Yeah, I worked in A Butchery after Graduating

The one thing we see everywhere is the message, "to Start". "Start anywhere!" It is always said like it's easy but it's not. It's not easy because sometimes we are not told that starting anywhere means literally that. We think starting anywhere means start as an intern, start as low-level staff. The truth is you need to start absolutely anywhere.

Soon after I graduated, I came back home to Harare to look for employment. On Graduation night, after a few drinks, one of my good friends based in Bulawayo had offered me a job. A partnership really, we would take his photocopy shop to new heights. I had said I would consider it and came to Harare. While in Harare, I got called for interviews at the one company I had always wanted to work for, Econet wireless. I didn't get the job and had a very depressing three months after that. Depressing because my best friend had gotten his job before we graduated. Adulting had started and it was not easy.

Soon after new years I bit the bullet and took the bus to Bulawayo. Checked in at my friend's photocopy shop and we were ready to soar. I had dreams of grandeur: we would franchise a chain of these photocopy shops one day. The work was really grinding, nothing glamourous. I was that guy you ask to print a copy of the notes you knocked off your friend because you were skipping lectures all week. The guy you didn't take notice of, made small talk with, and soon forgot. I soon introduced typing services to the shop, using my gaming - trained typing speed, we soon had rural headmasters bringing hundreds of pages of handwritten end-of-term exams. I would double down and spend days typing them out because typing had the big bucks and once we typed it, we got the print job as well. It was a gift that kept on giving. Within a few months, I started teaching myself Photoshop and CorelDraw because a lot of DJs and club owners would come in with flyer ideas. Looking back, my work was terrible. But it was cheap and I was one of the few people doing it to begin with. We were growing but my friend and I had different plans around how to grow and what to do with the money we were making. I left soon after that.

I got a job at a butchery in Mzilikazi, Bulawayo. Yup you read right. I remember meeting the 'owner' on the stairs as they were shutting down. He was looking for a cashier. I handed him my CV and he decided to make me a manager. I felt proud. Manager! The shop was so small that being a manager was really just for show. Soon I was behind the counter, cutting meat, serving customers, helping to clean the shop. His leakages dropped to almost nothing, from a shortfall every end of the day to once a month. He was really happy that I managed to make the shop work better. It was really a motivation thing more than anything else. Yes, I introduced a few systems but this was largely on the backbone of work he had started. He was meticulous with his data collection and its use. He was a little abusive of the staff, not me, but the others had it hard. He had a police case out with former employees he had framed for the theft of stock when in actual fact, he had mismanaged funds and needed a scapegoat to his parents who were the real owners. Once I had put the pieces together, I thought of leaving but I stayed.

Working for Such a man was going to be risky. I could be the next scapegoat. I was smart though, or so I thought. A couple of months in, his parents were coming in for a check because some other shops hadn't paid rentals. See, they owned the small complex we were on. The truth was that my 'owner' had mismanaged funds again, taken rent from the other shops, and used it to restock before fleeing to Harare where his parents were coming from. Before he left though, he had priced all the meat above the cost price. In a way "selling" it to me on consignment. He told me that the profit I made above and beyond his prices would be used for wages. If we failed we wouldn't get paid. We had a great weekend and I managed to create a great product mix that allowed us to make 150% profit despite his parents being at the shop and making our jobs a living nightmare. He came back while his parents were around and decided to do the reconciliation. After he did the recon, he decided I had a shortfall and needed to explain where the missing money was. I remained adamant and his father came to verify and told him what I had told him, we made a 150% profit. After that scenario, I realized it was important to leave.

There's nothing super special in these stories, except that I took jobs some people won't want to take and worked hard. The thing that kept me sane was the fact that I actually believed that I could grow these businesses into great businesses if I got the time. The photocopy shop was close to the NUST library in town so a lot of my college juniors saw me there. Printing copies half a km from the library I had gone to study so I don't end up there. That was my reality and I worked well with them and they came in their numbers. Most of it was also relations my friend had created. With the butchery, I saw my friends come in to buy meat for a braai at some out of town location, cooler boxes full of drinks packed in their cars. I mean, they were buying meat I couldn't afford to buy with that job, for a single outing. It was depressing but again, I had to chin up.

Between leaving the butchery and finally getting my first call into Econet I was unemployed for a year. In that time I got to work on a startup for music sales with my friends, I got to MC at one of the HIFA stages with my best friend, I got to consult for my friend's Graphic design agency that she had started (I know they did this to give me somewhere to spend my days). I took the time to learn, I learnt digital marketing, SEO, WordPress, content creation, Copywriting, and took online coding lessons. Anything that could give me a $20 to $50 payout once in a while.

One thing I can say with absolute conviction. If I had gotten hired soon after graduation I would still be in the same job right now. The things I learnt while I was unemployed made me a more well-rounded employee with a lot more to offer. I could have gotten where I am, but I would have taken longer. I wouldn't appreciate it as much and I would be content.

Now my mantra is to continuously improve. I keep getting better! #kaizenYOU