THE HUSTLER'S DILEMMA

 

Pethias, let’s call him that, is a Copperbelt University graduate with a Bachelors in Economics. After the epic highs of a graduation filled with great hope for the future, he finds himself dealing with the harsh realities of unemployment 3 years on. The optimism he had since that beautiful afternoon when he wore his gown now but a distant memory, he attempts to face each morning fortified with a renewed sense of belief that this might be the day his fortunes finally change.

See, he had no illusions as to how competitive the job market was, after all he had seen his peers roaming the streets jobless and drained, long before he had even made that walk through his University’s hallowed corridors with his application in the very backpack he had carried his high school books in not a year ago. This time when he took it off his back, the weight of his family’s hopes and dreams remained.

Nowadays, he can write job applications with his eyes closed, how could he not? He had sent applications without number. Even the little café where he sometimes spent the day debating football and politics to pass the time now let him print his CV at no charge, even handing him a spare envelope to aid his search. ‘’Engineers!’’ they call him every time he stepped out in what was once a regal blue suit, now a bit faded and fraying at the seams after countless days walking under the unforgiving Kitwe sun delivering applications from office to office.

With only a few interviews ever scheduled and not a single one leading to employment. Pethias was beginning to lose all hope. After all, he had followed the rulebook to the letter, he worked hard, focused on school and got good grades. He even tried his hand at the entrepreneurship route a few times but all it led to was him either getting scammed or chasing payments for the occasional hustle that never scaled.

The spiral was slow. Self-doubt crept in like a draft. Some nights, he stared at the ceiling with thoughts he could never tell his mother. Thoughts that scared him. When right on the brink of despair, he got a call with some good news. An invite for an interview. Now he wasn’t one to get excited, he had trod this path before without success and had began to believe interviews were just formalities; positions already promised to someone’s cousin or friend. But he showed up anyway.

‘’What’s one more interview?’’ he said to himself right before reminding the conductor he had reached his stop. Wiping the sweat off his brow and the dust off his shoes, he began the short walk to what he prayed would finally be his place of work.

Arriving with a bounce in his step that belied his inner lack of confidence, he spoke with a false sense of composure that he prayed the lady at the reception desk wouldn’t notice, her pretty face and warm smile only raising his heart rate. ‘’This way sir.’’ she said as she guided him into an unmarked office.

He was in disbelief. Almost 4 years since the completion of his studies and he had finally received a concrete offer of employment. This had been his prayer for the last few years and yet there he was, conflicted.

The man who interviewed him was blunt. After the briefest of formalities, he made an offer. He informed him in no uncertain terms that he’d have to grease some wheels to secure the position or at the very least forfeit his salary for the first 3 months to him and ‘’the boss upstairs.’’

 

 

‘’Young man you don’t even have a lot of experience and you’re aware this is an international organization so I’m sure you can understand that the applications are overwhelming, I just chose you because I can tell you need this job and I want to help you but kaili you have to help yourself first.’’ He said to him in a gruff voice as he wrestled with his belt that strained against his paunch before.

‘’Anyway, I’m not forcing you,’’ he added, almost bored. ‘’Think about it and if you’re ready to work we can finalize on Thursday.’’

And thus began our young Pethias’s moral and economic predicament. Raised by a God-fearing, Seventh-Day Adventist mother who never compromised her values even in hunger, he had always believed in right and wrong. In God's timing. In integrity.

And yet here he stood at a crossroads. Pay what would effectively be a bribe for employment, a betrayal of his conscience, or he could decline and return to hunger, despair, scraping a few coins together for some cheap hard liquor he’d drink out of a Mojo bottle.

A fight within himself ensues. A job obtained against the teachings of his religion and the very beliefs he held dear, or hearing his siblings cry themselves to sleep because they had nothing to eat and he no idea of when an opportunity like this would present itself.

His decision? I’ll leave that one to the reader.

-//-

 

Thoughts of a fatigued millennial:

How fluid is your morality? What do you stand for? Would you take the offer with full admission to yourself that you’re dishonest or would you hide behind the thought of being pragmatic? Would you soothe your guilt by saying it is noble and altruistic because you put your morality aside for your family? After all, our decisions are not ours alone right?

That beloved, is the hustlers’ dilemma. When survival demands compromise, what part of yourself do you trade away?

Beloved, you can learn a lot about a people by looking at their value system.

Is our society shunning of people known to have earned wealth in questionable ways or do we welcome them into our communities with open arms? Are we afraid to call it out because we too know that in their position we would have done just the same?

So swift to rush to our keyboards are we to call out state and institutional corruption with righteous fury yet flippantly practice the same in our day-to-day lives. We will without a moment of hesitation or shame, pay to get out of a traffic offense. And when it’s not monetary, we align ourselves politically to win tenders, leave ka something ka drink to expedite a process in the notoriously sluggish government departments. Even networking has been sullied with the intent to build relationships of undue favour and not as a bridge of value.

Corruption thrives because corruption is effective. Our policies look fine on paper. Some rival those in the world's least corrupt nations. Yet even with that in place we exist at the other end of the spectrum.

The easy answer in every textbook and article is political will and change starts from the top, but we’ve made our fair share of changes without any success of note. It may be time to ask different questions.

I’ve always found it curious whenever a story of a man returning a lost wallet or refusing a bribe becomes national news. The internet is flooded with cries of employment, promotion or donations. Why? Because integrity has become extraordinary. It shocks us.

We call for such people to be rewarded not only out of admiration, but because their integrity shames us. Their integrity exposes the quiet deals we’ve made, the lines we said we’d never cross until we did, the silences we've kept. Their honesty becomes a mirror we’d rather not look into. Maybe we demand they are rewarded to reassure ourselves that virtue still holds value. Or perhaps, deep down, we just need to believe that someone, somewhere, is still choosing principle over survival — because we’re no longer sure we would.