Different People Do Things Differently: Employment Abroad

Living abroad, immersed in another culture, you learn different perspectives, different manners and mannerisms. Adapt. In some things more than others.  I remember as a 12 year old French exchange student with a temperature, being presented with a very large torpedo-shaped squidgy jelly pill.

'Too large to swallow' I thought. 'Huh?'

And then, by graphic demonstration, the French mum introduced me to a whole new procedure on how medicine may rapidly hit the spot. Arghhh.

On the same visit, a wobbling, yellow-ridged organic mass sitting in my soup plate, glowering at me. 

'La soupe a la cervelle', they said brightly.  'You don't eat that in Britain.' 

Gulp.  Brain soup. No, not a common dish in Seventies Swansea.

You come to learn how different things matter in different cultures.  How dropping by, on spec, on the off-chance was outlawed in Germany, even amongst liberal leftie students in 1980s Berlin.  How close friends, parched, drenched, passing by my door would phone from the phone box opposite my flat, would arrive hot-foot, a minute later, and present a giftwrapped box of chocolates Mitbringsel from their rucksack, which they'd pre-prepared for the eventuality six months ahead. Never arrive unannounced or emptyhanded, even in extemis or if just coming for a cuppa.

In poverty-stricken Madagascar where pot-bellied malnourished tots abounded, how I bridled at the sparkling cement 'wasted' in my eyes on upgraded tombs for the ancestors.  My friend took me gently to one side.
'I know that in Britain when you have a little extra money you buy a pension for your old age.  Here we know that any prosperity comes from the spirits of the ancestors, and so we try to treat the ancestors well, even when we ourselves have little.'
Admonished. Chastened.

But then, when I was younger, footloose, fancyfree, when the stresses of Abroad got too much you could, in extremis, retire to bed for the day with a pile of good escapist books. Equanimity renewed, back into the fray. But in Kenya, in midlife, Abroad enters the safehaven home. Crosses the drawbridge. Penetrates the inner citadel, in the form of our staff, or in this case, our newly hired part-time cook.  Number Three so far, if you join the blog at this point.

Bright-eyed, the new cook, has worked in restaurants before. German restaurants, I noted with glee. Has a whole host of culinary skills. Is keen, eager, enthusiastic.  I'd explained at interview and on Day One that we only needed a part-time cook. 3-7pm, part meal preparation, part being a responsible youth worker in the house while we trailed home from work, or even launched into the post-summer plans of a Fitness Regime. 

'The other meals, - and at weekends - we prepare ourselves.' I said clearly. 'We want the children to be confident cooking and clearing away for themselves - they need to, back in Britain. So it matters that they, and we, keep in practice now.' 

So the deal was struck, 3pm on Day Two, Bright-eyed would be back at work.

And she was.  In style. 

It is the DogDays of the holidays. Tom it was true, had driven off to work at 630am as usual. At 750am I was thinking about getting up.  Heard a loud clanging, clattering, banging in the kitchen.  Saucepans. Lids. Glass.  And some tutting. Unusual for a burglar to tut, surely.

By the time I'd showered, dressed, the clanging had reached forttissimo levels.

'Hello Bright-eyed, what are you doing so early?' 

'I'm cleaning the cupboards. Clearing out. Rearranging them, so the things are where they should be. Where I want them to be.'

Oh dear, 0-100 on the stressometer in three easy sentences. I don't think I'm particularly possessive.  Even think I'm fairly easygoing.   Hadn't realised I was bonded to my kitchenware.  To which saucepan goes where.  Suddenly realised a whole new minefield in my psyche.

I managed to bite my tongue on my outrage.  Somewhat.  Was a tad redfaced, highpitched, pre-caffinated.  Had a clear conversation, I thought, about me cooking too. For over half the time. Of the children, me, Tom needing to be able to find things where they expected.  Of the importance of discussing, consulting, asking permission before acting in someone else's space.  Rearranging their kitchen cupboards. Did touch on the thorny question of 'but why seven hours early Brighteyed?' 

'Well I can't possibly work in conditions like this. It needs cleaning. Sorting.'

Please don't criticise on Day Two. Bite tongue again.

Several hours of banging later I venture back into the kitchen to make sandwiches for lunch.  Yes it is spick and span. Better ordered even. But much of what is now filling the large bin had been formerly Being Saved. Washed, stacked yoghurt pots for food leftovers in the fridge or for transporting guineapig pellets to the hutch.  Empty cereal boxes for junk modelling or for guineapig playpens. Ginger marmelade, imported from UK, for eating. In solitary pleasure. Snarling at anyone else who ventured close.

'Well I didn't want them so I threw them away. They were rubbish.'

One person's rubbish is another person's carefully hoarded soon to be model cardboard lorry or frozen soup holder. OK if you now had visions of a hoarder's house with piles of teetering newspapers saved from the 1950s. It hadn't been like that. Had been perfectly clean, tidy, ordered - but prepared for summer holiday eventualities. Now shorn. Bereft. Denuded. Without consultation.

