Story Time: Lessons from My Former Toxic Job

I was going through my old photos today and I came across a photo from my time in Solwezi. I was at my best and worst, what I mean is I had just lost my job and moved halfway across the country to a town in which I had no friends or family but your girl is a fighter and she goes wherever growth takes her. So there I was, In a new town with a new job that paid less than my last job coupled with an entirely different working culture. In Solwezi Degrees didn’t matter especially ones acquired by women, it was not about merit but who you know and what you do for them when no one is watching. This did not discourage me because I am fighter but I was in for a rude awakening, indeed there is wisdom in knowing which battles need not be fought and my short stay in Solwezi taught me this fine lesson.

Solwezi was a quiet town, when I arrived,my Aunt set me up with a friend who took me in and showed me around for a few days before I got my own place. I found a cute little apartment in an area called Urban and reconnected with an old friend who made my stay bearable. However, little did I know that I had landed the most toxic job of my lifetime, it was at a male dominated company with only about 10% of the workforce being females, am sure by now you know where this is going. Still naive, I was eager to add value, to bring about positive changes to a place where my supervisor uninvitedly took pride in discussing his sex life as well as asking me if my female colleague’s body parts were made of silicone implants or flesh. All cases of harassment brought to his table died a terrible death, gossip about the workers sexual escapades was the order of the day, time off to attend to school was not allowed because it meant you were attending interviews at another organization. One of the most disturbing of stories was the one of how people needed to sleep with their supervisors to get confirmed following their probation period, I still don’t know what the moral of this story was.

I was constantly sick of malaria, during one of these malaria attacks as I lay bedridden in my house, he sent a text bidding me farewell on an alleged trip to Zanzibar with my boyfriend (I was single by the way) and asked me to bring him a hat from my vacation. I was asked to dismiss people for no apparent reason, I once defied his directive and i nearly lost my job for refusing to dismiss an employee proved innocent by a disciplinary committee. The words of my first manager kept ringing in my head, he always talked about the importance of doing the right thing on the job. I realized i had a job that didn’t align with my personal values. At this point, I knew it was a circus and we were monkeys but last I checked, I was no monkey. I immediately started working on an exit plan, I did not spend sleepless nights at school to further sleep my way to the top, I knew I owed my unborn children gallant tales about how mummy stood for what was right even when she stood alone.

At this point I am tempted to again make reference to the first male manager I ever had, he gave me my first big break in human resource and challenged me to rise to the demands of a challenging role. He wasn’t the perfect boss but he respected and recognized my contribution and held me accountable for the mistakes I made on the job. I learnt a valuable lesson here; that my value in the workplace was divorced from my gender or good looks. With such a background, I knew there was no way in heaven or hell that I was going to work in such a company, where the value of a female employee was based on who she was sleeping with and not her professional contributions, worse yet, this culture was normalized and I was expected to blend in. Three months later,I booked a flight to Lusaka to attend an interview at one of the best companies I know and quit before I had any positive feedback. I told my loved ones I was fired because my mental and moral health didn’t seem like a priority in the face of them having to take me into their homes in the event I lost my job. When it comes down to it, there are moments in life when you have to make calculated decisions for yourself regardless of what everyone around you advises you to do. Anyway I spent weeks manifesting and praying for the job I knew I deserved and two weeks later I got it, on merit and my new supervisor was amazing.

Many have attributed my willingness to quit to the fact that I have no kids or family who depended on me for survival, but I am an orphan who depends entirely on herself for survival, and I enjoy surviving in style. A couple of things helped me through:

1. God — I have always believed that what you compromise to get, you will have to compromise to keep but you will eventually lose. When I promised God he would be my guy going forward, I meant it and when choices have to be made between a compromise of my standing with him to gain something, I will gladly choose to lose. I believed then and still believe that he would never let me quit such a job only to regret it later. He is the rewarder of those who stand for the truth even if the reward may not be immediate.

2. I was raised by men who taught me my worth was far beyond my existence as a woman and this prompted me to develop myself beyond what I will one day bring to the sheets. My uncle once told me ‘’what makes you valuable also makes you vulnerable, be careful child’’. He always calls me ‘ba Chibuye’; its a respectful term used by children in my culture before uttering an adult’s name but he referred to me this way even when I was a child, I always wondered why but as I got older I realized he respected me and I in turn ought to conduct myself in a manner worthy of the respect he gives me. As a child, these men safeguarded me and now that I am an adult, it is my responsibility to safeguard me and this begins with the choices I make.

3. My introduction to the professional world was surrounded by successful working women who did not mix business with pleasure, I found role models and I concluded that if they could do it the right way, so could i. The notion that you need to know someone or sleep with someone to get a job is one I repeatedly discredit because not once in all my working years in human resource have we recruited a candidate because of their connections and not once was I recruited because of mine. In fact, the people who promised me assistance have never assisted me to-date.

All this was 3 years ago and I don’t regret my decision, it was one of the best decisions I ever made, one that strengthened my conviction in upholding my values and standing up for what is right even when it feels like you are losing, most times it’s going feel like you are losing but hang in there. In the words of Benjamin Zulu, the wheels of Gods justice are always turning, they turn slowly but they do so thoroughly. And if you are ever in a position of power understand that your style of leadership will be adopted by those that you lead. Help a sister when you can, you could be the one that saves her from falling into the wrong hands,offer her a place to sleep,loan her that money if you can,your simple act of kindness could alter the trajectory of her life significantly, that one night you choose to show her kindness in your home as opposed to letting her seek it out there.

In case you are wondering what happened to my supervisor,he was eventually suspended and lost his job for some dubious activities,his deeds did catch up with him eventually.