adminthat you have no right to make me see people I do not wish to talk to? Unombozviita aniko iwe mudhara?” said Langton in a fit of pique.
“Sorry mambo. Sorry boss, sorry munhu waMwari. Ndateterera, ndapota zvangu ndiregererewo,” pleaded the grey-haired old man in a low voice.
The old man was finally forgiven, but not before he had been served an earful.
His crime? He had let into Langton’s office a woman who was claiming maintenance and school fees for three children. But this was not the first time the woman had paid a visit.
In fact, during the subsistence of the relationship that produced the three children, the guard was under clear instruction to “assist her in whatever way possible”.
So how could he now be said to have erred by allowing the woman in when it was never communicated to him that the tables had turned?
Such are the trials and tribulations of being a guard.
An average day at the office does not end without being insulted by workers, management and even visitors.
If you are not strong enough, you may be relegated to finishing off people’s drinks, sweets and beer.
“Mudhara pedzisai kafodya aka kuti bhebhi rangu risaona kuti ndinombumura utsi,” you hear guys saying.
“Guard,” “Mahobho,” “Muzvinagedhe,” “Asekuru,” “Mudhara wechiheti,” or “Musekiyuriti” are names that have generally been coined in reference to security guards in the communities in which we live.
Most of these guys survive on measly sums hence the need to cycle to and from work.
A good number of guards do not want to be identified with the job they do. This is why they conceal their uniforms in satchels on their way to work and put on their regalia at their work stations.
Some of these guys are so dissatisfied with themselves that even their wives to not know the nature of the job that brings food to the table.
“Ndipo patinoshandira ipapo. Tinongobata-bata tiri ipapo,” most guards say, making sure they will never disclose what they do for a living.
Being a guard in the communities in which we live is as if you have committed a crime.
“Imbwa inoti hu- pfuti ichiti –dhu, zvese pamwechete zvinoti hudhu,” you hear children, some still wet behind the ears, singing at the sight of a security guard on his way to and from work.
Heyi, heyi, heyi mahobho?
Unoti uri kuitei?
Basa repagedhi nderekuchengetedza zvinhu?
Wakutorera secretary basa rekubvunza,
Heyi munodei pano?
Ibhizinesi here?
Haungapapinde pano kana usina kuti please Mahobho, sang Bothwell Nyamhondera and his then group called Giraffe.
The song was a chart-buster though it was enjoyed at the expense of security guards who make up a sizable percentage of the country’s workforce.
Guards are treated badly by most people. You would think they are subhuman or the job they do is lower than being a murderer.
Even when they call for order be it at a fuel queue or at the bank, people will be out to discredit whatever they say.
“Iwe mudhara kana wakanditarisa ungati ndingabva kumba kuzoudzwa zvekuita nahudhu? You are the last sort of character to tell me how my children should behave,” Ghetto Blast heard a guard being told straight in the eye.
Guards who operate near bars face a torrid time.
Almost everyone who passes through their places of work feels like relieving themselves there or just verbally attacks the guard unprovoked.
At school, children of guards have a torrid time trying to restore the dignity of their parents.
These children also suffer great humiliation at the hands of their classmates.
“Saka munotombodyawo nyama here kumba kwenyu? Can that guard you call father afford a loaf of bread everyday?” some coarse schoolchildren ask their peers on the way to school.
Unbeknown to most people, guards are responsible for the protection of property, law and order at workplaces and other administrative institutions.
Guards are not doormats because some of them work in specialised units which involve weapon handling and strategy formulation.
The lives of workers, from the chief executive to the least-paid, are in the hands of the security guards.
These are the people who ward off your enemies and debt collectors by simply telling them that you are away on business. Even that girl you impregnated after a one-night stand will stop harassing you at the workplace after being convinced by the guard that you have been transferred elsewhere.
Guards sometimes help workers at the companies at which they are deployed survive arrest by simply telling the arresting police officers that you are off duty.
Brawny security guards have saved millions of dollars worth of property since time immemorial by ensuring that visitors to any premises are screened and their details are well-recorded in case of an accident or theft.
But the same guards can be a thorn in the flesh if you are stingy.
“There is no point in protecting someone who cannot even buy a coke. Why should I waste my time and energy protecting an idiot who goes about looking for trouble, but can’t even buy a plate of sadza?” you hear the guards saying while at their workstations.
Gentle reader, beauty knows no boundary.
Some men and women are now happily married after falling in love with security personnel during the course of their duties.
Who said a guard can’t kiss, hold or love.
Unotapirirwa nelove yahudhu ukaimba manhanga kutapira. But some women have sworn never to fall in love with a guard.
Some parents are also to blame for this. They often want their children to fall in love with the rich.
Landlords too have a serious dislike for guards.
The moment they discover that the prospective tenant is a guard, they start shifting goalposts.
“Sorry mukuwasha imba yacho yakatopindwa kare. Pane vakazongouya nemari vachibva vapinda,” I heard someone lying through the skin of their teeth.
They only left the cat out of the bag when the guard cycled away: “Unoda kuti ndinetswe? Noiwanepi mari iyeyu?”
Gentle reader, guards go through hell in the communities in which we live.
Theirs is a dog’s life, but someone has got to live it.
Inotambika mughetto.
Online Reporter
dyton mupawaenda