@ Katiba,

I have read the second one,i think you need to make your pieces shorter and do not put too much humor in one paragraph. the idea should be to make the reader see your point while appreciating the humor.

Write on!

@famooz na leona - beer biri biri mtapata leo. i usually do this for fun as in when bored i just start writing something.But naona i can make an extra coin from this. Thats why nawauliza. is it posible? Mimi ni mtu wa mahesabu bwana.

@Katibampya, another option exists in being a ghost writer for well established writers especially those that scribe on the big papers.

I started out by taking their emails and sending them my pieces of work and soon enough my art begun appearing on the papers.

Quite a number of them suffer from writer's block and that is when your true value shines out.

Whatever you do, do not give up. Never.

One other thing, get rid of "coz". The old boys and girls hate that hogwash. And get the Brighter Grammar series of books. They are pearls.

Go my man. Go. (my girl?)

@ amathenge.Brighter grammer books ni gani hizi sasa? any way ill google nione.@ famooz what about this one?

Dear potential employer,
Hi Mr. /Mrs./Miss C.E.O, MD, HRM or whatever names you are referred to in this age of titles without portfolio. I write this small letter to congratulate you for the great job you are doing trying to keep your respective companies afloat in these hard economic times a.k.a global recession a.k.a global meltdown. I know for sure these problems are not of your own creation but were created by some greedy guys working in obamaland on a street named a wall. Yours is truly a tough job trying to balance between profitability, cost cutting measures, shareholders wrath, KRA shenanigans and Atwoli. Anyway am one of the many jobless young people who despite the vijana kwa kazi initiative (or is it the opposite) is still moving from office to office looking for that elusive job. As you read this, I want to categorically state that this is my very last appeal to you to give me a chance to serve this great nation and help achieve the so called vision 2030.Otherwise am seriously contemplating joining the onyanchas of this world or the kidnapping gangs of kayole and make your lives a living hell. Just hear me out and you will fully understand why am ready to take such drastic measures.
1. Most companies look for individuals who are at least 25 years old with a minimum of 3 years ‘hands on’ experience. Surely at this age, most of us are just through college and are looking forward to gaining that very experience you are asking for. It beats logic to imagine a fresh graduate to have any experience especially in these hard times of joblessness. I want to challenge you people to give us that job so that we can show the whole world what we are really made of!!
2. Some companies will require an applicant to send 3 or more copies (one university is known to demand for 10 copies! Munajijua) of a person’s CV, testimonials (hii ni nini), certificates, references, letters of recommendations, current salary etc. Where, in God’s name, do you expect a Kenyan surviving on less than a half a dollar a day get money for all these copies? Most of us survive with relatives here in Nairobi who will offer you a place to lay your f****ng head minus dinner after another frustrating day on the streets of Nairobi. These guys do not understand why we require all that money just for copies and strain their budgets. Please I beg you Mr. CEO to only ask for 2 pages of my CV then I can bring the rest during the interview coz getting that shilling out here is a real hustle.
3. In reference to the above, after I struggle and come up with the 3 or more copies, you people have no audacity to reply to my application at least acknowledging receipt of the documents. A simple regret letter via email will cost a future employer 0.0001% of his company’s total expenditure and profitability will not head south. And to be sincere, I respect all those firms that go that extra mile and send regret letters coz this really reduces our post application trauma, a disease only associated with unemployed youth. Am waiting for a regret letter for this article. Seriously.
4. There are the so called employment bureaus all over town. Although a minority of them genuine, the majority are a thorn in our flesh. Imagine they ask for an interview fee of up to Kshs 5000 with no guarantee of securing employment. They are also prone to sharing my salary in the first year of employment as commission for securing employment for a jobless qualified Kenyan. Some go to the extend of asking for bribes just to secure an interview and/or employment. Please spare me all these blues and deal directly with me rather than these brokers whose only mission is to fleece hapless wanjikus.
5. Every potential employer has this funny requirement about asking applicants for three referees. This is a really futile exercise coz no right thinking, sharp Kenyan will dare give his local chief’s name as referee. Nor will he refer you to a former employer whom the applicant left unceremoniously. Its well documented that applicants are known to give names of relatives or close buddies as directors of non existent companies with the following explicit instructions “ukipigiwa simu,sema mimi ni mtu mzuri sana, well behaved, hardworking, industrious, go getter(whatever that means) blah blah” . These referees can even be other jobless Kenyans, drinking buddies or their boy/girlfriends! So please don’t waste your precious airtime calling them .PS. I hope you have not read this part of the article coz you may sack everybody in your organization should you decide to make the so called referees come personally to the office.
6. We are surely surviving on a shoe string budget out here and can hardly afford the luxury of buying a newspaper or even post applications via mail. We have to walk to town, ‘chapa dash” during lunch hour, mill around Odeon cinema and Uhuru park for the better part of the day, try secure an appointment with our respective Mpigs, then pay a visit to those guys who roast maize on our way back home. That is the typical day of a jobless Kenyan. There is something called ‘social responsibility’ which I believe is completely misdirected coz we are the ones who should be direct beneficiaries of this ‘responsibility’. Figure this out, why plant 10,000 trees in Karura forest or buy some electric fence for some forest when that whole expenditure can employ 30 graduates for a whole year! Surely somebody needs to reevaluate and rethink this whole concept of social responsibility coz if my strategy is applied, unemployment rates should go down by at least 40%!
7. There’s this interesting question during interviews about salary ‘ati what is your expected salary’. The answer is quite a simple and straight forward one-I want a combination of Ringera’s and the PM’s salary plus allowances! For that’s all I care. But since am not politically correct, just pay me any amount that can afford me the following. Pay my house rent in South B or Avenue Park, buy a second hand car direct from Japan, buy a plot in Kitengela or near the northern bypass, purchase a Dstv decoder, open an exhibition shop in downtown Nairobi and lastly help me marry my college sweet heart coz the biological clock is ticking! That’s all am asking for.
8. Competition in the job market is really tough. Supply far exceeds demand and you people have taken advantage of the situation and end up paying desperate fresh graduates salaries way below the market rate. Let me warn you that underpaying a learned fellow is courting disaster. Either atakuibia or else he will not stay for long and will disappear with your clients and experience. Just be fair and pay me what is rightly mine. Sawa.



Lastly I wish you the best in all you do but be warned that should I continue searching for a job in cybercafés, exhibition shops, mobile charging shops and even pubs while I have a degree in aeronautical sciences, you will be dead meat by 2012 when we will take over this economy and sack all the old men and CEOs, including you even if you are only 30!!


Yours
Soft

@katibambaya, would encourage you to try. You have something but the seed needs water, warmth, nutrients, etc u get the vibe. During my days in colle, i was just like u. persistence,patience,poking,pondering later on saw my first article in the then Kenya Times. Later i managed to get one or two lines to the big guns. I have those maiden articles hanging somewhere in an oversized frame upto today..... n yea, if u sleeep in the swine cage, u cud catch swine flu easily. Also read anything and everything... hata gazeti ya kufunga matumbo, for u may get a few gems like ciku, nairobi nights, pubcrawl, etcetera. keep going the pay is just a side dish.