I'm Tired of Being Raped

You know that feeling you get when someone suddenly penetrates your posterior orifice without your permission, prior warning, or lubrication? No? Well, take your car into Toyota Msasa for a service and when you receive your bill you will have a rough idea of what that would be like.

Last week my driver dropped off my car at Toyota for a routine service (more correctly referred to as an oil change in the U.S.) and after taking the whole day to service it, they called me and told me the car was ready and to send the driver to collect it. The bill? $860. Let me re-type that number for those of you who may be slightly confused: US$860. Yes, American dollars, eight hundred and sixty of them, to change the oil in my car. Upon enquiry, I was told that no, that does not include a stripper on a pole, a lifetime supply of fuel, or a free set of 24 inch chrome rims. What it did include, though, was a lovely little pack of facial tissues emblazoned with the Toyota logo. That was great, because after being raped like that, what I really needed was some tissue to clean myself up. Thank you, Toyota Zimbabwe.

There are a lot of things I know, and only a few things I don't, on account of my above average IQ. I'm not a mechanic, and I don't claim to know the costs involved in draining a little 5L tank of engine oil and refilling it with new oil, adding windshield wiper fluid to the wiper fluid container, and glancing at a set of brake pads to make sure they are not worn. Since it takes Toyota an entire day to perform these steps, I must conclude that they are far more complex than my uninitiated brain can imagine.

Let me share with you a few things I do know. I know that during my years in Atlanta, I drove a Toyota Camry and every 3000 miles I would take it in to Sandy Springs Toyota for an oil change. I would park it in the service lane, then wait in the air-conditioned customer waiting area where coffee and doughnuts were available free of charge. Within 30 minutes, my car would be parked in the collection area, and the pretty young lady behind the counter would call my name and present me with my bill. Total amount? $39.99.

I also know that qualified mechanics in the U.S.A command minimum wages of between $12-15 an hour. That means each mechanic is paid $1,920 per month, on the low end. In contrast, mechanics in Zimbabwe are paid an average wage of $200 per month or $1.87 an hour. I know a little bit of Math, and a lot of Economics, but the logic here escapes me. Which leads me to my next point.

The last thing I know about this situation, which you probably don't, is that we all sexually assaulted the mother of the Managing Director of Toyota Zimbabwe in our previous lives. We must have, because I can think of no other reason why this company would hate its clients so much that it would want to levy so astronomical a charge for a simple service. This is not even daylight robbery, it’s daylight sodomy in the first degree. What surprises me is that the service section of Toyota Msasa is always fully booked. Is it because Zimbabweans love to have their posteriors violently examined by their vehicle service providers? I submit that they do not. They have no choice.

This is simply what lack of competition does in an economy. I can’t wait for the competition to really heat up in all sectors of our economy, because I’ve had about as much as I can take of this crap. Just the other day I stopped by this little restaurant called Sopranos in Avondale for a quick lunch. This place used to be a lot better than it is now, but only the customers realize it so far. Anyway, I ordered a chicken and mayo Panini with fries, which was always my favorite menu item to eat at Sopranos. Because it was take-away (“to-go” for you annoying Americanized Zimbabweans) I sat outside and ordered a glass of ice water to sip on while I waited. After waiting a full 20 minutes, I began to wonder if the chef was actually physically chasing a live chicken that he would catch, behead, and then pluck before cooking it just for me. It was an inordinately long amount of time to wait for what is essentially a glorified chicken and mayo sandwich.

After about 30 minutes of entertaining myself by laughing at motorists who didn’t seem to notice the huge pothole in the middle of the street outside, the waiter finally came with my food packed in 3 little keylite containers. When I saw the bill I almost choked on the ice cube I was sucking. $16! Yes, those dull green pieces of paper with the picture of an ugly old white man on them, SIXTEEN of them for a sandwich. But that wasn’t so accurate. Upon further inspection of the bill I noticed that I had been charged $1 for each keylite container that my food was packed in. This was too much for me to take, so I asked to see the manager, at which point a youngish, Indianish man approached my table. I explained to this young man my reluctance to part with $3 for containers that I was going to throw away as soon as I got to the office, and likened the act to using my dollar bills in place of tissue paper and flushing them down the toilet.

His response? Sorry sir, that’s what we charge for the containers because we pay 60 cents for them. 60 cents?! I said. I run a similar business and we pay 10 cents for these containers, where the hell are you buying yours? I don’t know where they buy them, he said. Well, you shouldn’t be putting a mark-up on containers, surely not such a large one anyway. Are you in the business of selling food or containers? You’re chasing away your customers. Sir, he replied, in my year of working here you are the first customer to complain about the price of the containers. Yes, I said, but you should know that not all customers complain. In fact, very few customers ever ask to see a manager of a business to complain when they don’t like the service. Most simply don’t return. Anyway sir, he interrupted, we serve the best food in town, you can try some other restaurants and you won’t find food as good as ours…

Well, excuse me all to hell. These guys think their food is so good that I would still enjoy it with a penis up my arse. Anyway, because I didn’t want to have to put my sandwich in my pocket, I paid the damn $3 for the containers and grudgingly left. When I got to my office and tasted the sandwich, I almost threw it in the trash and ate the container instead. The Panini was stale, they scrimped on the mayonnaise, and they must have imported some type of special, flavorless, moisture-less chicken from Brazil at a huge discount to protect their giant margins. Then they threw in a bunch of fries as limp as a certain part of my body was after seeing Madonna half-naked in that video. You know the one. So not only did these guys rape me intentionally, they didn’t even have the decency to try to make the experience enjoyable for me. Sopranos used to be one of my favorite cafés, but I can promise you that I am never going back there again.

There are so many examples of this type of behavior among Zimbabwean businesses that I could go on all day. The City of Harare is charging $1 per hour to park your car in the CBD. That is surely the most extortionate parking rate in the history of the world. Then they charge $100 to retrieve an impounded vehicle, never mind that the average monthly wage in our country is $200. TelOne, drunk off the realization that it can actually charge real money for once in the history of its pathetic existence, has been printing phone bills with, it seems, a minimum charge of $800. I have friends who have received home telephone bills ranging from $1500 to $3200. I won’t even talk about Zinwa which (despite its disbandment) has been gleefully levying residents for a non-existent supply of water. Econet is charging 29 cents a minute for a local call, with no per-second billing, and 15 cents for a local text message. They tell us this is the “regional average”. Well, for my “regional average” phone bill can I get some “regional average” service, at least? And what good is benchmarking charges to the region if salaries in your country are not benchmarked to the region as well? Does Econet pay its customer care reps “regional average” wages? I seriously doubt it.

I think we’ve lost our minds. As a capitalist and a businessman I hated the era of price controls, but Zimbabwean businesses are making me so mad right now I almost wish for price controls to return.

zakeozim@gmail.com