Serving

Florence Amuge works as a receptionist at a big supermarket in the Ntinda area of Kampala. She’s had the job for months now. It’s difficult work; she has to show up at her workplace in the evening for overnight duty. She returns home – she lives with her sister – at daybreak. Still, she tries to keep a happy face because she is, after all, a receptionist. “Not so bad,” she told TWR, speaking of her job. “But it comes with its own challenges.” Some customers are ungrateful, always looking for an opportunity to report her for seemingly trivial sins. She has been suspended at least once for an infraction she doesn’t describe. 

Amuge got the job after graduating in February from YMCA Comprehensive Institute, where she was a journalism student. It proved hard for her to get a job as a journalist, even though she had to take care of herself as a young woman in Kampala. Her supermarket job pays less than $100 a month, but she earns a bit more in tips from some customers who appreciate her service. 

Her diary is riveting. Some passages are truly unforgettable. We read about a man and his wife who approach Amuge for the opportunity to be part of “a threesome,” which she turns down. She still hopes to be a great journalist, perhaps even a film director, producing work that will be talked about in the halls of “great people” one day. Her generosity of spirit shines through her writing, even when she is mad at the shitty behavior of others.  As always, the diary has been left almost untouched, with minimal editing for clarity here and there. — TWR

18/4/26

I recently graduated from YMCA [Comprehensive Institute]. I did a course in Journalism and Mass Communication then I hit the job market. I started job hunting, tired of doing all sorts of jobs to get money… A time came when my friend was leaving her job and needed a replacement. I accepted since I needed a stable source of income. I was given the nightshift and started working immediately. However, my first day wasn’t so fun because I had to get familiar with my responsibilities and become acquainted with my colleagues and customers, but it wasn’t all so boring because I made new friends and got tips from customers. My job also gives us nice food, though they don’t give us allowances. 

19/04/26

Today I woke up feeling good because the previous night I met a generous customer that gave me quite a generous tip. I felt so good about it because I had spent most of my previous days worrying about where I was going to get transport [fare] to work. I went to work later today, and it was okay until one of my work colleagues ruined my day. He started talking trash about me to my boss manager. It was such a painful feeling that I almost cried but I had to hold my tears in. I didn’t want to show him that he had won. Up to now I still feel pain and my mental health is not okay because the words he said really hurt me at some point. I think he is jealous because he didn’t get any tip from the customers and also customers always ask for me. This guy is so mean to the extent that if you have just cleaned, he comes and steps there with dirty shoes. I can’t report this harassment to my manager because I recently reported to work and I don’t want it to look so bad.

20/04/26

Today I survived an accident while crossing the road after working the nightshift. I blame the speedy taxi driver. … I reconnected with an old boyfriend, should I say lol, because at that time we both didn’t know whether we wanted to be in a relationship. Both of us were in different paths of life at that time but he is a perfect guy. Am just having thoughts whether I should be with him or just become his friend but it’s just so hard because I already have too much feelings for him and I feel he’s not interested however much I give him signals.

23/04/26

I made this new friend at work. By the way, she is a girl before you starting having funny thoughts. The first time I met her we had a slight argument but the way we became friends is so unbelievable. I am glad we became friends because she has been so nice to me, she’s so caring, kind, beautiful and hardworking. This friendship with her has made me learn to invest in my female friendships. 

25/04/26

When I signed out from work today after doing my shift, I was in a very good mood. I was looking forward to jumping into my bed and sleeping, but the thought was ruined (in a good way) because my former colleague from a radio [station] I interned at called and he wanted us to voice a story, something I am passionate about apart from photography. Anyway, I got ready and we recorded a story about abortion, kind of sad though because                                     the lady got pregnant after having five kids and her husband said he couldn’t take care of the sixth child. He became so aggressive, she had to resort to aborting the pregnancy. She tried to abort the pregnancy and she tried going to a government hospital but they refused to help her so she took local medicine (herbs) that made her unconscious and ill. She later went back to [the] hospital to get treatment and she was abused, but they eventually helped her and she got better… After recording my story, I went and crashed at a friend’s place for three hours.

