Author: Mamotladi Ivy Matloga
Language: English
ISBN: 978-1-77605-588-3
Genre: Fiction
This is a story of a hard-working career woman, Maki Mako, as told by herself. Maki takes the reader through her experiences as an unhappily employed working woman who is also a mother, and a wife.
The story begins with Maki exiting a satisfying position in one organisation where she had worked for a number of years, as a respected and revered middle manager. She accepts a managerial position in a new organisation, more as a way to seek change and to grow in a new area of her speciality. Her new supervisor, Lalang, is a far cry from the supervisor she had at her previous job, who was professional, diligent, fair and kind. Lalang thrives on gossip and cronyism than anything that has to do with her official role.
When it becomes clear to both parties that they do not subscribe to the each other’s ways, it marks the beginning of a terrible, even toxic work relationship that sees mean and malicious words being regularly exchanged, and Maki dreading every workday morning. Her support circle is the only thing that keeps her going, including a fellow employee, Faith, whom Lalang always treated with contempt. Together they soldier on, support each other, even find ways to laugh at their situation, and at Lalang’s never-ending, often unbelievable schemes. But foremost on Maki’s mind remains the freedom she is longing for, and in-between her unpleasant fights with her manager, she constantly works towards finding ways in which she could get back that freedom; and with it, her free-spirit and sanity.