A Brief Confrontation

Continued from A Brief Encounter

You start to prepare mentally about how your dreaded dialogue with the freaky cleaner would go. This time around it’s the weekend so you’ll be able to give him a piece of your mind when he comes knocking on your front door. You’re not only perplexed about what he did with your briefs since you can’t find them, but you still don’t know what he went to do with them when he was no longer within your spy camera’s view. The cleaner arrives and he’s barley picked up the nearby broom before you unleash a barrage of questions.

You take him through a courtroom ordeal examining and cross-examining the defendant. You ask him what he typically does when he cleans your bedroom. His answer does not mention anything about going through your dirty laundry. You know he’s not under oath so you remind him that he was being watched by your surveillance camera and that you noticed his every move. You show him exhibit A from your phone and he instantly goes pale and then he starts to sing a different and unexpected tune.

He tells you that he doesn’t know what happened and that it was the devil that made him do it. You take a good hard look at him as if to elicit a more convincing response but that’s just about it. He stares back at you like a deer caught in the headlights. Devil claim aside, you quiz him on the whereabouts of your underwear and he acts confused. He stammers and then admits that he went home with it. You accuse him of stealing but he insists that his plan was to return them. At this point you ask him if he brought them along but his silence and long face gives you the answer. He begs you to forgive him and he promises you that he will return your briefs the next time he’s on duty. ‘Really? Return them?’, you say to yourself.

You recall that these briefs were special not just because they were a designer brand – they were your lucky charm. You wore it to that job interview that landed the role you’re currently in. You wore it the night you your girlfriend agreed to date you. If it could be personified it would be comfort, confidence and charm all wrapped in one. And all of a sudden this underwear-sniffing, mop-wielding buffoon has stolen it for himself. You wonder what his grand masterplan is – to eventually steal your girlfriend, your job and your life? More importantly you ask yourself whether you should still employ his services. You can’t fault that his cleaning is immaculate. He’s still begging you and he resorts to bended knees.

You contemplate and tell him all is forgiven but with a stern warning that such should not repeat itself. He is overjoyed. You’re feeling a bit better, though the mystery around his dodgy behaviour remains unexplained. You sit back and relax to resume binging on your favourite TV series. Hours after the cleaner finishes his job he bids you farewell and when he brings up the briefs issue you briefly tell him he can keep them. This puts a sheepish smile across his face which you choose to ignore. As you get back to your sofa you remember you haven’t tipped him and you call out from your window to the cleaner downstairs. You throw down the cash and as he bends over to pick it from the floor you see the outline of your once treasured Tommy Hilfiger briefs. You watch in horror as the lying thief walks off into the sunset with his newly acquired lucky charm.

A Brief Encounter

You’re up to your neck in what you’ve convinced yourself to be organized chaos but is in fact is an apartment that has suffered neglect. You blame this on your long office hours, late home arrivals and necessary cable TV binging. It’s not your fault that your bachelor pad looks like a pigsty – and that’s describing it lightly. The deadly combo of unwashed dishes, laundry heaps, Addams family-sized cobwebs and dust mites would drive any sane person to do what you should have done months ago – hire the services of a professional cleaner. Little do you know that you’re in for more than a clean sweep.

Your girlfriend recommends a young man in his twenties who’s got a couple of cleaning gigs up his belt. He’s like Rambo in this game, armed with every germ-killing, dirt scooping equipment. He knows his onions and he is going to make your onions cry. In next to no time you can see a remarkable transformation – your nostrils have been released from the captivity of stale leftovers. You’re now living la vida loca – well it’s more like lavendar loca the way the cleaner throws you into a sneeze fest on day one. After you reprimand him gently he moderates his commando urges and eases off the cleaning spray trigger. Your home is inviting and neither you nor your girlfriend has any complaints. If only you decided not to watch that disturbing clip caught on your spy camera two days later.

It would have been better if you caught him stealing one of your valuables. You could even stomach him bringing one of his girlfriends into your bed (and of course send him packing). But he was rummaging in a place he shouldn’t have been – your dirty laundry. You watch in horror as he sorts through your office shirts, gym shorts, socks and then picks up one of your boxers. He stares at them in awe like a map discovered by Indiana Jones. You notice you’re getting uneasy as you continue to watch then suddenly the video starts buffering – fucking internet! Why at this moment? You know you shouldn’t continue watching but you can’t help yourself.

You’re back online and you see him bury his face in that underwear. What’s worse is that you can see him taking a deep, long sniff. ‘What in Tommy Hilfiger briefs is going on here?’, you ask yourself. It doesn’t end there. He cuts to the bathroom with his new ‘face mask’ and your spy camera is out of focus. Fuck! Your mind is playing tricks on you. You’ve seen enough and need to address this clusterfuck. You contemplate calling your girlfriend who referred him but you can’t gather the words. How do you frame the accusation? What crime has been committed? You believe ‘invasion of privacy’ doesn’t do justice to the matter. You worry that this could somehow disrupt your relationship so maybe it’s best to handle this man to man.