9/05/26

One of the disadvantages of a having a photographic memory is that you will always remember things as though they are. So today got me having thoughts about my future and having small prayers in my heart to God asking Him for a better life. Am so tired of suffering, and for what? For doing something am not even passionate about, it got me asking myself, are my dreams valid as in am I even allowed to dream because this is not where I had imagined I would be at the age of 25? It’s just messed up. I remember the dates and days people promised to give me jobs yet they were literally taking my contacts to just vybe me, so unimaginable. Was here staring at my social media, Instagram actually. I saw pictures of Kris Kardashian Jenner at the age of 22, kind of gave me some inspiration, it gave me strength, made me believe that I can do better, I can be the best journalist…

10/05/26

Today I woke up feeling so lazy I didn’t feel like going to work. I felt like lying down on my bed the whole day and watching movies probably because the memories of last night were going through my head. Anyway, I did not give in to my feelings. I showered and went to work. I should have listened to my feelings and just stayed home, because today I got embarrassed, I got suspended from work for two days… I just picked my things and ordered a safeboda and went home to black out, although I kinda felt sad. I can’t believe I used my transport [fare]. I just wished I had used it to buy myself chicken. Anyway, I didn’t tell people at home what happened to me at work, so for the past two days I would wake up and prepare myself as if I am going to work then go to a friend’s house, stay there until my shift is done, then go back home. Anyway, am here chilling. Although I was sad about the suspension, it was kinda good for me because I got time for myself. For the first time ever in my life I went out till late, something am not allowed to do if I am having a normal day.

12/05/26

Resuming work today was awkward, everyone staring because they all know what happened. Banange nze I had to become confident and bold, [with] some people asking too many questions after seeing me last time crying and eyes so red, so unimaginable banange. I had to overexplain myself to everyone. No one knew what really happened. I instead told them am not fine, that I was suffering from a certain illness. I finally felt better when a customer wanted to tip me and told me to pick for myself anything I wanted. I chose a body splash that smells like flowers. I felt so good about myself, like I was going to be using the body splash.

16/05/26

Today I was very crampy and there’s nothing so annoying as a man that doesn’t go through menstruation telling you that you are pretending to feel that pain, or one of those lucky girls that doesn’t have menstrual pain also telling you the same thing. I can literally feel like telling them to shut up or just murdering them. My thoughts become wild. I be like, Bitch shut up for once in your life. I feel there should be more activists for women’s reproductive health, someone to fight for our rights because the pain we be having is so unbearable.

17/05/2026

I am starting the new week being so grateful to God for the gift of life and a new day and basically praying to Him to improve my life and make it better, or was that too much to ask. Anyway, as usual I work nightshift and go home to sleep during the day. My day was actually great today, a couple was so hilarious, they actually made me blush. Get this, they wanted me to help them spice up their marriage, so they asked for something that I know for sure I can’t do no matter the amount of money you want to give me. These people asked me for a threesome. I was so shocked and surprised at the same time. How could they ask for such a thing? I have never even had sex before, unbelievable right? Anway, I grew up in a Christian home where I was advised to keep myself till marriage. I even have phobia. I feel I just can’t have sex. I also believe that if someone really wants it, they should come [and] pick [me] up, we go to a hospital and run some tests (HIV, genotype), get a suitable birth control method, then I will be able to actually open up to them. Anyway, I turned down the offer from the couple and they instead bought me a chocolate, so sweet of them.

18/05/26

Today I am in a good mood. I think am in love with someone’s son, lol. Although I don’t want to admit it to him funny right because he has already said he loves me, but I think I just have trust issues and always like to take my things slow. I love to study the person I love or want to spend the rest of my life with. In the past I poured out my whole to someone only for me to end up with a broken heart. During the first days it was so painful. I would cry myself to sleep because the pain was so unbearable but I finally learned how to live without “my ex.” I started to love myself, giving myself every best thing life had to offer. I took care of myself, I did my nails, plaited the best hair, I did my lashes, bought myself the best clothes. You would ask yourself why? Because I wanted to know my worth as a person, feel happy and also to look good as a person. If a man ever approached me, he wouldn’t disrespect me, he wouldn’t lie to me with small things that I could do for myself. 

21/05/26

I had enough rest today actually. I realized I came to work early. I always come late. I actually feel good about myself. I was happy till someone killed my vibe. People really have audacity. I didn’t know up till this day and age people still don’t have manners. Imagine the energy someone gathers to just pick your stuff without asking for them. Then when you approach them to request for it, they have the audacity to tell you that they are still using it, annoying right? That’s exactly how I felt when a colleague of mine did that shit to me today.

