Sista Clinik

Vera’s story on sexual harassment shared last Friday reminds me of mine . I recently changed jobs, and I quite remember the question my then employer asked when I broke the news of my resignation. Apparently he had heard from somewhere that his P.A was being harassed, sexually, by a man also in the office.   ‘ Are you leaving because of Kofi (real name withheld)?” he asked. “ I heard he’s been harassing you. Is it true ?” Well, no I wasn’t leaving because of Kofi; not necessarily. But Kofi wasn’t making my stay at the company easy either. I remember also vividly the very day I took the job. I was seated next to the lady who was handing over to me. There were a few things she needed to take me through before she took her big step out of the company.  As we sat behind the desk, this man that I later got to know as Kofi walked by. He went straight to the Augusta (also real name withheld), and while talking to her, helped himself to what was almost a scoop o...

“Girl I like you” he says; “Sorry not interested” you reply. “But I love you” he insists; “Sorry man. I’m just not interested” you say. “But Baby I…” he tries to go on, but you block him off with “Dude I said NO!”   Does this sound familiar to any of you? If yes, then more power to you sista. If no, then I wish I was you because guys like this are some of the most annoying you will ever meet. Kindly pardon my tone. I was not in my ‘happy place’ when writing this and it shows. Now don’t get me wrong, I sincerely respect the age-old tradition of playing hard to get, but when she looks ready to knock his lights outs and begins to cuss him out then he better back off.  Now here’s the thing. A lot of the time, it seems like these guys are ‘joking’, I would know; it’s a new game played nearly every day at the office.  However, when you know the person you’re ‘joking’ with AND he/she gets that kind of ‘thing’ then kudos to the both of you. But when a guy a...

I had heard cases of how some women employees were let go as a result of getting pregnant, but the cases always sounded absurd and unreal until it happened to me. In my case however, I was not sacked for getting pregnant but rather, getting married. May 2015 after my wedding, I was issued a termination letter and a new staff had been engaged to take over from me, just like that, without any valid reasons whatsoever. I was offered just two months salary which was for lieu of notice and leave allowance. I had been working for the company for 8 years, and this was how they chose to let me go. I arranged several meetings with my superiors to understand why I had been let go as; an act I thought was unfair to me, but proper reasons that justified the treatment was not forthcoming. So I decided to ‘dig’. I found out that the owners believed that married women were not as efficient as single women as they were perceived to have greater responsibilities.  The bosse...