Job Chronicles 2

Months before I got an Industrial Training 
(IT) placement and started working, an 
older cousin of mine who also studied 
Engineering at Unilag and did his IT 
had advised me on how to conduct myself 
at work. 
But you know you only hear what you 
want to hear and the only advice that 
stuck with me amidst all he said was; 
“don’t start what you don’t intend to finish. 
If you know you don’t plan to buy amala 
throughout your time working there, 
you should politely say “I am sorry 
I can’t – it’s not in my job description” 
whenever you are sent on personal 
errands.” 
Me: say no more. 
I was neither going to buy amala nor go 
on any personal errand for anyone 
throughout my stay at S Ltd and I 
resumed work with a chip on my shoulder. 
There were 5 of us in my unit’s Lagos’ team 
– 2 guys who worked primarily on-site, 
myself and another IT student, A, and 
the manager and assistant manager 
who worked in the office and are both 
Bolivians. 
A and I were the first IT students to ever 
work in the unit hence there wasn’t a 
laid down program on how we were 
supposed to work.
A and I were assigned to work with the 
2 Nigerian guys who worked on the field. 
One of them, M, wanted to be proving 
Lord of the rings over me and one day 
after close of work, he asked me to 
carry his laptop downstairs. 
But I had my answer ready and told him; 
“I am sorry but it’s not in my job description.” 
He did this a few times and I always 
gave him the same answer. 
He’d exclaim and go on about all the things 
he had to do during his own IT but I 
was not moved especially since my
 manager did not send people on 
personal errands so he couldn’t report 
me to him. 
We didn’t have a dress code in Engineering 
and everyone wore whatever they liked 
to work. 
I sometimes wore flat sandals and 
slippers to work and one guy in HR used 
to harass me and tell me slippers weren’t 
allowed at work. 
I reported him to my teammates and 
was told to inform him whenever he 
complained about my footwear that 
we did not have a dress code in Engineering. 
The next time he accosted me, I gleefully 
told him that my Engineering teammates 
said it was ok for me to wear slippers 
to work because we did not have a 
dress code. 
He did not take it well.
The other guy, L, is one of the most 
hardworking and quietly intelligent people 
I have ever come across. 
He had a personal policy to always 
finish whatever work he started no 
matter how late it got except he 
needed help from someone else in 
the office or another site and the 
person wasn’t available. 
On a few occasions, he fueled the 
trucks used to drive us to site with 
his own money because the company 
always delayed in disbursing the 
money to fuel the trucks and he liked 
to leave early to work on the sites 
before traffic started. 
He was also very generous and as 
little as his salary was (it was public 
knowledge), he always paid for the 
food of anyone who ate with him at 
the canteen even his superiors. 
Anyway, because I really wanted to 
learn, I attached myself to him and
 started going to sites with him instead 
of Mr carry my laptop. 
He answered most of the questions I 
had and guided me to figure out the 
answers to the rest. 
He also gave me useful, reading materials 
that helped me understand the theories 
and founding principles behind our work.
The Nigerians in Engineering were paid 
very poorly compared to the foreigners 
some of whom weren’t as qualified and 
some of them retaliated by talking trash 
about their bosses and management and 
not going the extra mile in their work. 
If a site went down around 4 pm, some 
of the Engineers would say the company 
did not belong to their fathers and 
would go home and fix the issues on-site 
the following day. 
But L never joined them in speaking ill of 
those at the top and always went the 
extra mile at his job because hard work 
and productivity were some of his 
core values. 
I remember one evening when he told 
our manager that he wanted to take a 
sick leave the following day and the 
manager told him to take as many days 
as he wanted because that was the 
first time he’d ask for sick leave unlike 
the other staff. 
I learned A LOT from L and I always 
knew he’d go places.
The assistant manager, H, had a poor 
command of English (English is not the 
national language in Bolivia) a short 
while after I resumed, whenever he 
wanted to send an email or write a 
document, he’d ask me to review it 
for him and correct his mistakes 
before sending it out. 
As a result of this, he taught me how 
to use the planning tool which only 
himself and the other Bolivian Manager 
had access to and could use. 
At some point, I got drafted to go 
for site surveys for like a month but it 
was the most boring work I did during 
my time there. 
A lot of expansion was being done while 
I was there and this involved setting up 
new cell sites. 
I and representatives from other units 
would go and survey various sites along 
with different real estate agents and 
my job was to ensure there was a line
 of sight between the proposed site and 
the existing site it was supposed to 
connect to. 
The site that best suited our purposes 
would then be selected and the estate 
agent showing the site would get his 
cut when a contract was entered 
into with the site owner. 
