Ngozi's Blog

My country people…  Good evening.

Hope you guys are good.

It’s been a slow week so far for me, nothing at all like my usual Mondays and Tuesdays. Last week was a nightmare and I didn’t get to rest over the weekend. Rain beat the crap out of me on Saturday and I got soaked to my bones. Now, I feel like shit, like I’m coming down with something so I’m trying to take things easy. I’ve been feeding on painkillers and coffee and bread since then.

In fact, to be honest, I’m not really doing anything… I went to our training school Monday morning to address some new recruits. This is the fourth Monday in a row that I’m having to do that. I just wear a tight skirt suit and high heels, stand before a group of 30 to 40 people and talk to tell them about their new jobs. After talking, they clap, then they ask questions and I give them random answers that I pull out of my ass. It’s funny cos a number of them are the same age as me, but when I talk, they look at me like I have the cure to Cancer. They don’t know that I still watch SpongeBob Squarepants and wear non-matching underwear.

Anyway, that’s not what we’re discussing today… today, we’re going to talk about a recent conversation I had with a friend. He’s an ex actually, but we’re still very close friends. Before we go into that though, I’ll tell you about a theory another friend of mine has. This other friend believes that, if by the age of 35 you are still single, then you should know exactly why you are single. And any single person, 35  and above, who claims to not know why is delusional and being dishonest with himself/herself.

I think that theory makes plenty of sense. I’m not 35 yet but I used to think I had a pretty good idea of the reasons I am still single. I thought I had my good sides and bad sides clearly understood.

You know how it is, when someone asks you to describe yourself. Naturally, you start with all the good things first… “I’m caring”, “I’m God fearing”, “I’m nice to a fault”, “I spend my Saturdays in a Motherless babies home” bla bla bla

Then, because you don’t want to look like you think you’re perfect, you mention one or two bad things. But, even the bad things, you say them in a fun way so that they don’t seem too bad…

“I get a lil grumpy sometimes” is a nice way of saying “I am bipolar and I also suffer from multiple personality disorder and one of my personalities might stab you in your sleep”…

Or “I’m a scaredy cat who is always afraid to try out new things” could be a way of saying “I will never ever give you head even if your D was the last source of vitamin D in the world.”

You get what I’m saying right?

So we were having this talk and he, my friend, was telling me stuff he couldn”t really say before when we were together. It was a no holds barred, non-sugar coated, bitter truth firing session… I felt bad for days after that talk because I realized that if what he said was true, then I will probably die a lonely old woman.

I’m much better now, and I’m consoling myself with the fact that maybe one day, I will meet a guy with strong enough prescription pills to love me just the way I am. And I won’t tell you what he said just in case the future hubby-slash-prescription-pill-swallower is reading this right now. However, the whole episode made me wonder if I’ve been lying to myself this whole time.

One thing a lot of people don’t know about me is that I sometimes have complex issues and I have a habit of constantly putting myself down. How it works is, even before you mention it, I will tell you that I have only three strands of hair. Before you tell me  that my clothes are last season, I would’ve described myself as old school. It’s the same with my work, my looks, my writing… there’s not much about me that I think is good enough. Or at least as good as I would like it to be.

I am genuinely amazed at people who can stand in front of a mirror and talk about how “hawt” they are or at guys who brag about how charming they are. There are people with heads shaped like used condoms who describe themselves as being very irresistible to the ladies. Girls with dual-purpose asses that can double as ironing boards who talk about how guys wanna “tap this booty”. I even have a friend who thinks he’s a better writer than Stephen King, John Grisham and Obasanjo put together… but the first time I read one of his stories, I had tears in my eyes. Tears because his work was that painful to read.

Yeah, I know you gotta be your biggest cheerleader, your biggest fan and your biggest supporter. I know all that Oprah-self-help BS, but my question is, where do you draw the line between self-confidence and self-deceit??

Me, I’m of the belief that, if you’re hot or charming or brilliant or swimming in money or whatever, you won’t have to say it or make so much noise about it. It’ll show naturally.

I don’t know if I’m making sense… I’ve decided to start reading some self-help books. I might get answers there.

