Starting the Day
Today is Friday. I started my day fresh with my morning prayers, followed by a simple breakfast. Once I got to the office, I powered on my laptop and began tackling the day’s first challenge.
Credit Note Confusion
The first issue I faced was regarding a credit note we never received from a creditor. Around two months ago, our company purchased 300 packets of Coca-Cola cans. Unfortunately, 28 of those packets were damaged. The total payment due was $538.40, and the cost of the damaged items was 28 packets × $13 = $364. We were supposed to receive a credit note for this amount, but it never arrived. Now the creditor is asking for full payment. When I inquired about the missing credit note, they claimed to have already sent it. My boss called to confirm with me, and I told him that we hadn’t received any such note. He then spoke directly with the creditor and made it clear: we will only proceed with payment after the credit note is issued.
Electricity Issues in Kinshasa
The second big challenge was something very common here in Kinshasa—power outages. The electricity goes off frequently, which causes the Wi-Fi to disconnect. Since I work on cloud-based software, I can’t do anything without an internet connection. Every time the power goes out, I get disconnected from the cloud server. Sometimes my profile gets stuck or locked, and I have to contact the admin to unlock it, which causes delays in my work.
Managing Seven Restaurants
As most of you know, I manage the accounting and inventory for seven restaurants all by myself. After completing the day’s entries, I noticed that we were out of a dried fish called “Poisson Salé” (a French term). I had already placed an order for it. One of our biggest suppliers is Kin Marche—a major retail company in Congo and our largest creditor. Fortunately, the order was delivered in the evening.
Evening Tasks & National News
After submitting my reports, I took a short break and had a coffee. While watching the news, I saw that the WAQF Amendment Bill had been passed in both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha in India. Just as I was watching that, I suddenly remembered that I needed to prepare delivery notes for tomorrow. I quickly created delivery notes for two of our restaurants. Every evening, we prepare the delivery notes so that the next morning’s deliveries can be loaded onto the trucks early. Timely delivery is crucial here because Kinshasa traffic is a nightmare—vehicles can get stuck for hours.
SIM Trouble
While I was writing this blog, I glanced at my phone and noticed that my Airtel SIM had lost network coverage. I tried everything—flight mode, restarting the phone, manual network search—but nothing worked. This SIM is very important to me because it’s my Indian number, and all my documents are linked to it. If it doesn’t reconnect within 24 hours, I might have to assume the SIM is damaged. That would be a huge hassle for me.
Rain & Its Impact on Sales
It also rained today, which usually affects our sales negatively. Rainy days tend to keep people indoors, which impacts restaurant footfall. That’s always something to think about when planning the day.
Family Snap & Profit Talk
During the rain, I received a Snap notification from my younger sister. Her college was having a concert, and she shared a few moments from the event. I reminded her to return home on time—big brother duties!
Toward the end of the day, my boss asked for last month’s sales and profit report. Unfortunately, our profit was quite low. Some food items were close to expiration, so we had to sell them at half price. Additionally, we had a few bad debts, which also impacted the overall profit margin.
Signing Off
So, that’s how my day went—full of challenges and responsibilities. I’ll wrap it up here. I hope reading this blog inspires you in some way or at least gives you a peek into the kind of work and life I’m managing here. Looking forward to sharing more with you tomorrow—with new stories and new challenges.
See you in tomorrow’s blog with more real-life work updates. Take care!