It can’t be because we haven’t enough people who are able to count. Look at any woman stall keeper at Mbare Musika or on a roadside near you; she may have dropped out of school at grade 2, but she can count her money, her oranges, nyimo, socks, pens or whatever she may be selling faster than most of her customers and without making a single mistake. And all this while she is watching that her baby doesn’t pull half the stall down on top of himself or crawl under the wheel of a heavily loaded handcart.
If they don’t need to search far for people who can count, what are they looking for?
The answer may be in a story that you might have heard.
A company was looking for someone to do a rather special job, so they decided to use a different way of selecting among applicants for the job. They advertised “a challenging job” with a good salary without explaining exactly what the job would be. All sorts of people applied and interviews were arranged. Each applicant was asked the same simple question. The first was a mathematician and the question was “What is twice two?” “Four” he replied, trying not to show his contempt for such a simple question. The interviewers thanked him and told him they would tell him whether he was accepted when they had interviewed all the applicants.
The next applicant was a philosopher. He was asked the same question. He frowned and stroked his beard for a minute or two, then said slowly “That is a very interesting question. You see, the answer depends on what you mean by the word “is”.” The interview panel thanked him for his answer and promised to tell him in due course whether he had been successful in the interview.
The third applicant was an accountant. The panel invited him to sit down and asked him the same question. He looked furtively around him, then got up and walked around the room, closing the curtains on all the windows and looking carefully at the top, the back, inside and underneath every piece of furniture in the room. He even put his hand into spaces that were too dark for him to see clearly what they might conceal. Then he returned to his chair facing the interviewers, leant forward and asked a question of his own in a voice that was not much more than a whisper.
“What do you want it to be?” he said.
Post published in: Featured