Because in Kenya, 'Different people do things differently' is not a widespread catchphrase, though of course they do. In school Kenyan pupils don't learn to analyse or to see things from another's perspective, but to give the officially endorsed answer, word for word, to the question.  Officially endorsed answers are of course, not open to tweaking, responding to research, feedback, audience response, customer comments.  To difference. Intuition. Shades of grey. Gradations. Or to out and out quirky eccentricity. They instead are standardised.  Mass produceable. But it's our home. My kitchen too. Not a restaurant. If I can't be odd, quirkily eccentric, a potentially creative mum, even off the scale a daffy hoarder in my own kitchen, where may I be?

And the difficulty with officially endorsed answers in cooking, is that taste matters.  Tastes differ. Nigella's guacamole is different from Nigel's from Jamie's from Gordon's from mine.  I said to Bright-eyed on Day One,
'Well its great you can do greek salad, and we like it alot. But with olives and not with aubergine or mushrooms like you used to do it in the restaurant.'

I said it again on Day Three, this time with more explanation:

'Mushrooms are expensive, and we like them better when they're cooked. Please can you leave them out of the salads as it's a waste.' 
But each day nice salads, tasty salads - but with added mushrooms. That's how they did it in the restaurant. Standardised. Thats how we - in a different context, with different priorities - have to have it. Unless I, my cookery books, different standard answers, can get through.

And the early morning starts?  Part-time working isn't common in Kenya, though it is more so for cooks. But we discussed hours at interview, agreed them at the pre-meeting. repeated them on Day One, for Day Two. But somehow, because Bright-eyed hasn't encountered it before,
'See you at 3pm tomorrow' became an 8am arrival. Three days running, despite corrections each day.  I get that, in a new job, you want to do your best. Show what you can do. Demonstrate you're indispensable.  Not be found slacking. But it makes me feel invisible that what I say clearly, several times, in different ways just gets disregarded as too new and too confusing. 

It isn't just Bright-eyed.   Last year we had family staying in the dry season. The Friday they arrived all water to the house failed. It's happened before, quite often. We live on a hill. There are airlocks when the water pressure falls. Sometimes it comes back when you drain the airlock. This time not. For four days we carried water, poured water to flush, tried various fiddling, stopcock twisting and draining techniques, explained and explained again. At the end of Day Four I spoke to our gardener, asked if he had any further suggestions. 'Oh I switched off the stopcock at the bottom of the garden on Friday.' 

?!?!

'Because????' Without saying? With no reason or note. And then went home for the weekend?'
As though the stopcock at the bottom of the garden was maybe looking untidy. Suddenly out of place?  Needful of a rest? Could be switched off at a whim with no impact. With no need for reason, report or communication. When we had a family of four coming to stay.  I cannot understand it.

Since then I've tried to train our staff on Major Changes. Carry on your job in the usual way, that's great. If you plan or see a major change you need to discuss it with me first. What is a major change? Cutting down a tree in the garden. [Thinks of the healthy tree which was cut down without consultation, next to the dead tree which is still standing.] Switching off the stopcock. [Bitter grin.] Letting workmen take the washing machine away without warning. [But I wrote it in the guard's book that someone had taken it. Did you get their car number plate or their name? No. But they said it was alright. But you are a guard. Your job is to protect people and property. Not to let unknown visitors into our house and take away the washing machine.]  Changing all the kitchen cupboards around. Spotting a workmate who is responsible for security smoking drugs while on duty.  All true examples in the last two years.

In Britain, in Europe, if you're given a  task by a boss you do it, or report back changes, delays, failure to do it. In Kenya I give a task, communicate it, I think clearly, anticipate that it has been done if not told otherwise.  In BigCorporate that's what people do too.  But not in FormerHoardersHaven, Nairobi, Kenya.  Or, at any rate, not yet.

Falling Short

Back in UK Firstborn was a Brownie, along with all her mates. And what Brown Owl, the kindly, competent, hyperefficient mother of four, staff nurse and pillar of the community, said, Went.  Not just for the Brownies but for we parents too.  In part because we so valued what she and her family made possible in the community, - the camping trips where she took 30 overexcited preteens away for a termtime weekend, where her husband, an overstretched teacher, catered and facilitated their 'helping'.  The carol concerts on Christmas Eve in the reception of the local hospital, where the Brownies visited each ward and sought to convey something deeper than a Santa hat alone.  But also because her assertions had the ring of truth, would be backed up by wider explanations.  Because deep down, however inconvenient, you knew she was right.  She was consistent. She was as she preached.

I remember her explaining to a child who'd forgotten to get parents to complete and return a permission slip, forgotten for the second time,
'It matters that your friends can rely on you. The way we do this, is by being reliable in the small things. Permission slips aren't just about permission to go on a trip, they are about being reliable, a trusted member of the troop.'

It's a message which needs a loudspeaker here in Kenya. Being reliable is either on a different scale, or, I'd perceive, just isn't valued at all.  Giving difficult messages, meeting agreed deadlines, explaining that the situation has changed, clarifying misunderstandings rather than just letting them lie, apologising, these are all in short supply here. I try to continue to emulate Brown Owl, to be a sinking island of reliability, at least in my threshold issues.  It matters to me and my identity to believe that people to whom I've made a commitment, can rely on me. But it's an uphill task most of the time, and sometimes, as today, I fall far short.