*sigh*

As you were…

 

Wow…

I have never in my life felt like less of a woman!!

So I’m at work and there are seven other women in this really large office where we sit. Two are on leave so there are six of us left. Out of the six, three are married women and the other three are single. You guys won’t believe that I AM THE ONLY ONE WHO HAS NOT RECEIVED A CAKE/BOUQUET OF ROSES/GIFT BASKET today!!! I had to run to the bathroom to feel up my tits… just to make sure I still had them, you know… to confirm that I am a woman.

After confirmation, I got back to my empty, gift-less desk with a sad heart and very hard nipples.

I don’t know how I feel about all this… I think I didn’t realize how personally people still take Valentine’s. And I’m wondering; am I that old? It’s been so long since I celebrated Val’s day or even thought about celebrating it. I can’t even remember what I was doing this time last year. Probably housework… I don’t know. But I know I was ok, I wasn’t feeling bad or feeling like I was missing out on something. Maybe because I was at home, not expecting or wanting anything…

Now I feel really awkward… people in this office will probably be wondering what is wrong with me. And if they are half as imaginative as I am, they will probably think I’m a lesbian or they will come up with another equally exotic reason. But even lesbians celebrate Val’s day so that’s no excuse. I’m thinking I should probably order roses or something and have them sent to my office. They’ll be plastic roses of course because I can’t afford the real thing… I’ll have to act shocked too. And when they ask who it’s from, I’ll say that I don’t know “which of them” sent it.

I hope you guys are enjoying your Valentine’s day though. I hope no one is sad, or lonely or hurt… and I hope all intentional side-chicks are suffering pain and neglect and boils… lots of boils.

As for me, I’m glad I survived the day. One of the ladies in my office got promoted so we’re celebrating it. She got caterers and drinks… and I stuffed my face with poundo yam. Then, later, she got a bouquet of fresh roses and two boxes of really really nice chocolates from a secret admirer (her second gift today). Imagine how excited I was when she gave me one of the chocolates 😀

Meanwhile, this morning, another friend of mine saw her boyfriend/fiancé with another babe wearing matching red T-shirts. As if that wasn’t bad enough, she told me that said boyfriend was supposed to be out of town on business… smh. I felt so sorry for her… she was inconsolable. The poor girl looked like she was about to fall apart :’(  and it’s shit like this that makes me hate Valentine’s day.

She kept asking what she should do. Should she confront him? Should she act like she doesn’t know? Should she report him to his family? In all this, there was no option to end it so I managed to keep my big mouth shut. I’m sure they’ll sort themselves out eventually… the guy might not even have to come up with an intelligent lie/explanation.

Speaking of pigs, I’ve been eating a lot these days. All the weight I lost just before Christmas, I have managed to pile it back on. I’ll probably start another diet next week… we’ll see how that works out. These days, I barely have time to do anything. I don’t even have time to exercise. Only thing I have time for is work and food and more food.

It’s 6:00pm and I’m ready to go home but I hear that the traffic situation outside is bloody so I’m sitting here trying to make time pass.

Maybe I should open my chocolate while I wait…

You lovers should enjoy the rest of your day 😉

Good morning people!

It’s 2:00am Friday morning and I’m eating semo and afang (let he who is without sin cast the first stone). My thoughts are all over the place but I know I wanna talk, so let’s talk…

A lot has happened since our last meeting. First of all, my blog was a year old January 1^st 😀 I got a mail from some blog stats thing where they showed me my site stats; it had my most visited/popular blog posts, my top commenters, the locations of my readers, how many of you send nudes to each other and it shows the people who laugh at my jokes etc For a new site, my blog did pretty well last year.

So it’s a happy belated birthday to HRC!!! Thank you guys for visiting my site and staying faithful even when I didn’t…

I hope your year started out much better than mine did. January came and went and unsurprisingly, my life still sucks… all the things my pastor promised me will happen “in dis month of Geh-new-aari” haven’t happened yet. I’m still broke, single and my enemies who were supposed to die by fire are still alive, walking around un-burnt.