(To be continued)

Dealing with critics at work

Source: McLeod & more

When you start your first work email with ‘Goof morning…’ you know it’s going to be one of those days. But it takes a conscious effort to have the right attitude. You may find yourself working at an establishment where some colleagues try to put you down, try to set you up to fail or criticize your work. You have a choice to let them defeat you or your can decide not to let them invade your positive mindset. But how do you do that?

I’ll tell you one thing – it’s not easy. You could try to ignore them. But that’s difficult if you have to work closely with them. While I’m a believer of choosing my battles, I also encourage people to be prepared with appropriate responses to criticism. You see, keeping quiet is not a solution because it welcomes further criticism. Aggressive retort could also have bigger consequences that may result in intervention by your human resources department. You want to exhibit the right attitude not the fight attitude. There are responses that are well seasoned and would let the critics reevaluate their tactics.

You want to exhibit the right attitude not the fight attitude.

Your responses should never be personal or emotional. Keep it professional and relevant to the job. If the criticism you receive is not based on your job but your character, take a step back to reflect. Get the opinion of a trusted colleague or have a one-to-one with your line manager. If you need an attitude change then it’s better you know early enough. If your critics have overstepped their boundaries then by all means get your line manager involved and he/she may decide to take it up with the critcs’ line managers.

Another good approach is to let your work speak for itself. I like to document my activities so that it serves as an easy reference point. You never know when that work will come to your defence and vindicate you. Remember that no man is an island. Always seek opinions of others. Surround yourself with positive people both inside and outside your workplace. Try to emulate the qualities of positive people you see day-to-day. They attract good things. You can be like them too. Carrying old baggage or a chip on your shoulder is not a good way to start a new day that comes with opportunities.

I mentioned earlier that not letting people invade your positive mindset isn’t easy (if only we had a delete button to handle them, right? Ok maybe just a backspace button then). But if we make that choice to have the right attitude, a positive one, then that’s half the button…I mean battle won. I personally ask God to guide my steps and fight my battles for me. With a habit of meditation and prayer you would gradually get the divine direction you need to face life’s critics and challenges.

It won’t all happen overnight. It takes time but the first step takes seconds – make that choice. And so what if the first email you start the following day with goes ‘God morning…’ – at least this time you’re off on the right track ?

Seven degrees of separation

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Seven degrees of separation

This post is a self-challenge to combine seven random post titles of other blogs I follow into my post and create a random story. Consequently this post links to other bloggers and is an attempt at closing the separation gap. Enjoy my seven degrees of separation.

When you have a week half as busy as mine, you start thinking of what you can do to unwind. But there is always my trusty liquour cabinet; to be honest there’s no cabinet. I do have a decent collection including whimsical whisky, vociferous vodka and randy rum. They all sit on top of an upper kitchen cabinet just barely within my 6 foot reach. That’s because I was dealing with enough work thoughts clustering my mind. So coping with the brain fog that comes with a certain degree of alcohol consumption wasn’t exciting. Slouched in my comfy rocking chair, in my soporific state I began Continue reading

My birthday weekend

My wife made my birthday special with a collection of thoughtful gifts - I swear it was Christmas

This Hennessy bottle’s journey

My life is extraordinary. Not because I think so. What reminds me of that every time is my glossy glass uniform. My initials ‘X.O’ are in gold inscription. My makers say I’m ‘Extra Old’ but I know I’m also ‘Xtra-Ordinary’. Others associate me with the hug and kiss reserved for the elites who appreciate my uniqueness. The mere middleclass cannot comprehend my worth. You dare not spill me. I can pay the salaries of peasants a hundred fold. You may call it arrogance but Continue reading

I’ll let you in on a secret

Sometimes I wonder what good is a secret if you can’t tell anyone about it? If you’re the custodian of the secret it is tempting to evaluate if you should be divulging information. Valid reasons include to protect an individual, to prevent financial ruin, to maintain status quo, to save lives, etc. Personally, some close contacts have been entrusting me with a good number of secrets (though I’m not yet bursting at the seams). On one hand the sharer of a secret has eased his/her mental burden by telling me about it. On the other, I have now become entrusted with information that suddenly weighs on my mind. While I don’t plan to leak other people’s secrets in this post I do wish to share mine. Continue reading

