Let’s catch up… :)

Hello beautiful people!

How have you guys been?

I feel like I’m just crawling out of a very dark hole after weeks in hiding… which is technically what I’m doing. It’s been ages since my last post and A LOT has happened. I stayed away because I thought I would have a different ending to this story, but I don’t. So I will have to tell you as it is…

It started at the end of May when I finally lost my client for good. Again, I was pulled out of their office and brought back to head office and I was stripped of everything; my files, my official line, the project I was working on and most of all, my pride. The only thing they left me with was my underwear. At the start of all this drama, I wasn’t fazed at all… I had been there, done that. In fact, I was over-confident, strutting around the office like I was untouchable. I almost printed a T-shirt with the words;

                                                Do you know who I am? Nigga ask about me!

This is because I was so sure that my client would fight for me again, and would win again, and all would be well with the world once more.  They (my client) kept telling me to not be worried, they were going to bring me back. However, as the days turned to weeks, reality set in. Some other dude was sent to replace me, he was given all my stuff and that was the end. And it wasn’t like I was asked to take my replacement’s former role. I wasn’t assigned any duties at all, I had no desk. Nothing.

I came to work every day and hid in one of the back offices till closing time just to avoid my colleagues. I didn’t want to answer any questions and I didn’t want sympathy, genuine or fake. And because my colleagues were used to me not being around (plus the fact that I had no desk in that big office), no one ever noticed that I was missing. I took advantage of my invisibility by skipping work a few times. One time, I stayed away for two days straight. I was at home, lying in bed, eating like a pig and feeling sorry for myself. I showed up to work on the third day and only the receptionist noticed that she hadn’t seen me the day before.

I went to see our HR a couple of times about assigning me to a new desk and giving me a proper role and she kept promising to look into it. I became terribly depressed… the kind of depression that makes you burst into tears for no reason whatsoever. I was praying I would get fired and save myself the stress of writing a resignation letter. Then one day, as I was sneaking out of the office, I got caught by one of the powers that be and he asked where I was going. I wanted to lie- I’m going to use the ATM… I’m not feeling well… my pet dog is in labour– but there was no point, so I told him the truth, that I was going home.

His eyes almost popped out of his head in shock. His neck vein was throbbing, and it grew to the size of his tie. It was by God’s special grace that he didn’t have a stroke that day. It was actually closing time, but there is an unwritten rule of Ass-kissing that doesn’t allow people leave the office until an hour or two after the official closing time. The very next day, first thing in the morning, I was posted to Recruitment Department and that’s where I have been since.

I am still trying to settle in and it has been so hard. First of all, I got banned from speaking during interviews because, according to my new supervisor, I was giving the candidates a hard time. She said my standards are too high and that I needed to get down from my high horse. Every minute she reminded me; this is not your client’s office o! We don’t do this here or we don’t do that here.

In my short time in this new team, I have met and interviewed like a million people for a million different roles. There are days when that is all I do, from morning till evening. And after meeting all these people, I have come to the conclusion that all Polytechnics and a good number of Universities in Nigeria need to be razed to the ground and converted to cassava farmlands and poultries, or they can just be left as dry desert lands. The products of these schools are proof that our Educational system is in trouble. I have heard gbagauns and I have been told lies that have made me question life.

There are people who claim to have been born in the 80’s or early 90’s but look like they are in the late stages of menopause. You begin to dig deeper and they get confused because they start mixing dates up… then you whip out a calculator and ask them to calculate it themselves. When they are finally backed into a corner, some change their minds and decide that it must be a typo from the cybercafé where they typed the CV. The diehards stick to their story and refuse to admit defeat. You ask one last time… give them a chance to repent and their bogus answer remains the same:

Yes, I graduated from Secondary School at the age of twelve… because I was a gifted child.

Then there was a day I asked another candidate why she wants to leave her current job and she said, “Well, I want to leave because I just want to wide my stethoscopes.” I actually choked on my water. I almost asked her how much she bought her university degree.

And don’t let me start with the email addresses of some of these people! Nigerian youths need to know that they can’t expect to be taken seriously when they send in a CV with their email address as [email protected]…

Or [email protected]

Or [email protected]

I see stuff like that and I am tempted to buy akara and wrap it in that CV. I am trying to console myself with the fact that there must be a reason I am here… maybe God wants me to help people so that they don’t go through half the crap I went through when I was still job searching.

Anyway, the bottom line is that I am now a Recruitment Analyst. It doesn’t sound half as cool as HR Analyst does it? The only good thing is that my new supervisor is a decent human being. Plus I have developed a huge crush on one of my colleagues *bats eyelids and twirls hair*

I should go now… I am so sorry for the ridiculously long post. And I still have more gist o!

( ._.)

We’ll continue catching up tomorrow.

Have a great weekend guys!