Rose Nyongondu, the proprietor of Makeup by Rose, has painfully narrated how she suffered in the hands of her own staff.
In an interview, she revealed how her employees would steal up to Ksh 2.5 million per month at time when she was dealing with marital issues.
While she has successfully kept her business afloat and quit her abusive marriage, Rose attributes her past experiences to trusting too much.
Here is the story as told by WoK.
In an interview with Lynn Ngugi, Rose came forward to explain how she suffered and almost lost her business in the hands of her employees.
In 2023, she claimed that she was losing between Ksh 2 million and Ksh 2.5 million per month; the least amount of money lost per month was about Ksh 1.2 million.
“When I found about it, the next day I ended up being put on a drip because I could not move. The amount of money I lost I could have done so much with it,” Rose said.
She wondered why her stuff would steal from her yet she took care of them, provided a good working environment and even took them to vacations.
“I would take care of their families, help in clearing their medical bills and I wouldn’t take that from their salaries… When you do all that and something like this happens, it hits different,” Rose said.
Rose also recalled an incident where her supervisor had pocketed Ksh 200,000 while she received a demand letter for failing to pay rent.
“When you get a demand letter from the landlord you’re confused and don’t know what’s happening. The supervisor would cry with me while at the same time she has stolen Ksh 200,000,” she said.
Following the discovery, Rose had to re-strategize and put systems in place that would prevent such incidents from happening again.
“Right now, I’m not messing around with anyone, you take Ksh 100 bob from me, I won’t even warn you, you’ll leave my business with handcuffs on,” she said.
After firing her staff, Rose said it took a week for her to make Ksh 1.9 million from Ksh 2,500 or less per day at the hands of the rogue employees.
Marital issues
Other than experiencing these challenges in the course of her business, Rose is also a survivor of domestic violence.
Despite leaving the marriage, she explained that the encounters had a lasting impact on her children – a 10-year-old son and a daughter aged 8.
At the present time, Rose says she is working on making sure that her children are stable mentally after what they witnessed.
“My son is very vocal, he will say what he feels. I’m working on getting my children to a point where they know what happened is not their fault. They are going through therapy and I want to make sure that they are okay mentally,” she said.
Rose also explained how she, as a survivor of an abusive marriage, has been helping some her clients deal with domestic issues.
“Most women do beuaty services as therapy. They are running away from something. Whenever im attending to a woman, I start a conversation because she might be going through something
“It is then when a woman will break down and start ipening up. The amount of stuff [messages] that I have on my WhatsApp… it makes me realize that there is something that they have seen in me,” she said.
With these encounters, Rose said that she has advised her employees to build relationships with their clients, and make a habit of striking conversations with them.
“When a woman walks in for our services, I like it when she leaves feeling fantastic… Like she has left all her problems. My business makes more sense like that,” she said.
