Why won't you just pay for a service?

I never thought that I would have reason to discuss the issue of "Ladies of the night". And I will not pretend to understand their lives, work or even why they do what they do. But I think in a way they are service providers who deserve to be treated like human beings like any other service provider. 

Recently, I heard one have an argument with one of my neighbour. The argument was a little too hard to miss since it was right outside my window. According to her, she was having an attack, I am not too sure of what, and he had refused to pay her plus leaving her waiting outside in the cold. And by tropical standards, it was a coooold morning, although she didn't sound like she was having an asthma attack, thank God. Considering that she had to dress provocatively, I imagine she was wearing something skimpy. Didn't have the heart to peep out. Preferred to leave her some dignity since her customer clearly wasn't. 

Anyway, he is soft spoken and hopefully was embarrassed to not be too loud for the other neighbors to hear him. But she was having none of that. I can only imagine how angry she was to have been "used" like she said, and not be paid. I thought that it was unfair to deny her payment because she had provided a service. Unless he feels that it is ok to walk into a shop and carry off stuff without paying for it. I then heard them walk to the gate, and heard it close after which I heard his front door close. She however, remained outside the gate not only shouting profanities but also informing us, his neighbors, that we were living with a thief and so should keep our stuff locked up. 

Hhhmm, in any transaction, there is an agreement that one will provide a service and the other will pay for it. So if one breeches the contract, they are also breaking the rules of business. It made me wonder why someone would voluntarily agree to a transaction and then back out after not just sampling but rather taking all the options. Well eventually she left to go home. Business, no matter the kind, is full of challenges indeed. It would have been so much easier, and less embarrassing if he had simply paid for the service. Actually, not only did he disrespect her, but he also disrespected us the neighbors for forcing us to listen to his personal stuff.

How much information is too much?

I resigned my job in December 2015 and since then I have been looking for something to do. I went through the phases, panic, fear, relief and finally excitement. First of all, I didn't know I was that exhausted. I only discovered this after I managed to sleep for three days (with occasional breaks for food and bathroom) without worrying about the alarm sounding or deadlines. It finally caught up with me that I finally have a chance to change the direction my career was taking. A chance to figure out what my next step in life was going to be. Now I get to choose what I want to be when I "grow up". Many times we worry about leaving a job without another in hand. We worry about family, bills, food, transport fare, taxes etc and forget to take care of ourselves. 

Well, I must say that during these 6 and a half months, apart from doing the job search and being interviewed twice, I have been able to put in a lot of reading, come up with ideas (which I now have to sort out into something workable) and also had time to attend career building forums which I either didn't have time to attend before or was too tired to attend or even pay attention to. Actually, this is the point at which I feel like I just shared too much information.

Anyway, during one of the forums I attended, there was a discussion about earning money as a blogger. To be honest I knew people earned money as bloggers but I didn't know anyone in Uganda who is earning as a Freelance Blogger. It was quite an eye-opener to listen to one of the panelists talk about her work as a freelance blogger, so I thought, why not? I mean I do this as a hobby, so can I turn it into something that earns me a couple of dollars at least? Then the question came to me, "How information much is too much?" I mean looking at some of the assignments given to freelance bloggers.

How much information is too much? If say, I am writing a piece about my family, how much of their lives should I put out there? If I am describing a product, how much information should I or shouldn't I put out there about it? If it is a piece about politics in my country, how much should I write or leave out? If it is a technical piece, should I fill it with all the technical jargon I picked up while I was doing research on that particular topic? While I am sure the answers are in the guidelines about blogging (which by the way are way way way more than "too much"), I think these are some of the questions new bloggers like me have. 

I started this blog as a personal initiative or something I did for my former employer to share some of the work being done and testimonies from a few of the clients away from the structure of the Company website. But since I left, I had to take off the Company stuff. The blog provided a great way to engage fellow staff and I also used it as a ..."more/details" page for the weekly newsletter. I loved the flexibility of writing my way, writing when I wanted to and about any topic that caught my fancy.

Aah, let me go Google the answers and hopefully begin my journey to becoming a great blogger.

A visit to an old friend.

Today, I and a friend went to visit another friend who is an artist. All three of us went to secondary school together but we hadn't met physically for about three years, although I was in touch with both of them.  My visit was majorly to discuss business, but like we always did in the old days, we used up a good 5 - 6 hours laughing and catching on our lives. So typical. 

We discussed everything under the sun; life, family, politics, religion, health and definitely the good old days and the people we went to school with. It was interesting that we were talking as if we last met just a few days ago. We just seemed to pick up from wherever it is we left off. 

Now, we are all grown up, supposedly, lived life and seen what the world is like. We have been through happy times, sad times, difficult times, uplifting times and all the kinds of times in between. We have all traveled beyond our country's borders, either for school or work and seen different cultures and met different people. But at the core of all that is that we are still the same people we were back the with our short hair and wearing red skirts and white blouses in school except maybe a little wiser.

There are some people you might meet after several years and you just can't strike up a conversation with them nor do you even feel comfortable being around them. Well, for us today, it was a successful reunion. We were still as comfortable as we were back in school. To be honest, I don't know whether it was that we have similar upbringing, hold the same values or whether we have that kind of friendship which involves mutual respect and the knowledge that everyone has something they have achieved in life and deserve to be respected. 

Anyway after hours of catching up, we finally got down to business. Again the ideas were flowing, support for each other and recognition that like were a team in school, we had to be a team to build something else, this time away from the laughing and stories. Finally the lessons we learned about teamwork, being creative and building social networks were coming in handy, because much as were are friends we went into different professions. 

I must say it was a great day, I feel lighter, hopefully so do the others. The lesson I learned is that in life no matter how independent you would like to be, you will always need someone for something even if it is just for a great laugh.