An embarrassing moment taught Sarah a lesson which she had never understood previously. She was a rude person who always abused her power of being the manager of a cafe. None of her colleagues or staff ever dared to argue with her. Everyone wondered how such a mean person could be appointed for such an important post.

Sarah usually spoke without thinking, because she did not care if her harsh words hurt others. She hardly spoke sweetly with anyone. Just like shooting without aiming is foolishness, so is speaking without thinking.

The day before the café’s inauguration, in which she invited special guests from the government, Sarah carefully looked into the preparations for the ceremony. If the ceremony went successfully, she would be promoted to the post of the senior manager of the chain of restaurants and would be transferred to Australia. The soft launch advertising and free giveaways were all well-prepared and invitations were sent.

Finally, the day Sarah had been working so hard for arrived, she stepped on the small stage on one side of the restaurant and introduced the menu very confidently, elaborating on their speciality and strengths. She left the stage to do a quick round of the restaurant as people began to eat, and then met the journalists who had been invited.

Sarah led the journalists for the restaurant tour. They came to a halt at the restaurant kitchen, where they were all pleased by the cleanliness. While taking them around the kitchen, suddenly Sarah caught the sight of a cook washing vegetable. Though he was doing his work reasonably, it was not according to her standards.

Sarah rushed to the cook and scolded him loudly, forgetting that there were journalists touring with her. Then she started bashing the other cooks for no reason, and only realising after a few moments later that the journalists were looking at her in disbelief.

In order to distract them from what they had witnessed, she guided them to another section of the kitchen where some prepared dishes were kept and invited them to taste it.

While they were tasting it, one of the journalists screamed on seeing a lizard behind the spice jars. All the journalists panicked and were disgusted. Sarah tried to calm down the panicked journalists.

One of the over-panicked journalist pushed Sarah accidentally.

As Sarah didn’t have a polite nature, she shouted at her without thinking, “Are you blind? Don’t you see. Ah! My leg hurts!”

Sarah was not at all injured though, it was an unintentional collision by a journalist who got scared of the lizard. The journalist walked out embarrassed and disheartened. All the other journalists felt sympathy for her and were horrified by the rude behaviour of Sarah they had witnessed.

The ceremony was a huge flop as all that had taken place in the kitchen became known to the rest of the guests. The restaurant got a very negative review the next day in the newspapers and Sarah was terminated by the director of the company for using foul language and for not giving attention to the kitchen.

Sara felt utterly dejected as it was a heavy blow to her career. There was no rescue from the humiliation, except to rewrite the pages of her life by changing her behaviour with others and controlling her temper.

Published in Dawn, Young World, February 3rd, 2024