A Nairobi woman has sparked widespread conversation online after revealing that she resigned from a brand new job within hours of arriving on her first day, before the working day had even ended.
Marianah Kelly shared the experience on her TikTok page, admitting she had no alternative employment lined up when she made the decision to walk out.
How the Job Fell Apart So Quickly
Kelly had applied for a social media manager position and cleared the interview stage before sitting down with the CEO to agree on terms.
They settled on a monthly salary of KSh 20,000, which she privately considered low but was prepared to accept while she demonstrated her value.
What she did not fully absorb until she arrived was the scope of the schedule: Monday to Friday from 8.30 am to 5 pm, Saturday from 8.30 am to 5 pm, and Sunday from 9 am to 3 pm, with three counts of lateness in a single week resulting in immediate dismissal.
“I am a social media manager being paid KSh 20,000 working Monday to Monday and managing three branches of the company, selling electronics and bags. But I found out we were two social media managers,” she said.
The two managers completed an onboarding session, received their equipment and filmed a dry run inside the premises. It was only during this process that the reality of the arrangement became clear to Kelly.
The Maths Did Not Add Up
After consulting her boyfriend and working through the numbers, Kelly factored in the daily commute from Ngong into town and back, lunch and other incidental costs.
She went back to the CEO and proposed a hybrid arrangement where she and her colleague would each cover three days on site per week and both report on Sundays, an arrangement she felt was fair to everyone.
The CEO rejected the proposal outright, telling her she had disappointed him and that he believed they had reached an understanding from the start. Kelly was then directed to the operations manager, who offered no resolution either. She collected her belongings and left before the day was out.
“Did not finish the whole day; if you compute the fare from Ngong and back daily, lunch and other expenses, the salary was not making sense,” she said.
Kelly added that the figure might have been workable had she been the sole manager on a combined KSh 40,000, but split between two people covering a seven-day operation across three branches, it left little room to survive financially.