At BigCorporate decisions are taken with seemingly no sense of the impact they might have on the worker bees, and ultimately on their own objectives.  Trying to support students to apply to US colleges, and my - and their - internet access at work has been blocked, completely. I made the case that we might as well cancel the whole programme if they can't access the internet. That when things are this competitive, they need every ounce of support they can get for them to triumph. And that blocking their research tool - and mine - has major consequences.

BigCorporate has an August Congress for all its interns, former and current. It's the time when they all get released from their branch offices, gather together to network, to listen to inspirational speakers, - and for those applying to the States to get feedback on essays and applications.  August is also the time when expat children are home from school, and when expat families travel home, so I'd planned ahead. Had the dates of the Congress confirmed, so I could book our flights and sort our commitments around it. Three dimensional chess with family in several bits of the country, meeting friends, working round the commitments of others. But I managed it, more or less.  Today I learn by chance that the Congress dates are precisely not those I've been given. Its all been moved by a week. Its now precisely at the time I'm not here, - and I'm the only person working with the US applications this year.  In a way I can understand it. A VIP wanted to attend so it was shifted. OK then. What I can't understand is that no one communicates this.  That a manager doesn't take responsibility to pass on difficult news, and then say, well calm down ThresholdGal, the universe doesn't revolve around you you know.   But you do need that conversation.

Yesterday my patience, long tried by one of our staff, snapped. I'd given multiple warnings, set up performance improvement plans, monitored, fed back, congratulated improvement.  And there had been improvements, and relapses, and different issues for which no warnings had been given. And it all got too much for me. Today I sacked him.  I felt my boundaries had been pushed too far, that the relationship was seriously out of balance. We pay well, offer generous benefits, and are clear that we expect reliability in return.  My willingness to give time off at times of emergency seemed to have become interpreted as it not really mattering whether the individual was at work, or not.  And for me the final straw was the request for a week's leave for the funeral of a sister in law - (a day or two ok, but a week?), the week following two day's leave for a sore finger, a week ahead of a month's paid leave while we are away, in addition to a further 3 weeks other paid emergency leave in times of extreme crisis this year (alongside four weeks paid leave already taken while we've been away.)  Put in black and white you can see how he might have got that impression. But still.

I have tried explaining that he was our childcare. That my ability to work depended on him being here. That I can get cover through friends if given notice, but on the spur of the moment? Here short-term, with no family in this country. Complex beyond. And repeatedly on the spur of the moment? No no no. But he, being a man in a society where he doesn't shoulder precisely these responsibilities, couldn't grasp this I think. 

It's really, really hard to sack someone in a country without social security, even when you've dithered around the issue multiple times over 15 months. When you like the person its even harder. If there were social security here I wouldn't hesitate in this case.  But its all so much more entangled here.

And its really entangled in the mind of the staff. When we had our termination interview, - which I had prefigured with him really clearly the night before, but he still hadn't anticipated - his first comment was 'But if you do this I'll have to take my children out of school.'  And then 'But you will get me another job won't you.'  And I can hear the desperation in his voice, see his pleading eyes still.  And yes of course, I've written a reference with the warmth that I do feel for him for what he has done for us. And I've posted it on jobs boards and noticeboards in malls and paid for two months advertising. And we've given him a generous pay off, and I've said if he doesn't find something by mid August he should phone me and I'll see what else I can do.  But, Brown Owl-like, I've also said clearly,
'But I can't find you something with my friends, because they have all heard me moaning when you unexpectedly aren't there.  When people phone me, I will tell of all the things you do well, your kindness, honesty, my affection for you.  But if they ask me were you always there when you were expected, well I will have to say no.  You need to think about this for your next job.'

And now I wonder whether being generous doesn't maybe put people into child mode. Handouts. Patronage. For me the focus of our relationship was the work context, a job, set tasks.  The context for our generosity was a work relationship, to build a stronger work relationship, and a recognition of need which we could help to bridge. I had been really explicit about it, I thought.  But from people's reactions now - not just his, - despite over 10 warnings - but also our housekeeper, who was stunned, and cried - its more like a caring parent suddenly slapping you in the face.  Relax into this relationship, no need to do, just to be.

And I feel caught up in that too. Do feel deadly guilty at having fallen short of what was expected of me - whether or not I expected it of myself - at the thought of those children possibly having to leave school.  Of the deadly stress and uncertainty I have wreaked on a family I do like and care for.  But we have 'put up with' for over a year. Like in a bad relationship, my friends can recite chapter and verse of our ups and downs. We have helped get them a year's more schooling than without us. And in the end, when the chips are down, when push comes to shove, my focus is reliable childcare for my own children, a reliable safety net that enables me to meet my obligations.  I, we, can't build a welfare state on our own.

And just as I value Brown Owl's clearspoken honesty, so it matters to me that when I've given up the hope of a relationship getting better, when I'm really really tired of that carping tone in my voice, and the admonishments with the door shut, well then I want to move on.