A WEEK AGO I was packing up my lunch ‘to-go’ while mulling over the carelessness of too many of my compatriots and how helpless we sometimes are in its blatancy (a real word) when I got the rare opportunity to do something about it.

Before heading for lunch, I’d had meetings at the Parliamentary buildings and walked out to wait for an Uber in front of a road sign that read: “Said Bare Ave.” I tweeted it with hashtag #MediocrityUG.

I was about nine years old when I first discovered Siad Barre, because of that very road and its concrete signpost back then. I have never forgotten the spelling.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siad_Barre

To find that four decades later there are people who worked together in a process that involved designs, approvals, production, and installation who ALL could not spot that mistake is still distressing to me. Have the MPs who pass there every day raised this with the Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) people whose headquarters are up the road?

Small errors can too often lead to calamities, as the potholes around our cities demonstrate. Ask any road engineer.

My opportunity to do something came shortly after my Uber driver had delivered me from the sight of that signpost. As I waited for my food to be packed, a fine young fellow awaited his own collection – a birthday cake he was taking to a loved one.

We happened to be side by side when the cake was delivered, and the box opened for his inspection.

I heard the disappointment in his voice as he politely said, “Ha. Her name is Sylvia, not Syl-i-via.”

The lady server looked at the cake and then looked up at him and really said: “So is it okay?”

He was disturbed but did not wish to make a fuss. He said the two names under his breath as if testing their sound, and was just about to continue down the road of compromise when I realised why God had put me there.

“No, it is not okay,” I stated, now part of this process, “Is her name Sylvia?” I asked him. He confirmed so.

“Madame, go and change it and make it Sylvia instead of Syl-i-via.”

She went off and did so. I hereby send Sylvia and her generous, loving, meticulous friend belated Birthday wishes.

My suspicion is that the small error was made by the person who took the phone call and wrote down the order, because I have been through this too many times.

This carelessness crept up on us for reasons I cannot ascertain and is now all-pervasive.

In general, most people know but refuse to Be Serious even when they know there are dire repercussions. Some of them let things go because some of you out there compromise and strengthen the road of mediocrity we live on.

We should all have a ‘duty of care’—a’ term I have read into and whose import I wish for all of us to live by.

People think carelessly, speak carelessly, and write carelessly. Most of the ongoing debate about the rationalisation of government agencies today is proof, as are many of your daily experiences here in the Pearl of Africa.

The irritation and anxiety of wrongly spelt road names may be minor until someone considers that to be a sign of national IQ levels.

Sometimes the carelessness is life-threatening. A loved one of mine told me about a case in the top-rate private hospital where she worked a year ago, involving two patients.

One had a stomach issue and the other had severe diabetes. To cut a lengthy story short, one of them was told he needed urgent surgery at a National Hospital here in Kampala, and that he would be called up close to the appointed day within the fortnight.

He waited in vain as his situation worsened, till he became impatient and showed up at his regular private hospital but in such a sorry state that he was admitted and put into the Intensive Care Unit.

The other patient, meanwhile, received a phone call advising him to go for surgery. He was surprised but obediently turned up, got admitted and only sat up with questions when the attending nurse told him the anaesthetist would be getting there soon and the Surgeon was “in the building”.

“Anaesthetist? We need all that?”

“Of course,” said the kindly nurse, “You have to be fully under for an amputation.”

He panicked but still had the presence of mind to interrogate her about the link between his stomachache and the limbs he had walked in on without incident. A few distressed phone calls later, the confusion was discovered.

Because he had the same middle name as the ICU patient’s surname, the clerical staff handling the files had mistakenly scheduled him for an amputation without bothering to read the third name or the details of his condition.

His near-namesake in ICU, meanwhile, must have been digesting antacids and charcoal tablets to no avail while the diabetes ate him away.

This is not a joke. Death-by-Mediocrity is an ongoing tragedy in this country because it is easily avoidable if we just do the little things right to start with.

For now, STOP thinking carelessly, speaking carelessly and writing carelessly so we avoid Death By Mediocrity.

—

Simon Kaheru

www.skaheru.com
@skaheru