01/06/26

Imagine having conversations with various people on different people on different topics of discussion, say this one has a girlfriend that aborted, another a wife that ran away, another is struggling with rent or even failing to find a meal. I guess that’s the work of every receptionist in each organization. Anyway, today was one of those days where you experience amazing things, or how would you put it? I had a beautiful day [because] someone that was giving me a hard time at work was chased. I don’t want to sound sadist but it finally pays off because I had prayed for this day to come to pass. God finally answered my prayer. I blame him because he had been running deals under someone’s business, getting stock cheaply for customers.

10/06/2026

Today am so excited. I don’t even know how I can express myself, but anyway me and my man finally made it official. It might sound silly but I finally said I love you back at him, so we are now exclusive like a real couple committed to each other. I love this guy with my entire body and soul. I accepted him as my boyfriend. He makes me happy and I feel good and when am with him. It’s as if the entire world does not exist, because it’s just me and him and the rest is background noise. I hadn’t planned to fall for anyone like this in my entire life because my plan is to chase the bag, be an independent woman, make my entire family proud of the child they raised but when am with this guy none of that matters to me. Maybe because this guy is naturally just a leader. He has a vision but this not an excuse for me not to chase my dreams, achieve my goals and become the independent woman I wanna be. I have just fallen in love while at it.

15/06/26

Am just so sad that I lost a work relationship. I broke up with a girlfriend of mine from work. Friendship breakups are like the worst ever. Me and this girl had become friends. It’s been a month but it’s our mood swings that got in the way and no one wants to apologize to the other. But friendship breakups are like the worst because they pain so bad since you be missing each other’s stories, conversations, the memories you had created together or a favorite snack that you people shared together. I feel broken, hurt whenever I remember the memories and moments we shared together. 

18/06/26

Funny how married men love to approach young girls for sex and even have extramarital affairs. Anyway, I think marriage these days is just for formality, for people to respect you, say that’s the family of so and so, the children of so and so, lol. I feel most people get married to make their parents happy, feel proud of them and also give them grandchildren. Eventually after entering the marriage, most of them fail to find happiness or most of them get married for the wrong purposes. That’s not my point, although sometimes I feel as if I am betraying a fellow woman when a married man tries to approach me. I always turn them down because I imagine that woman (wife) suffering at home with their kids without any support from her husband. So there’s this married guy that has been [chasing me]. Although he has money, I can never ever date him. It’s just complicated. However much he says he left his marriage (divorced), it brings me back to a certain conversation I had with my friends sometime back. They said that a man can tell you anything disgusting about his wife just to get you to open your legs for him. He can say something false about the wife. Anyway, this man used all methods to get me but I refused, so now he comes with different girls and passes in front of me. He literally looks for me just to show me that he found people (other girls).

19/06/26

I can’t stop imagining how nightlife is in Kampala, people walking in and out and literally buying different products, probably satisfying their late-night cravings, others trying to feed their one-night stands after having fun the whole night while others just love shopping at night when it’s less crowded… People literally buy the craziest things one can ever think of, some buy makeup, others protection, food, and alcohol yet they are too drunk already. It’s just messed up… Anyway, nightlife also has prostitutes walking in and out with their customers because the same chick walks in with like three different men in the same night, lol. They probably went through a situation and resorted to prostitution. Today I confirmed that prostitutes are very aggressive people. Say you agreed on a specific amount of money and something changes, these ladies can even take your clothes off and run with them.

20/06/26

Nothing fun or interesting happened today. However, I managed to help a friend to shoot content. It was so beautiful it helped me put my creative skills to use for like an hour and it was fun. I imagined myself as a director, something I dream of becoming someday. Am crazy for thinking this way. Anyway, am just thinking out loud, I believe that it will come to pass, am just tired of keeping quiet about my dreams and not doing something about them. I am interested in filming, photography and videography. I love to create scenes that can capture people’s attention that they will ask who made this, who created that, and my name will be mentioned on tables and rooms of “great people.”

22/06/26

Birthdays are fun if you are loaded (have money), because your birthday can come and you fail to take yourself out. My friend’s birthday happened to fall on a bad day because my other friend had posted on her socials about the loss of her elder brother, so I called her immediately for more details. Her brother had passed at 2 am and she was in preparations for his burial. I eventually told her that I would call later. I went back home to prepare myself for work later in the evening. Later that day I prepared myself to send money to a person that was mobilizing people to go for the burial and also to go to work. So I got to work and that’s when I remembered that it was my colleague’s birthday. I was broke, but me and a few friends bought a cake for her, not so big but enough to make her happy. She literally cried. Am glad we did it for her because she literally knelt down to thank us for her surprise.

