Ngozi's Blog

Good morning beautiful people…

Yeah, it’s been a long while. Forgive me  ( ._.)  I guess time hasn’t permitted me to write much in this past one month. And it’s not because I haven’t had anything to say o. I’ve had lots to say.

I’ve been doing just fine… same old same old; work, sleep, eat, eat, eat again and church. Only thing is, I don’t know why, but I’ve been fighting with my friends a lot this period. Not serious fights like physical fights or shouting matches, but it’s enough to make me question my sanity. And the fights are usually as a result of my jealousy… I’m a very jealous person. I get irrationally jealous over my friends and it’s even worse with love interests or guys I like. And it’s silly because I know I’m not the only friend they have… but I feel weird when friends tell me about how much fun they had the time they went bungee jumping or sky diving or wine tasting with their other friends. I always feel so left out.

I listen, and I even enjoy the stories but in my mind, I’m sitting there thinking; I’m your friend aren’t I? I can bungee jump can’t I? I drink wine, drinkn’t I? So why didn’t I get to go???

:’(

Even as I write this, I realize how foolish I must sound… but luckily for us, the fear of sounding foolish has never stopped me right? 😉

It’s still early in the week and I’m already exhausted. I’m more mentally tired than physically tired. We had a training at work over the weekend- all day Saturday and most of Sunday. As painful as it was to have no weekend, the training wasn’t so bad. I had planned to show up late on both days, squeeze my face and look bored throughout the training. Depending on the facilitator, I was also going to chew gum loudly, like a part-time hooker, but, like I said, the training turned out to be ok. There was no need for my planned rebellion.

I even participated… I took part in group activities and answered questions and stuff 😀

Occasionally, my MD organizes these forums or strategy sessions where he or someone else stands in front of us and gives us a really loooong talk about HR Consulting tinz. And they don’t just talk out of their asses… these men (and a woman one time) actually know their shit. By the time they are done, you are either left feeling like you can take on the world, or you are left thinking about your failed life and in what direction it’s going…

Meanwhile, I picked up a Leave Request Form last week… it has been sitting on my desk because, even though I know I  need a break, even though I can feel myself going insane sometimes, the fact is that I have no idea what I’m going to do with 10 free days! Ideas anyone? Anything that doesn’t involve money?

Also, I have a presentation to give this morning. I have to talk to everyone in my department… almost 60 people! I’m nervous as hell partly because I’m not ready. Being the procrastinator that I am, I left everything till the last minute. Then I stayed up all night to work on my slides but somehow I ended up on random websites about weight-loss, relationships, food and sexual harassment in the workplace.

I’ve never spoken in front of my colleagues before because I’ve always managed to avoid it. I can stand before hundreds of candidates and talk to them. I do that almost every week and it doesn’t shake me, but this Knowledge Sharing Session in front of my colleagues is scary. And the topic is very uninteresting.

You see, after our appraisals in September, we were each given a topic to discuss. Management thinks we don’t know, but we kinda figured out that every employee was assigned a topic based on the area(s) where their line managers think they need improvement.

So, for example, the Lone Ranger who likes to work from dark corners and never shares information unless you force it out of him at gun point had to give a talk on Team Work and Team Building.

You get the drill right? That’s how it’s being done.

As for me, my topic is Workplace Etiquette ( ._.)

They said I swear too much and crack offensive and inappropriate jokes. Can you imagine?! What’s the point of a joke if it’s not offensive and inappropriate?? ( ._.)

And the annoying thing is, it’s not 100% true… it wasn’t even a suggested area for improvement during my appraisal. I have never walked up to my boss/group head and asked her, “Hey ma… what did the cock say to the farmer who was holding a hoe?” Those kinds of jokes are reserved for my peers only, but what would’ve been my topic (Going The Extra Mile) was already taken by someone else so the staff support girl picked this one cos she thought it would be fun. I’m not having any fun cos it’s a boring ass topic!!

I have to go now. I’m sorry this post is jaga jaga like this… Wish me luck. Maybe I’ll tell you about it when I’m done.

See you guys soon.

*kisses*

Good morning beautiful people!!

My name is Ngozi and I am a fraud… ( ._.)

The other day, after service, this dude walked up to me in church. You know how, after service, you bow your head and head straight for the door to avoid spending another thirty or so minutes greeting people? But no matter how hard you try to escape, you must run into a few brethren on your way out. You gotta remember people’s names and say hi and exchange holy pleasantries that don’t really make a lotta sense.