Work has been terrible… I had my performance appraisal last month and I’m still recovering from that. The only person who scored lower than me in my department was our departmental mascot… and we don’t even have a departmental mascot. That’s how bad it was.

The first level appraisal was with my supervisor. My brother who has like a million years work experience told me to be prepared for it. He said I was going to have to defend myself and show evidence of any achievements or claims. I was pretty confident that my work would speak for itself so I walked into that office like a boss…

Needless to say, it didn’t go as planned. It was a train wreck from the minute I stepped through the door…

Imagine if your parents promised to get you a car when you turn 21. Then, a few weeks to your birthday, they call you into their room for a chat. They want you to convince them to buy the car they promised you…

You’re excited because you can think of at least 3.2 million reasons why you should get that car. I mean, you’re not pregnant for a married man, you don’t do drugs (in front of them), you don’t drink (in front of them), there’s no sex tape of you on the internet (because it hasn’t leaked yet), you do your chores, you do well in school…

You’re so confident you can literally feel the car keys in your hands already.

But, to your surprise, your parents are not impressed. They are not impressed because all those things you listed, are things they already expected of you. Then they pick one, just one mistake you made when you were in Primary 5 and keep using it against you…

Your folks are like;

“Ok Ngor… I understand why you would think you deserve the car. However, we don’t think you showed maturity or responsibility when, in primary 5, you told your classmates that the principal’s initials (V.P.L) stood for Visible Panty Line… Or how about the time you went to visit your uncle Robert and came back smelling of pee?”

You try to argue with them a little but there’s no point because their minds are already made up… `you’re not getting that car. And that’s how I didn’t get confirmed. I’m still on the same level… still on the same disgusting salary scale. I can’t even afford a decent cocaine addiction  :'(

Now, I’m at a point where I’m not so sure that I give the adequate number of fucks anymore. After the appraisal, I kinda slacked off a bit and within a space of three weeks, I was given three query’s  (._.)

Now, I would never lie to you guys… I might omit certain facts and exaggerate sometimes, but I wouldn’t lie to you so I take full responsibility for the first query. A wise crack got me in trouble and I got hell for it.

The second one was not as serious as the first. My response to that one was so looooong… the idea was that my boss, while reading it, would fall asleep by the third paragraph. I wrote it like a descriptive essay and used really big words that I wasn’t one hundred percent sure I knew their meanings. If my plan worked, he should still be on page 3 of my response.

The third query, didn’t make sense… I haven’t even responded to it yet. I might not respond to it at all cos it was one of those scenarios where you’re told “Ngozi, I need the frozen blood of a saber tooth tiger preferably from the Flintstone era. I need it by 2:00pm at the latest. You can liaise with Barney Rubble for any information you need.”

I didn’t get the blood. I didn’t even try and that’s what got me the third query. And that’s the way my life has been. I have to start getting ready for work now… I’ll see you guys later.

Happy New Year people…

Good morning people!!!

( ._.)

So I’ve been wondering… I’ve been gone for two months now (my personal best record). Should I bother to apologize? What would be the point? What if I apologize and then after my apology, I stay away for another two months or more?

For what it is worth though, I am sorry! I really am… I honestly can’t explain how two whole months of my life went by without me coming here. To be honest, it might even have been longer if my website hosting company didn’t get in touch with me… last month, they sent a few mails about an upgrade. When I didn’t respond, they started sending warnings with a lot of technical grammar… talking about my site’s compatibility with PHP 5.4, my web programming language,  and how I should go to the Category Software/Services on my control panel.

WTF???!

At first, I hoped that it was just a test to see if I was dead… But the messages kept coming. In my defense, I attempted to follow their instructions to fix things but when I got to the control panel, it looked like the control panel of the Starship Enterprise… you know that huge board that Captain Kirk and Spok always stand in front of… the one that has all the controls to fly the ship. That’s what it looked like.

Finally, yesterday they sent a notification that, after several failed attempts to reach me, they had gone ahead to do the upgrade themselves. Then they listed all the possible problems my site might face as a result of the upgrade… it was a friggin’ loooooong list of everything from a blank white screen to genital rashes. I was so worried. I didn’t even know who to ask for help :'( I just sat back and watched my website suffer from website AIDS.

