How my mum raised a mumu…

Good morning beautiful people!!!…

I woke up this morning feeling very optimistic about the new week, almost excited even. On my way to work, I came down at my bus stop and started the five minutes walk to the office. The sun was shining, the skies were blue, and the birds were singing in the trees…

Ok, maybe I couldn’t really hear the birds cos I had my ear phones on… and maybe there were no birds, cos there are no trees near my office, but you get the general message: it was a beautiful day.

That was until some dickhead sent from the pit of hell splashed water on me. It hasn’t rained in Lagos since Friday… it drizzled a bit yesterday but it wasn’t anything serious. Still, this agent of satan found the only puddle remaining in the whole of West Africa and decided to drive through it at the speed of Schumacher. My shoes and trousers got wet.

My shoulders fell and my mood sank fast… I just stopped and turned to look back at the speeding car and I felt worse because there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. I could only give him the middle finger but from that distance, through his rearview mirror, I probably looked like I was giving him the thumbs up sign. It didn’t help that my fingers are short and stubby and I look like I have five thumbs on each hand 🙁

The water splashing episode took me back to the horrible week I had last week…

Remember I told you guys that I had been working on something and I was expecting results? Well, it turned out quite well… there were very few complaints, but that was expected. All in all, it went well. So we started work on a second group of people. This second group was only a tiny fraction of the number we had done the previous week so I was pretty much left to handle it alone.

I thought, “How hard can this be? I did most of it the first time anyways… this should be a piece of cake”.

So I got all the info I needed, talked to all the people I needed to talk to and then got to work on it. I thought it would be a great way to prove myself… you know, so that people will see me as more than just ‘that girl who wears heavy eye makeup’.

One whole day and one sleepless night later, I was done. I submitted my finished work on Thursday morning and, just sat back, waiting for results. I even started a blog post that day…

All of a sudden, I started getting calls from headquarters… shit had hit the fan. Boss 1 called and shredded me to pieces. Then Boss No. 2 called and ground my shredded pieces to a fine powder. By the time Boss 3 called, I decided to not answer the phone. I didn’t want to be melted into a paste…

I was more in shock than anything else. I immediately went back to the work I had done and I looked through it about 65 times. I couldn’t see what was wrong that had tied everybody’s G-string in such a tight knot… to me, everything looked perfect. That was until I got a mail from a colleague. It had some info that I needed for that job. It was info that I should’ve had before I even started the job. The same job that I had already done and made a total mess of….

She said she forgot to send it in to me along with the others she sent.

In that ideal world that I live in, the one that exists only in my head, she should’ve told our bosses that she didn’t give me the things she was supposed to and that was why everything was in such a hot mess. Instead, she sent me a mail with no apology but with a promise that by God’s grace, things will get better.

I wanted to reply and tell her exactly where she needs to shove that grace… but I stayed quiet. I got to work Friday morning and there was a mail from my Jesus boss. It was a mail describing how horrible I am… the mail was full of;

YOU did this…

YOU did that…

YOUR actions have caused this…

YOUR actions have caused that…

YOU have single handedly destroyed this company…

YOU deserve to be bitten by a rabid dog, catch rabies and die…

I was staring at the screen and all the “Yous” just kept jumping out at me. You can’t imagine how terrible I felt.

…but that’s not the issue. The issue here is that I stayed quiet. I stayed quiet when I was being shredded, I was quiet when I was being ground to a fine powder, and even after I got the mail, I remained quiet. It was like I was in a trance for two whole days and I couldn’t react. Only thing I did when I got home on Thursday was cry…

I was so pissed with my mother!!!

Yes… believe it or not, I said my mother. She’s the one I blame for all of this. I’m angry because she raised a mumu and not a fighter.

My mother is not a fighter… she may be a shouter, a yeller, a screamer even, but she’s not a fighter. Growing up, we watched her go through some things from certain people and she never fought back or spoke up. She somehow made us believe that God’s judgment (or karma if you will) would eventually have its way and the wrongdoer would get back what he/she deserved.

…but only in Nollywood does life really work out that way.

That’s why puddle splashers from hell can bathe me with muddy water… and colleagues, also from the pit of hell, can indirectly get me in trouble… and Goodluck Jonathan can decide to not give me electricity for days at a time… cos they know I don’t have any fight left in me and there’s nothing I can do. I will sit quietly like a mentally retarded patient. If I’m docile enough, I might even drool…

But on a serious note, there’s a reason I didn’t fight. It was because I really did blame myself. I should’ve known better than to trust anything that was coming from my colleague. It won’t be the first time she put someone in trouble because of her pea-brainedness.

I’m beginning to think that maybe this corporate world is not for me. It’s just a place where bottom feeders get pissed on and no one ever takes responsibility for anything… When things go right, it’s a good job WE did. When shit hits the fan, we blame it on the lady who sells akara.

Why?

Well… she sold akara to my colleague, who ate the akara, then had a runny stomach. The runny stomach made her poop, and in the process she shat out most of her brains, and that’s why she didn’t have the sense to send me the folder she should’ve sent and that’s why I did a shoddy job and that’s why my company is filing for Chapter 11…

In fact, it is possible that this entire country is falling to ruins because of the akara ladies!!! If I didn’t love akara so much, I would sign a petition; NO MORE AKARA!!!

 

 

 

Ps; I’m sorry for this freakishly long post. Have a wonderful week…

Is it too late to wish you guys a Happy New Month?