25/06/26

I got a call from my mother that my cousin had passed on. I felt so sad and became emotional on asking her what happened. Apparently they had a misunderstanding with the husband. I wouldn’t say it was domestic violence, because I have never heard about that case. My mother said they started fighting and her pressure was high and she passed on. 

26/06/26

My big sister is showing me some love. She woke me up to give me some lunch in bed because I literally work the nightshift and sleep during the day. I appreciated her because I felt loved, I felt a sense of belonging, I felt valued, I felt that someone out there loves me, I felt that there is someone that cares about me. I needed that because I had a hectic night. I found a friend reading my diary. I felt disappointed at her, it was so uncool of her. I told her to stop but she continued until I grabbed it from her. She wasn’t remorseful. Instead, she just stared and was smiling at me… It felt like someone had posted my nudes online, like a part or piece was taken away by someone. I was boiling with anger the whole night. I feel I can no longer trust her. She showed me the person that she is, her entire personality. 

27/06/26

People handle rejection in different ways… So there’s some guy I met in 2025 while at work. At the time I was handling sales. I was looking for a customer to sell the products to and I saw him to be the potential buyer. He accepted to buy the product on condition that he exchanges numbers with me. I agreed because I really needed to hit my target. I didn’t mind until he texted me that very day that he wants to pick me up from work. It was crazy on my side because I felt offended. He wanted us to go to a guesthouse. I became hesitant, this guy was moving too fast. I told him I wasn’t comfortable with his arrangement. I told him that I didn’t even know him. I literally didn’t know his name for starters. Today he came around to do his shopping. He was having a conversation with his friends, telling them that I refused him yet he spent his money to buy a product that he doesn’t use. It was so hilarious I burst out laughing and I told him to fix his shit. 

30/06/26

The moment you think you have like the worst problems ever in this world, then you would be lying to yourself. Having self-pity is the worst thing someone can ever pull off. Admiring things that everyone else has and you don’t is the easiest cause of premature death since you put yourself on pressure to get those things and when you don’t get them you panic. 

04/07/26

My day started off so well. I had just gotten paid the previous day. I was so excited to spend my money, get a new hairstyle, do my nails, buy some new jeans. I left work in the morning to go get some sleep since my shift had ended. I took a nap from 8 am to 4:30 pm. I prepared myself to go to work… I arrived at exactly 6 pm, rested a little bit, then got to work. I briefly had a conversation with my colleague about her past relationship with her ex-boyfriend. She said they had what people would term as a nerdy relationship because they wrote how they felt about each other in their shared diary. She would wake in the morning, write what she felt for her boyfriend and how she was going to spend her day, and the same applied to him. They wrote everything down. I thought it was cool. 

I had my dinner at around 7 pm. I had rice and beef gravy. It was good food, I enjoyed eating it, then returned at 8 pm, still jazzed with the same colleague. This time around she was telling me how frightened her heart was to go home. I told her to pray. She said she feared something bad was going to happen. She eventually went home at 9 pm. A few minutes later, the colleague of mine comes calling me that she wanted to speak to me outside. I thought she had lost a relative or worse than that, only to find her crying, her lips bleeding, her trousers dirty. Poor girl had found thugs on her way home. They beat her, took her bag and phone, her entire salary taken. I felt so sad for her. I gave her a hug and did what I could to help her reach home safely.

05/07/26

I had the worst day ever. I felt as if my work goes unnoticed, because I always put my whole in whatever I do. I worked on an ungrateful customer. She placed her order and said she would be so busy and won’t be able to pick up calls. I told her that we can be chatting on WhatsApp for her to confirm if that’s actually the product she ordered and she agreed. In the middle of the order she wasn’t [responding] to text messages. She eventually replied, [completed] her order, and I sent the delivery guy on his way to her house to deliver her things. I then called her to confirm whether everything that she ordered was there. She literally [said yes] and was grateful. After sometime this lady called back asking whether she could speak to the manager because she wanted to forward a complaint that she had the worst experience with me. I literally cried because I couldn’t believe that a person I spoke to a few minutes ago had the nerve to say she wasn’t okay with how I handled her order. I noted her number and made sure that next time she wants to make orders online, my colleague will be the one to work on her.

07/07/26

Remember the colleague of mine that was beaten? She resumed work today. It was so surprising to see, because it had been a while. I reported for my shift at exactly 6 pm and found her there. I was so excited to see her on her feet again. However, she was limping. I felt so bad for her, the lips were fairly healed, we jazzed for a little bit and then I started work. I later went to have dinner. I had vegetable rice and beans. ▪