Vying for a Job (Getting someone to connect you)

I was seated on a bench in Kireka waiting for the tailor to finish fixing my clothes. I watched a certain lady come up to the direction where I was. She approached a vendor and made an order for French beans and carrots. I kept my eyes on everything she did as if I gained from it in some way. Later she got out her wallet to pay for the items. My eyes on the wallet!  I tried to peep and find out if she carried bundles of money or if it her wallet had the same big holes as mine, that the dime is always dropping  out.

What stole my attention though was the bundle of business cards that peeped through it. Fist i thought she had folded her money and fixed it in the provision for business cards. I had to get up from the bench and pretend to be yawning and stretching to be sure.  With further recognition, I couldn’t help but wonder how she could have gotten all those business cards. The first thing that came to my mind was ‘connections’. She was the perfect resource for me to get myself work.

As I was still thinking of how to do it, she walked away. I gave up.  A few minutes later my clothes were done. I bargained with the tailor from five thousand to one thousand. She finally agreed then I paid the fee. I walked to the taxi and sat, ready to head home. While I was seated, I noticed the same lady heading for the taxi. And bingo! She sat right next to me. ‘Hi’ she said. She saved me from breaking the silence. It’s not something I am good at but in this case, I had to converse with the lady.

‘Hi’. I replied, taking a more detailed look as I sketched for what to say next. ‘ooh, now I know, I think I have seen you before’

‘Really, where’?

‘At UMA show grounds. There was a workshop in January last year and you were one of the people who addressed us’. Well with all those contacts, I figured there was no way she would have missed being at UMA for a workshop at some point even if she might not have been one of speakers.

‘Really, I don’t reme…?’

‘Yeah.’ I interrupted (she was starting to be defensive). ’ You talked about investments and how to write a good CV. And as a matter of fact I learnt how to write one. I even have a copy in my bag’.

‘You do’? I opened my bag immediately and handed her the CV which she tried to look at but I distracted her.

‘Your name was… is…. Ruth’. I had glanced at her identity card as she fixed it into her wallet together with some money which I imagined she had just withdrawn from mobile money. ‘Yes Ruth, I can never forget you at all after that cool presentation. I was really inspired. You know when I saw you purchase some things over there I was sure I had seen you somewhere before’

‘Yeah, I guess so. I noticed your constant look I even wondered if something was wrong with what I was wearing probably.’

‘No actually I was trying to remember where I had seen you’

‘so where are you working now?’

‘I ‘m not working yet, that’s the reason I move with my CVs so I could drop them at some companies or give them out to friends just in case of something.'

‘ok, I see. That’s a great idea’

‘Yeah so just in case, you can keep that copy, something could come up, you never know’

‘Why not? I usually come across friends looking for people to work for them, so you could be lucky. I can see your number is on the CV(as if that wasn’t obvious), I could call you when your luck knocks’

‘Thank you so much’.

#she has never called.