Complaining about Work

A DONKEY STORY - A TRUE STORY

A man who lives next door to me and whom I know well found himself without work. At first, the shock of losing a job nearly killed Dan. He hid himself in bed for quite a while. Then when people began to enquire of him, he decided to pray instead. To ward off the peoples concern, he sat outside his house as people went to work.  He asked them to look out for a job for him.

One day a harried neighbor, who had not bought his daily water, threw Dan a jerry can and said, "Please get me some water, I will be late for work if I do", as he rushed by. Dan felt quite insulted and sat looking at the 20 litre can the whole day. He got his neighbor some water in the evening from the nearby community tap. In the evening, his neighbor thanked Dan and gave him a dollar.

The next day, another neighbor hollered, "Dan please get me some water and I will give you a dollar". "Word is getting round" he thought, but I can't do that because I don't have a jerrican. Just as he was going back to bed he remembered, "but I do have a dollar".

The next morning he took three orders for water with his new water can.  Soon he was selling water to the whole block. One night, it occurred to him that he had prayed for a job, but now he needed more work, so he prayed for that too. The next morning a friend asked him to repair a wheelbarrow at eh local welding shop. To test if the wheelbarrow had been repaired properly, he put three water cans on it.  With a wheelbarrow, he could do three times as much work. He was now so thankful that he could supply all the other blocks with water too. Nevertheless, he got very tired at the end of the day.

Then one day a friend told him that if he got a donkey and a cart, he wouldn't have to work so hard because the donkey would do the work for him. True to form, he got a donkey.  The donkey and the cart did a splendid job. Then the cart needed repair and the donkey needed feeding. He wasn't getting tired carrying water, but he was getting tired caring for the donkey and repairing the cart. Finally, after complaining for several weeks, he sold the donkey, the cart, went back to bed and prayed for a job.

Allan Bukusi