Hello brother Joseph, how is work?… Ah, sister we blex God.

You are blessed sixta Modesta. So ha ees tins?… Ah, brother Ndubuisi, God be praised o.

Sister Esmeralda, I can see you’re bleeding from your eyes and nose. It is well… Yes oh it is well! No Ebola virus will come near me and my family in Jesus’ name *coughs and spits out blood*

Anyway, this guy caught up with me at the door. He was smiling broadly and we started the small talk. We covered work, how the weekend had been so far and family. I thought it was over till he mentioned that “some of us were discussing the other time and they mentioned your name”. I was immediately intrigued and a million questions came to mind- Who was discussing? Why did my name come up? What were they talking about? Has anyone told this guy about his breath?

“Ahn ahn… how come?” I asked.

What he said next is the reason I am a fraud ( ._.)

He said that during their last singles prayer meeting/fellowship, there was a short session at the end during which people were allowed to ask questions. Some guy asked a question about marriage and meeting the right girl. He complained about there being a shortage of “wife material” in our church as the girls in church are too proud, they are loose and are in the market for only high-profile or well-to-do men (outside of church).

After the meeting, a few of the guys (him and his friends) gathered to further discuss the growing lack of wife material in the church. His group of friends consists of a homeless estate agent who lives in the church building, one dry-cleaner, one frozen-foods sales boy and a supermarket attendant. I’m not sure what he does for a living. He was impressed that my name came up and they all agreed that I am “God-fearing, simple and humble”. I am wife material because I haven’t been banging guys in church and I am never seen in dodgy places or with questionable characters.

He said I’m not like some others girls who drink (LOOOOOL!!!) or smoke.  I am not rude (LAAAAAWL!!!) and I am concerned about the things of God (ROTFLMFAO!!!!). He was talking like he had an award to give me for being elected one of the “Wifematerialest” girls in church and then ended by telling me to “keep up the good work.” I smiled and said thank you, cos I didn’t know how else to respond. We exchanged our holy goodbyes and I went home. Then I called a friend up and told her so that we could laugh about it together. She too almost died of laughter.

Afterwards, when I stopped laughing, I took time to really think about it and I had mixed feelings. On one hand, I was deeply insulted because Jesus didn’t die for me to be a dry-cleaner’s wife. Pray tell, what then is the use of Mary Kay every Sunday? On the other hand, I felt like a fraud. Yeah, I tend to get carried away during praise and worship and I have been known to shed a tear or two. Most of my weekends are wig-less weekends so I go to church with my short afro. And once in a while, I join the members of the Environment Department in cleaning the church compound so maybe it makes sense that based on shit like that, some people might believe that I am the Virgin Mary.

Still, I’m not planning to correct this impression. Lord knows I didn’t intentionally deceive anyone, but at the same time, I won’t put up a sign that says “Hey, I’m the poster girl for Snapp and my monthly megabytes are divided somewhat unequally between Joel Osteen’s e-books and porn”.

My brother says I should send them a link to my blog and watch my yards of wife material go up in flames ( ._.) What do you guys think?

Have a great weekend brethren… God be praised!

Hello beautiful people…

Hope you guys are doing great. Today has started off horribly and my group head has been yelling at me non-stop. My supervisor keeps rubbing my back and telling me “well done”. I can tell she’s afraid I’m going to flip and say something to our group head that we will all regret… but, the truth is, I’m fine. Yeah, I’m kinda irritated by all the yelling cos of the sprays of spittle that come with it (these are evil Ebola times ya know), but really I’m fine because I’m celebrating something today.

Today is my work birthday!!!

*waits for applause to die down*

Exactly one year ago today, I officially started work here. I wish I could say that it feels like yesterday, but it doesn’t… it feels like 7 and a half years ago. In that time, I have grown two strands of grey hair on my head and countless more strands on erm… other places. To be honest, it has been an incredibly tough year, especially the last few months.

Still, I am grateful to God that even with all the trouble (the ones I caused knowingly and unknowingly), I wasn’t sacked. I’m grateful for the friends I made in my former clients office. And, most of all, I’m proud of myself for not giving up when things were at their worst. Did I learn any new thing about myself? Probably not… there isn’t much I didn’t already know before I started work here.

