would leap over to open for them. The snobbish wife would eye me in a manner which suggested that she had drunk so much wine the previous night.

Whenever she eyed me in such a way, I would dash upstairs to prepare her a hot pot of great Arabica coffee. She would pick up the cup and take one sip. Then she would find her voice and shout at the top of her croaky voice. "You! Do you want to kill me? Quickly take this back and make a better one!”

With no clue whatsoever, I would rush back as clients watched on. In their faces, you could detect their confusion. Was this young lad a chief accountant or a coffee boy? Anyhow, I would emerge back with another pot of steaming coffee. After another sip she would return to her rebuking ways, spitting real fire. "Are you the one who buys sugar around here? Why did you put in one spoon only?” In the meantime, the husband would be running his fingers across the furniture to check for dust. "Are you the one who buys soap around here?” he would ask.

Then their daughter would come up with flimsy claims that the flowers in the office were suffering from kwashiorkor. "Quickly, water these flowers before it is too late”. Off I would scramble around for more water to pour into the flower pots. Phew! What a job. I really was a Jack of all trades!

Wow – I would rather let the unemployment bug bite me than suffer in such an office…