MANTALK: Daddy’s little princess

The wealthy man’s daughter is brought to the desk of the associate partner for an introduction. She’s in university in the UK but currently on a two-month internship.

She studies finance and daddy is buddies with one of the shareholders of the firm and, as a favour, asks him to absorb his daughter for this period. She’s a studious and focused girl, the associate partner (AP) is told.

She’s shown a chair and a computer. She sits there looking around, waiting for the computer to boot. At some point she knocks on the associate partner’s door and asks if perhaps, there is a laptop she can use instead because, well, the computer is ‘so slow.’ The AP tells her that no, there is no laptop, all interns use computers, unfortunately.

She hunkers back to the desk and waits while spending time on social media, which she does pretty much the whole day. Whole day here being 2pm when she passes by the AP’s office and says, “OK, see ya! I think I will call it a day.” Off she goes.

At night the AP gets a call from his boss who tells him that he should organise for a laptop for the “young lady who just joined us.” He tells his boss that there are no extra laptops. “Well, just find a laptop. Buy one if we have to.”

So procurement gets a laptop by 10am the following day and it’s handed to daddy’s princess.

The next day the wealthy man’s daughter leaves the office at 2pm again but comes back soon after and tells the AP, “I think someone vandalised my car!”

The AP, trying not to show irritation says, “I’m sorry, your car?” Because she’s only 19 years old and he can’t comprehend how she has come to own a car. She sniffs, “I went downstairs but found that someone has vandalised my car!”

Oh great. He drops very urgent matters that he was handling and together they rush downstairs where he finds a sexy sky blue 320d BMW, two-door. It looks new. He tells her, “Your car has been clamped not vandalised!”

She asks, horrified, “But why? Who would do something so horrible?” she asks in her British accent. He tells her (in his Nyambene / Kenyan accent) that the parking out here in the streets belongs to the county government and the city council (and holds himself from adding, “You might have heard about them.”)

“It’s not free to park here. You have to pay,” he tells her. She seems lost and confused because in her world, she has never had to pay for parking. One of daddy’s people always take care of such inconveniences.

“So what will you do? Can you do something?” she asks him and he chuckles at her innocence. What will I do? So he finds the kanjo guys in yellow and pays them to unclamp the car.

She is almost in tears with bewilderment. She will later call her father and ask him why people in Kenya (she’s also Kenyan) can just clamp your car like that without consulting you. It must be illegal.

She continues coming in late, doing squat at her desk and leaving at 2pm. At first the AP thinks to himself that it’s none of his business. She can come and go as she pleases.

But then he’s a father of girls her age and it eats him and one day when she’s passing by his office at 2pm to say, “See yah, I think I will call it a day,” he tells her, please come in for a minute, will you, Sandra. Please have a seat.

And he talks to her about the reason for her being there and concludes by saying, “You might not have any expectations of this internship, and I wouldn’t blame you, but I wish you could have expectations of yourself.” And she sits there looking embarrassed and somehow affronted.

He was sure he was going to tell daddy and daddy would call the shareholder who would call his boss and ask him why he thinks he has to impose his parenting skills in interns instead of guiding them with work.

She never told daddy. And her attitude changed. And she never left before 5pm and she would ask for more work and got more curious.

Most importantly, she would pay for her own parking, hell even made friends with the city council guys.

Is there any moral to this story? I don’t know, you tell me. But I enjoyed telling it.