Corporate America Woes

You fly off to America after raising enough loot from a village harambee and work your ass off for four or whatever number of years to pay off your college and living expenses (all the while looking over your shoulder in case you need to duck those dreaded INS agents). You graduate and (for the lucky ones) get a good job in a corporate office in AnyCity USA. The proverbial cream is on the cake if they agree to sponsor you for a work visa, aka H-1B.

You clean up your credit, and you are no longer checking the caller ID first to see if it is Transcredit Union Corp asking for their money. You get a motoguzi that, for the first time ever, comes with terms such as "zero down", "interest-free financing", and "bumper-to-bumper warranty". You have qualified for the best offers that Ford and GM have out there. Things are starting to look good, eh?

If you are smart, you are gonna tell your landlord to take a hike coz you are investing in a condo, or a two bedroom ranch, or a townhouse in the outskirts of the city. You are in the big leagues now, aren't you, dawg? Woof! Woof! You are now a homeowner and are following the rich man's mantra of invest, invest, invest!

This is allegedly supposed to be the blue-print to achieving success in America from a foreign student's perspective. Before you pat yourself on the back for a job well done and for a skyrocketing career, hold your horses ... lace on your boots real tight coz shits about to get deep.

Lo and behold, you start to encounter the racism, back-stabbing, job-profiling, and corporate re-structuring that comes with this environment. This will surely leave a bitter taste in your mouth after all the hard work you've put in to get to where you are.

Feelings of isolation begin to creep in because no one around you can relate to the unique situation you find yourself in. You don't hang around your Kenyan homeboys often now as weekends are spent either establishing vital business networks on the golf course, or running over some numbers for the departmental budget to present at the meeting next week. On the other hand you cannot pop into your white friends' places on Thanksgiving with a case of Bud Light as there are strict rules of decorum governing these American occasions. The general rule of thumb is no invite, no show.

You can sense economic storm clouds brewing in the distance. The market watchers are pessimistic and something is said in Fox Business News about some corporate merger involving your company. You feel a knot tighten in your belly and its got nothing to do with the Sausage Jambolaya you ate with your co-workers downtown for lunch. A few months down the road and - oh damn - here come the inevitable layoffs.