There are,  however, a few lessons I learnt the hard way about work/office life;

1. When you are on the phone with a colleague, always assume you are on speaker. That way, no matter how angry you are, you won’t call the company accountant a daft tuber of yam  ( ._.)
2. Be publicly hard-working… focus on the jobs that will get you recognition. It is more important to appear to be doing work than to actually be working. Clutter your desk with files… put up sticky notes with meaningless HR quotes… loosen your tie and roll up your sleeves and no one will suspect you are on Jumia or LindaIkeji.
3. Everyone is a suspect. Nevertheless, when your pastor commands you to pray for your enemies to fall and die, do not show up to work on Monday morning to start asking people, “Ahn ahn! Are you still here?”
4. Document everything! If your colleague tells you about a change in plans, send a mail so that he/she can confirm it in writing. If your boss sneezes, send her a mail to say “Bless you”… if your colleague mistakenly sends you nudes, document it. Document! Document! Document!
5. Wherever two or three Yoruba people are gathered and you are in their midst, don’t be naïve: the answer is yes, they are talking about you.

I think those are the most important ones… I’m still learning lesson No.4 though.

Meanwhile, I didn’t gist you guys about something good that happened at work last month. I was going to write about it but then I changed my mind cos I don’t want you guys to start liking my company. Anyway, last month, we had another appraisal and because of how terrible my last two appraisals were, I was not excited at all. In fact, I was scared. But this one was different. At the end of it, one of my ogas complained that I have a habit of scoring myself ridiculously low in some areas where she felt I did ok. She even sent me back twice to fill the appraisal form again. By the time we were done with the first and second levels, my performance (on paper) was waaaay better and I was no longer scoring lower than ManU. Add to that some commendations from a few team leads (who apparently think I am “hardworking”)and voila! I received a promotion… And it was a promotion that came with a 50% salary increase!  ( ._.) Yaay me!

Anyway, I gotta go. I started this post in the morning but I haven’t sat my ass down for five minutes straight since then. Now the day is over… *sigh*

Happy birthday Work-Ngozi!!!  And congrats on the promotion…

As for you guys, I wish you all an amazing new month!

Hello people!

Hope you guys are doing great… me, I’m doing ok.

It’s been busy as hell at work and I’ve barely had time to breathe. I had a deadline that I knew I wasn’t going to meet up with so I came to work this morning prepared to be crucified to the gods of HR. I had written my last will and testament and said my goodbyes. Last night, I called two of my friends to say goodbye and then I drank up all the Snapp in my alcohol stash. Finally, in the early hours of the morning, I went to sleep more than a little tipsy, but ready to die a happy woman…

Then I got to work this morning with a slight hangover, only to find out that my deadline had been shifted two weeks. I broke down in tears and wept for my Apple Snapp. I’ll have to re-stock over the weekend.

In other news, I’m excited because it’s my brother’s birthday today!! YAAAY!!!! That’s really what I wanted to tell you guys… I got him a nice bottle of perfume and a small birthday cake. He surprised me by dropping by my office so we just had lunch (the crappy cafeteria food). We both work and get home pretty late so I don’t think much else will happen today. Maybe we will do something over the weekend after we’ve both been paid… 😀

This is the brother immediately after me… he’s the smarty pants who fixes all my gadgets and runs the silliest errands for me. We’ve been living together for almost two years now and quite frankly, the poor guy deserves an award for somehow managing to survive me this long. He has put up with my terrible mood swings… he never knows what he’s going wake up to meet. His chatter-box sister who will describe in detail every single thing that goes on in her office, using demonstrations where necessary OR his Grinch-sister who locks herself in a dark room for long hours at a stretch and resurfaces only to get food.

Even though we’re the closest in age among us kids, for some reason, I’m fiercely protective of him… some people say I spoil him. My family has never been the type to openly express affection so I show love the only way I know how; by cooking lots of food and feeding him to death. Whenever we fight, it’s usually about who has to do the dishes or fetch water or take the trash out. Then, when we need to make up, what do I do? I cook more food!!

And that’s another thing… he doesn’t complain. I could shit in a plate and garnish it with some lettuce and parsley and call it “Steamed Shyte Boudin”, but he will never ever complain about it.

