Bestmen’s Pledge

Becoming an ex-bachelor is no joke. Especially if your surname is the most famous one in Africa and you’re marrying a princess. Because of that, I will need the bestmen, or Real Ex-Bachelors of Lilayi (REBoLs), as they have come to be known, to take an oath before assuming office as my compadres on this journey from bachelorhood to ex-bachelorhood.

Below is the pledge of allegiance that the REBoLs will have to read out while holding a Bible in their right hands, just before signing the important pledge:

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I’m Becoming An Ex-Bachelor

What’s This About?

So I’m getting married. And that’s what this category is all about and this is where I will be posting notes about the wedding preps.

Having lived in Lilayi, Lusaka, as soon as I get married, I will be referring to myself as the Real Ex-Bachelor of Lilayi (REBoL). To help me prepare for the wedding, I will be expected to recruit a high profile team of best men who will provide entertainment on that day. But their job will start way before the wedding day as their core function will be to provide me with moral support.

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A Lesson for the I.T. Geek

I have for a long time told non-IT people that the job of IT people is not laying back in their swivelling office chairs, eyes half-open, staring blankly at their computer screens and consequently inadvertently drooling on their keyboards while waiting for non-IT people to report boring PC problems like “I’ve lost all the files on my flash drive.” The IT person, whether in the technical support department or not, is not designed to sit at his (“his” in the context of this entire article can also mean “her”) desk waiting for a user to report that their PC has misbehaved.

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The Naked Man: A Lesson for Job Seekers

Prepping for a job interview? Here’s an HR lesson from The Naked Man

 

The Naked Man was the title of Episode 9 in Season 4 of How I Met Your Mother. It was one of my favourite episodes, and not only because it was hilarious, but because of what lessons could be drawn from it.

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A Teachers’ Day Message: My Problem with the Zambian Teaching Fraternity

Yesterday was International Teachers’ Day, and I would like to honour the patriotic men and women who wake up early every morning to dispense knowledge to the people we describe as the “leaders of tomorrow”. Teachers are often the unsung protagonists of society, and it is fitting that they be celebrated on a day like today.

The theme of this year’s annual celebration is “Empowering Teachers, Building Sustainable Communities.” It is a sensible theme because it follows that the net effect of a large group of empowered (and appreciated) educators is an educated society that is able to derive innovative and sustainable solutions to the problems it faces.

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Wong Zulu Online, With A New Twist

I first went live sometime in February 2010 with a simple Web site that advertised what I do. It underwent one redesign in 2012, but with the way the Web evolves, my site quickly became obsolete. And of course I should know… I work in tech.

Against that backdrop, I would like to officially launch the new look Wong Zulu Online service today, Sunday September 20, 2015, which happens to be the 31st Annual World Wong Day (my birthday, in case you don’t get it).

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The Older You Get, The Wiser Your Dad Gets

Between 1990 and 1996, I played chess with my father over 300 times. As I recall, I beat him about 13 times and we had about 9 stalemates. (Yes, that means he defeated me more than 278 times – no need to rub it in!)

Around 7.30hrs this morning, as I was prepping for church, I turned 31. Now, a couple of years ago, I heard Gordon Robertson from the Christian Broadcasting Network say on his birthday, “the older you get, the wiser your dad gets”. So I said to myself, how about I challenge Alvin Zulu I (hereinafter called The Dadster) to a chess match.

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Ten Years, Four Job Applications, Four Job Interviews, Four Job Offers (Part III)

Tough Start

3 months on my second job and I almost got fired because of the incompetence of a certain Internet Service Provider, which I will not name. Simply because, against my better judgement, I have chosen to keep them on the market, where they could potentially mess other organisations’ work by providing pathetic Internet services.

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Ten Years, Four Job Applications, Four Job Interviews, Four Job Offers (Part II)

So it begins…

I started my teaching job on Tuesday 31st May 2005, the day after the interview. I was shown to the computer lab, a large, though modest room with 13 working PCs, each running Windows 95, except 2 that ran Windows 3.1. Continue reading “Ten Years, Four Job Applications, Four Job Interviews, Four Job Offers (Part II)”

Ten Years, Four Job Applications, Four Job Interviews, Four Job Offers (Part I)

Tomorrow I will be making a presentation to the president and CEO of the non-profit organisation I work for fulltime. If things go well, he’ll be convinced to let us improve the ICT infrastructure in the 19 schools our organisation runs. I would like to talk about how I got to this point. Brace yourself… It’s a story of grace, guts and geekiness.

I’ve been working fulltime for the last ten years. And in my entire life, I’ve only ever sent out four job applications, been called to interviews four times and have been offered four jobs.

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