One of the many problems associated with unemployment is that when you are unemployed, the weekends are long –seven days long. When you are unemployed, you are very likely to be broke. Not just broke but, without a strong personal moral standing, a broke person is likely to also be mad at people who are grinding.

Unemployment aside, the problem with the jobs of today is that there are way more men and women than jobs, and this is an explosive state of affairs. It’s like being on a sinking ship on which there are forty desperate survivors but only five lifejackets!

What this means is that the hustle is real, even for those lucky enough to hold onto a job: you are to forever hustle and fight –so much so that, during some of your lowest moments, you will even convince yourself that you won’t ever get whatever you want unless you grab it from somebody else. Of course, once you stumble out of your reverie, the realization hits you that there is such a thing as rule of law, and that this rule of law is very serious business, especially here in Rwanda.

The other byproduct of today’s highly competitive job market is paranoia – that creeping and debilitating feeling that there is always some evil person lurking somewhere in the shadows, waiting for the first ideal opportunity to snatch your job. Today, oppressed workers of the world have to live with the real and ever present fear that next month there will be "corporate downsizing” in your organization and that you will be among the victims.

Unemployment means lack of work but, ironically, the fear of being out of work has given rise to another epidemic –that of overwork. With rising levels of unemployment every year, the average job footprint (the amount of work that your boss expects you to put in) is always increasing, albeit without a commensurate rise in wages.

Many employees, in a desperate bid to cling on to their jobs, must now put in unpaid overtime just to hold down that job. The result of all this is that today, few people can afford a sense of entitlement to their job when they get one: we simply count ourselves lucky to even hold a job. This has given many immoral employers the leeway to hold their workers in contempt and to not appreciate said employee’s efforts or give credit when it’s due.

Why should your boss pat you on the back and give you that 22% pay raise when you’re so malleable and so maneuverable? Bosses are best dealt with when one has some measure of bargaining power on their job.

Because of this overstretching of workers, low-level corporate crime is on the rise. This is a situation where otherwise decent office workers now run off with the office computer mouse and tea bags and toilet tissue as a way of expressing their innate displeasure at being used as a doormat by their boss.