My first salary

Thulaganyo Jankey | Tuesday June 21, 2022 06:00

They would neatly type your details on a slip of paper and your salary details and deductions and put it in an envelope. Since I had just started working, there were not many deductions save for tax unlike my more experienced colleagues whose payment advice slips looked like movie credits.

This movie credits pay slip situation irked them and when month-end happened along there were long and sad faces in the workplace. This always used to baffle me until it was explained to me by a colleague.

Some would go to the school bursar, barrack her but still lose. In a school setting no-one has ever won an argument against a school bursar regarding pay slips. But that never dissuaded movie credits pay slip people from trying. When your first salary is on the horizon those relatives with latent love that has been lying idle for quite a while, would suddenly care about your well-being.

Those fairweather friends will tell you how they have always considered you to be a terrific guy. And then those long in the tooth colleagues probably see you as a potential loan facility.

If you are not careful, they can nicely ensnare you in their web and before you know it your salary is fighting movie credits pay slips of colleagues. Salary is a Get Rich Slowly scheme according to financial experts but I still thought it was a lie.

My first salary was a whopping P1,965. Now any reasonable and financially clued-up person knows that in the mid-90s that was a lot of money. It was mind-blowing to get that kind of money from government and I felt like a thief in the night.

This surely was a path to riches. Quickly! I was staying about 50km from the city then and the mode of transport was a rickety, chassis-bent buses, which when in motion seem like they would cross onto the lane of oncoming traffic.

When you work in the village there’s no way you can spend your money in the village when the city is one hour away by rickety bus transport. So I would saunter into the city every month-end loaded with cash though Rickety Bus always gave an impression of someone who is struggling with his finances. I swore to kick off the process of buying a car in the forthcoming months.

Rickety Bus stole my swag in a big way. Upon reaching the station I’d get into a mini-bus, which in our local language is called a combi. Combis then were fresher with untattered seats and doors that actually closed without a raft of instructions from the driver.

The car capital of the world, Mogoditshane back then was a sleepy village more renowned for water that stains teeth and there was not a single car sales outlet there selling any type of motorised vehicles. Nowadays when you see such a combi (the fresher type) it would be written something like Moremi Gorge Tours, Ambulance or Police and not Broadhurst Route whatever.

It seems all the combis for commuters nowadays have that little sticker written Japan, a Japanese email address or a Japanese town. Another problem with these combis is they are too small to fit four at the back. Ok, admittedly back then we were not as fat as now because hamburgers and hotdogs were a delicacy for the rich then unlike nowadays where everyone with a Cadac gas griller sells them at street corners. The combi would then deliver me to the malls, which were African Mall, Kagiso Centre, Main Mall and Station Mall.

Store accounts were a fad then and I’d get into the likes of Smart Centre and give them artillery to take my name to ITC. The salary will peter off through collection of music, clothing and having fun with people who did not have salaries or whose salaries were less than P1,965.

My importance soared to enviable heights at month-end when I descended on the city and I was always surrounded by a posse of unapologetic bloodhounds with clean pockets. What a time to be alive.

What a way to gobble up hard-earned money! This process was repeated every month until the penny dropped - salary unlike what the experts had said is really a Get Poor Slow Scheme. (For comments, feedback and insults email inkspills1969@gmail.com)