Sometimes, living with him feels like I am married. And that’s why, in some ways, I know I am ready and will make a great wife. In other ways, me sef I know I am on a loooong tin *sigh*

I gotta get back to work now.

Happy birthday darling Chip Chip!! May God bless you and keep you and prosper you (for me)… Amen! Thank you for being an awesome brother. It won’t hurt you to do the dishes more but I still love you!

Have a wonderful week people… :-*

Hello people!

Hope y’all are doing great. I’m doing ok… I don’t think I have a lot to complain about, apart from the usual work stuff. I keep reminding myself that it could be worse. I’m not in Sambisa, I don’t have Ebola and one of the people I owe money just died so I should count my blessings abi?

I’m kidding… I’m still going to have to pay his next of kin  ( ._.)

 The only thing I’m sad about is the fact that today marks the end of my “bloggering” career as we know it. One of my colleagues now knows I have a blog so I can’t say much about work anymore. I can’t even say much about myself too. Until yesterday, all my colleagues and a lot of my new friends didn’t know about this blog. This was where I could come and talk to you guys about almost anything and now it has been ruined.

I’m probably over reacting, I know, but just to be on the safe side, I’ve deleted a few work related posts. I just have a nasty feeling that this will come back to bite me in the ass one day… and I don’t even know if I can still say ass and stuff, or if I have to be using terms like “buttocks” or “male and female reproductive organs” or “battery powered pleasure-inducing cylindrical vibrating device”…

Let’s not get carried away though… this is not what I wanted to talk to you guys about. I’m here today to talk about my daughters. Calm down, I don’t have them yet. I don’t have any kids at all, but I refer to my future kids a lot and I think about them a lot. Sometimes, I wonder the kind of mother I will be, especially to my girls. Will I be strict? Will I spoil my kids? Will I beat the hell out of them? I don’t know… all I know is that they will be well taken care of and they will get teased in school for having different daddys ( ._.)

Anyway, the reason I worry about my daughters is because sometimes, I feel like I coulda turned out better if I had a erm… different upbringing. Maybe not better as an individual, but certainly wiser. I’ve said it before that my parents were very strict and they instilled so much fear in us that I didn’t have a chance to spoil till very late. In fact, if not for Biology 101, I woulda continued to believe that a girl could get pregnant from standing too close to a guy if he sneezed.

I didn’t have my first real badd girlfriend till late in my twenties. Up until then, most of my normal girlfriends hid their bad sides… but this one? She could put Rihanna to shame! She had a string of boyfriends, she dated married men openly, she drank constantly and she smoked anything that she could ignite… if it could catch fire, she would roll it and light that bitch up. I was always afraid to spray perfumes and insect repellents around her for fear they would explode! How I didn’t get lung cancer from all the smoke is still a miracle till today…

But, even with our clear differences, we stayed friends. She was proud to take me everywhere with her. If she had a date, I was the third wheel; the guy of the day would be driving, she would be riding shot-gun and I was usually the one in the back seat, singing along to whatever was playing on the radio.

Through her, I met all sorts of people, from the stinking rich to the ones who needed to save half their salary for a few months to be able to afford the kinds of places she liked to go. Also, I learned A LOT. I learned the kind of stuff that mothers don’t teach. Things that every girl has to either learn on her own or stay clueless forever. In essence, being friends with her actually changed my life.

Am I wise now? I wouldn’t say so… by the time I went through her School of Ho’ism, I was already kinda set in my ways so there wasn’t much I could change, but it definitely wasn’t a total waste. I decided to talk about this today because I just heard that one of her flammable friends, also a Rihanna prototype, is getting married soon. I’m not surprised because she’s a beautiful young girl, but once again, it has made me think about my daughters.

On one hand, there’s a part of me that says I won’t allow my girls use make-up until they turn 34 years old, all their skirts will be ankle length and their blouses will have turtles necks and shoulder pads… but on the other hand, I don’t want them to grow up not-so-wise like their mama. Lord knows I don’t plan on encouraging them to be ho’s… don’t get me wrong. But shouldn’t they be allowed to take some preliminary courses in a renowned School of Ho’ism, even if for a year or two?

They may come out a little scarred, but they will be wise in their ways and in the ways of the world. They will be equipped to handle men and will develop those nasal photon accelerators that can smell a guy’s bad intentions from miles away

*sigh* I guess I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it…

My country people, take care.