Few days ago i was just reminiscing on the several kinds of hustles I did some years back just to be keep body and soul together. The truth is that I have actually done all sort of hustles right from when I completed my secondary school education till I completed my university degree. It’s really been quite a journey for me. But I think the most unusual of them all that I did was when I was in my final year, and that was helping someone fetch water.
Of all the hustles that there is I never thought for a minute that I would find myself doing such. Before then I used carry out cleaning services with my roommate, until he concluded with his studies and travelled. He was actually the brain behind the cleaning services, I was more like his assistant.
While at his base, there was this customer of ours—who’s a girl—that would usually call him for cleaning services, he would then in turn put the call across to me and ask me to go do the job. After getting paid I would then send him his put for getting me the job.
But there was this one time the client called him, and it wasn’t for cleaning service. It was more of a complaint. And it was that water hadn’t been running in her lodge for some days, and she was hoping for someone who could help her out with fetching water in the neighbouring lodge. My roommate then relayed the message to me and asked if I could help out with that, or was going to pass. At that point, I could do almost anything to get a few cheese in my hands because I was really broke. So I asked him to bargain the price with her and I accepted.
The pay wasn’t even much, barely enough to get me a decent meal at that time, but I was void of options at that time. My roommate was kind enough to tell me not to bother giving him any cut because he knew as well that the pay was little. And that’s how I started my hustle as an errand boy that fetched water for a girl.
I got called on weekly basis. It was my prayer that the water issue in her lodge never got rectified so that I can keep on seeing some money on weekly basis. But even when the issue with the water got fixed, I still got called on some occasions when the water stopped running in her room upstairs but was still running downstairs of the lodge. But the charge for that was a bit lesser than what I charged for fetching water from another lodge entirely.
The errand didn’t just end in fetching water. There was also times she asked me to help her buy somethings for her. That was what led to me stop running errands for her later on.
She call me one time and sent me money to buy her noodles and egg. I went on and got them for her. I got to her lodge and handed her the items. On opening the nylon, she said I got her the wrong kind of noodles. I apologised to her for the mistake. But I didn’t know she took it to heart. After that day, I never got a call from her up till this day.
At a point I started to become bothered. But later on I was glad it happened that way, because that was not a befitting job at all. Thinking about it now makes me shake my head and ask myself how the heck did I agree to a job like that. But that is what some situations where someone is in tight corners can make him do.
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