Facebook, Instagram & WhatsApp are down

I can bet that in the last 3 hours this has been the most popular topic trending the globe. At about 4.22pm today GMT+1 I noticed that my WhatsApp messages were sent but not getting delivered. Like any normal person I thought it might have been that my mobile data had expired or that my home wifi needed a reboot. But I later discovered I wasn’t the only one experiencing connectivity issues. My friend whom I called experienced the same problem on his WhatsApp. I went to Instagram and it was not loading. That’s when I went online and got a better glimpse of the scale of the problem:

Source: downdetector.com

Since Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram were all down I decided to find out what was happening in the news:

Source: CNN

And next I was curious to find out what was trending on Twitter in Nigeria and of course I wasn’t surprised:

Source: twitter.com

Whilst I’m sure that this issue will be resolved (eventually) it does make you wonder what effect this downtime is having on people and businesses. WhatsApp has assured subscribers that the issue is being worked on:

I can imagine people being forced to use other alternatives to chat in the interim; SMS, RCS, MS Teams, etc. My heart goes out to everyone celebrating birthdays today who were looking forward to getting likes, comments and messages. For others, this downtime might mean a chance to finally get up to stretch the legs and go for that long-suppressed wee.

Hopefully this incident will remind us of how dependent we’ve become on technology and for us to ALWAYS have alternatives to EVERYTHING in life so you’re not caught unawares or left in the dark.

Do let me know what your experience has been today not having access to Facebook, Instagram or WhatsApp for a number of hours? I would love to hear from you 🙂

V is for Vaccine

Image credit: syfy.com

I’ve gone from Covid-19 pandemic to Lockdown to Remote working and I’m wondering how long I will continue to endure this ‘covi-cation’. I’m already accepting the fact that I’ll have to have more virtual meetings, Collabos on Microsoft Teams and video calls for that human touch. I’m not quite ready to meet different people frequently face-to-face. I’m also not quite ready to face taking the vaccine.

From the moment I learnt that a shipment of the AstraZeneca vaccine had arrived in Nigeria I was about as excited as an ex-convict opening his thirteenth letter thanking him for his interest in the job role applied for. Of course what follows includes words like ‘Unfortunately’, ‘better suited’ and ‘wish you the best’.

First of all I have little faith in the capacity of my government to store the vaccine at the prescribed temperature as “Any temperature-controlled drug product that is out of its required temperature will lose its benefits eventually. I pay my taxes and my power bills on time yet I do not have constant power supply. Why should i believe that there is a mega coldroom facility for these vaccines that is powered up 24/7?

Secondly I keep hearing that even after taking the vaccine one can still get the coronavirus. So you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t. Why then hurry to line up or register for what would not protect me? After all people have gotten better after treatment before the vaccine was ready.

My third concern is that this vaccine is one of two doses required for effectiveness. A study suggested that a 12-week interval would make the second dose more effective. That implies that I’d better set a reminder in my calendar and hope that when the due date is upon me I still have access to the vaccine in it’s supposed 2°C to 8°C state.

What’s the Verdict? Am I voraciously vetting the viability of the vaccine before it’s voyage into my veins? Or am I vying for your vote to validate the ‘vector’ that’s once ventured into vile vermin and vulnerable volunteers? Either way I’m vividly venting with my virtual voice.

The #EndSARS Phenomenon

The last couple of days have been anything but the ‘new normal’ that the Corona pandemic forced us to get accustomed to in Nigeria. We are currently in Day 12 of the #EndSARS protests which was triggered on October 6, 2020 after a civilian was shot and killed by a member of the Special Anit-Roberry Squad (SARS), among other known atrocities committed hitherto (Source: The African Report). The youths of Nigeria have had enough of the police brutality, extortion, abduction and molestation over the years. Promises from the Federal government for a police reform are seemingly no different from those made within the last decade. As at today the demands below have not been fully met:

Source: Cofinance.com

However there has been a recent update to this agenda which captures the 5-point agenda collectively as one point and goes on to list six others in detail, making it the 7-point agenda.

We are living in unusual times where the youths have had enough of the promises and lack of action by the government parastatals. As far as they are concerned there is no accountable leader running the affairs of Nigeria.

“I bet the government is wishing that the Big Brother Naija Lockdown show was still running at this time to serve as a perfect distraction.”

Ironically, the #EndSARS movement is deliberately without a leader which makes it difficult for the Federal Government to target focus on and ‘deal’ with. I bet the government is wishing that the Big Brother Naija show was still running at this time to serve as a distraction. The youths have been articulate with their demands on behalf of the nation. We await a worthy response from the opposition as we usher in a new Nigeria and possibly birth a new Independence Day.

The prayer is that the fallen angels we lost will not have died in vain…

Source: @NigeriaStories via Twitter

A special thank you to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey for his support 🙂

This coordination and aid disbursement around the peaceful protests would not have been possible without the help of the devoted Feminist Coalition. Thank you!

The saga continues…