I just got the courage to log in this morning (it’s like 2:00am right now) and I’m relieved because my site is still alive!! No blank white screen and my rash was already clearing before the upgrade thing started so I think everything is ok now… 😀

I’ve missed you guys though… my life in the past two months has been all about work. It seems my life was more interesting when I was broke and unemployed. Now that I’m broke and employed, it’s work all day everyday… To be honest, I have been very unhappy miserable. This career-slash-independent-woman life is not all that I imagined it would be. I don’t even have a life outside work anymore… and I feel like I’m not seeing the rewards yet.

It is unbelievable how much trouble I get into on a weekly basis.  It’s a shameful thing to admit, but my mouth keeps getting me in trouble. I’ve been described as rude a million times… And I think the only reason I haven’t been sent packing yet is that I get the job done, and I get it done well.

But you guys know I’m not rude don’t you?… Don’t you?? I’m just a wise ass who doesn’t suffer fools gladly. And I was never gifted/blessed with the ability to kiss ass. If you call me up at 7:30am on a Sunday morning to fix a problem, that problem better be either of the following:

1. You are being held at gun point by an armed robber who wants to go on vacation with you and your family and therefore needs a Leave Request form.

2. The armed robber shot you because I didn’t approve your leave and you are now slowly bleeding to death, so you need the names of all the hospitals registered under our healthcare plan that are located on your street and that start with the letter ‘B’.

3. You are dead and you are at the gates of hell, but you don’t like hell because it is hot, so you want to put in for a transfer to Heaven and your supervisor, Satan, has refused to approve your transfer. You want me to beat Satan for you and make him approve…

If none of the above is why you are calling on a Sunday morning, best believe that I will give you a piece of my mind… I don’t care who you are. And that is how I always get in trouble.

My boss has given me that “The customer is always right” speech so many times that I can now recite it along with her… and when she starts, my mind usually travels to a peaceful, far away land full of Coldstone ice-cream and shirtless hunky men.

A few weeks ago, I got frustrated to the point where I actually drafted a resignation letter. I first of all had to Google ‘How to write a resignation letter’ for a sample because my first draft;

“Dear Sir, I resign. Fuck thee!!”

did not look right, even though it captured my exact sentiments. I wrote that first draft a day after my boss told me that if she had a gun, she would gladly blow my brains out and leave me for dead. I was so dazed and hurt… I didn’t know what to say. When I heard that she handed in her resignation last week, it took all of my will power to not off my shirt and dance skelewu on my desk. Things are better now, but only slightly…

I went on a date on Sunday. Some dude who reads my blog asked me out for lunch and I said yes. When I said yes, I really had no intention of going. I planned to cancel last minute because I had never actually met him before and I was afraid that I was going to end up like Cynthia: I imagined that they would find my half naked body in a hotel room with my throat slit, wearing mismatched bra and panties with holes in the panties ( ._.)

For days my picture would be all over Nigerian blogs and I would be known as the girl with teer-teer-payint.

Another hang up I had was that he is smart… too smart. He’s the kind of guy who knows detailed stuff about shit like the Watergate scandal, the war in Iraq, the government policies of Kazakhstan etc So I felt that the date would be boring and we would have nothing in common. Although I do not apologize for having zero interest in world politics and current affairs, I generally avoid situations where I might be left completely clueless during discussions about such serious issues… I could nod my head in agreement or stroke my beard as if I’m in deep thought, but eventually, someone would figure out that my mind is on Coldstone ice-cream and shirtless hunky men.

But my date turned out great 😀 I had so much fun!!! It’s strange because it feels like he knows me really well… and I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. It’s like he “learned me” from this blog, and because of that, he seems to be doing everything right. We’ll see how that turns out… surely, there must be something I can use to disqualify him ( ._.)

Christmas is here again *barfs into a bucket* and people are already getting so excited… As usual, I don’t have plans. Might end up home alone watching movies again like last year.

I should shut up now… and I won’t even bother telling you when next I’ll see you.

Once again, I’m sorry… :'(

 

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?