FOR YEARS now, every time I arrive at Entebbe International Airport I am bemused by the sign that presents the word ‘EXTENTION’.

I have never even bothered to check a dictionary to confirm that the spelling is wrong. I just know it is.

Ever since about 1992 it has been very easy to avoid errors of this nature.

Computers.

Even before that, it was easy.

Brains.

Unfortunately, the people who run the signage at the Entebbe International Airport lack either the hardware or software (dare I say both?) to do these things right.

Many months ago, after being irked, as usual, by the ‘EXTENTION’, I hopped out of my car to get a trolley for my luggage.

I spent too many minutes trying to find a clean one and then realised they were all the same.

The branding on the trolleys made me suspect they were second-hand imports whose life had been EXTENDED into Uganda.

I could not confirm their age without receipts and all, but the advertising boards convinced me these were bivumba (second hand in Uganda’s vernacular).

To my eventual surprise, the company advertising on the trolleys seems to be a real Ugandan company with operations right here (the only reason I am not linking this to them online is so they don’t cancel their contract).

Their entire marketing team, obviously, cares so little about the company brand that they have never recognised the irony in their name – MODERN TILES – and the way it appears on those rickety trolleys.

On my last visit to the airport a few days ago, I was transported back to 1984 for a few seconds.

Remember ‘foolscap’? No – this is not a play on the word fool, however appropriate that might turn out to be.

Foolscap was the paper size we used back then.

It has since been generally replaced by A4 paper but in those days (what we called ‘Obote 2’ days) we all used ‘foolscap’, mostly ruled.

At the Immigration Counter, pasted onto the glass window, was a foolscap sheet of paper (ruled) clearly torn out of a book, with the words: “Not In Use” written in bold markings using a pen.

I couldn’t believe it and yet I could.

Again, there was somebody involved there who cared too little about the aesthetics of that piece of paper pasted onto a service window at an international airport.

By the time I got to my departure gate, I was curious to see if the person in charge of facilities there had ever had a discussion with their colleague in charge of procurement about something I have raised before.

See, for some reason, in the washrooms you will find different types of taps affixed to the wash basins standing next to each other.

How does that happen?

Maybe a tap gets spoilt and when purchasing a replacement the procurement person sends the fellow who owns the book that has foolscap paper?

It’s more likely, though, that there are persons running serious organisations but without the capacity – mental or otherwise – to Be Serious about their jobs.

So on one hand we have careless people doing things carelessly because they don’t care about their jobs, their name, their reputation, or the country; and on the other hand we have people who are just mediocre like that.

See, even that ‘EXTENTION’ at the entrance to the airport – how many of you out there have raised it with the airport authorities and asked them to make the correction? 

How many have told them about those awkward taps in the washrooms? 

How many of you have raised with them that it is tacky for arriving passengers to be received by buckets with mops and dirty water standing around ‘in-amidst’ the trolleys?

In that little room right there at the luggage carousels do you get irritated by the piles of broken furniture that is visible to one and all, and have you asked any manager at the airport to Be Serious?

Sometimes we cannot lay blame anywhere because…some of these people simply do not know better. If their homes are this way and they find it normal then…these habits will have an ‘EXTENTION’ into their workplaces.

It is what it is, until we collectively raise our expectations and standards and force key people in key positions to Be Serious and stop being careless about their jobs, their family name, their reputation and this Country.