Running estate affairs and my side hustles begin to take a toll

Despite having just come back from leave, I feel like I need another holiday with so much going on.  At the start of the year, I was appointed the chairman of our estate welfare committee.

I have no clue why I was chosen for this role because I really do not see myself as a natural leader but one of our neighbours told me, “you know Josphat; you are a cool guy with a level head. Huna mambo mengi.”  

Initially I was flattered by this but then later I started pondering this statement. Is it maybe that people think I am a doormat? Or a walkover? This was especially ringing true given last week’s incident where my colleagues were feeling slighted that I had thrown them under the bus over something they had done wrong.

Despite other people’s sentiments, I was determined to show my stronger and assertive side.  My good intentions were tested a few days ago when one of our neighbours accosted me at the parking lot. 

I was a bit irritated by this because I was trying to get into the office by 6.30am to avoid the traffic and get some work done. I also planned to leave the office early to make an unplanned visit to my shop- which is my side hustle.  

I covered up my irritation by putting up a smile and said, “Yes Kip! What can I do for you?”  He told me, “boss, I do not know how to tell you this but I need to tell you because my wife is driving me nuts?” I laughed and said, “I am a chairman but not a marriage counsellor.” He chuckled and said, “Listen to me first and then you can decide.”

Next door neighbour

According to him, his wife has become a nag because of their next door neighbour. According to Kip, he rarely gets a good night’s sleep because his wife is forever complaining.

She claims that her next door neighbour has madharau.  He went on to narrate how the next door neighbour, “leaves her rubbish outside our doorstep, how her housegirl plays loud music during the day making it hard for our children to sleep and throws too many parties.

“I told him,” well this you can sort out by having a conversation. “He said,” well I have tried but this lady is cantankerous and any time we try it ends up a being a shouting match. You need to do something.”

I said, “But what can I do? I cannot evict the guy? He said, “Well if you need the by-laws you will realise that you can evict any tenant who behaves badly and who violates the neighbourhood’s code of conduct.

To be honest, I had not read the code of ethics and I realised that this guy was looking for a solution. I was also seeing that I was running late and my desire to get to the office early was out of the window. So I said, “Listen let me run it by the secretary and treasurer and then get back to you.”

Kip laughed and said, “Good luck with that, our neighbour is the secretary so you understand our dilemma. This was clearly news but I needed to give this guy a solution so I could go to work so I said, “leave it with me; let me see what i can do.”  

I got into the car, and drove into the office. The conversation had cost me a lot of time and I ended up getting into the office two hours later. This did not augur well for the rest of my day because I missed meetings and was generally was in a foul mood.  I needed at some point to pick someone’s brain on how to deal with this situation.

My day did not get any better when I went   on to make an unannounced visit to the shop. It was only 5 pm when ordinarily there was high traffic but the shop was firmly locked.

I asked the owner of the next shop, “Have you seen the shopkeeper?” She laughed and said, “That one! She always goes away from 2 pm daily” Now I needed to have another tough conversation with Shiro about her cousin.