Some of the estate agents always 
tried to butter up the Engineers so 
that they could choose their sites 
and sometimes treated them to 
small gifts.
One time, I missed work and the 
following day I was given some 
money and told it was my share of 
the money given by the estate agent 
that took us to view a site the 
previous day. 
I asked if it was ethical to take the 
money and was told it was so I 
pocketed the money and used it to 
buy food because a laborer deserves 
his wage. 
The funniest thing that happened 
during my time at S Ltd. Was that a 
lot of the staff were involved in 
pyramid aka Ponzi schemes. 
One of the few Nigerians leading an 
Engineering team had participated in 
some of those schemes when they 
first started in Ibadan and had 
gotten a lot of the other junior staff 
including my teammates to come 
under his pyramid so he’d made a 
lot of money. 
Because of this, a lot of the Nigerian 
staff including drivers who weren’t 
earning much had participated in 
some of the schemes with the hope 
that they too would blow like the 
team lead. 
A lot of mornings started with them 
looking at their pyramid and calculating 
how much they had made.
 I can still remember the names of 
3 of the Ponzi schemes, Nospecto, 
wealth solution, and penny wise. 
I never participated because I was 
aware of Ponzi schemes at the time 
and I wasn’t willing to lose even N5 
out of my meager savings. 
That’s how the contact who worked in 
Ibadan and helped to set up the 
schemes for the staff back in Lagos 
suddenly stopped picking people’s calls 
because the schemes had crashed 
and their monies had gone with it. 
You’d see the drivers and some other 
staff complaining to the team lead and 
cursing G in Yoruba with “ko ni da fun G” 
and many other heavy curses. 
As much as I felt bad for them, I was 
also surprised at their Naivety.
 Anyway, after my 6 months was up, I 
had 2 months before school resumed 
but I didn’t want to keep working in 
the transmission unit so I spoke to 
the manager of the unit 
I Was told they didn’t accept IT 
students and he admitted me into 
his team for those remaining 2 months.
My manager told me I could return to 
S Ltd for my NYSC but I wasn’t interested. 
An Arab company was coming to set 
up a telco in Nigeria and that was 
where I planned to do my NYSC because 
we all heard they paid well and money 
was the number one factor driving 
my choice of an NYSC job. 
My NYSC posting to Lagos did not 
work out as I expected and I ended 
up going to Adamawa for camp. I had a 
miserable time there except the few 
times I left camp to chill with my family 
friend at Atiku American University. 
I returned to Lagos for a month after 
camp, went back to Adamawa for 2 weeks, 
and returned to Lagos when my 
re-deployment worked out. 
My uncle’s connect to the Arab Telco and 
everywhere you go network didn’t work out. 
One of my family friend’s got me posted 
to an IT firm that only paid N20000/month 
but I wasn’t interested – I was looking 
for N50k/month NYSC posting. 
I tried several better-paying companies 
but none of them worked out.
2 months after I got the 20k IT job, I 
ended up taking it and resuming there. 
My team was headed by an older 
Yoruba man, Mr. A and we didn’t have 
any substantial project to work on 
while I was there. Because I didn’t 
want to be there and didn’t care to 
be retained, I didn’t even bother 
forming enthusiasm at working. 
If I was given work to do which 
rarely happened, I’d do it but I spent 
most of my time studying for my GRE. 
One particular guy in my team kept 
trying to dissuade me from going for 
my masters and taking Cisco certifications 
instead but I always rebuked the satan 
in him in my head.
Anyway, our Yoruba boss liked to 
send the NYSC students on personal 
errands and I knew one day it’d be 
my turn so I was just waiting in anticipation. 
One day, he asked me to go pay some 
money in the bank for him and I politely 
told him I did not want to go as it wasn’t 
part of my job description. 
He kept begging me in Yoruba and I kept 
refusing until I finally agreed but I had 
my own hidden agenda. 
I took the money and first went to lunch, 
then I paid the money in the bank and 
then I went to my friend’s office where 
I gisted and played for 2 hours after 
which I returned to the office. 
As expected, my boss was furious at 
me and kept screaming at me for 
staying away for 2 whole hours. 
I calmly responded to his fury by 
reminding him that I told him over 
and over that, I did not want to go on 
the errand but he kept insisting until 
he wore me down and I just decided 
to pursue my agenda after running 
his errand. 
My office was one large room where 
most of the staff worked so everyone 
in the room witnessed this confrontation 
between my boss and I. 
Needless to say I wasn’t retained and 
I did not feel bad.
 

Firecracker Toyeen
Instagram: @firecracker_toyeen
Blog: www.fire-cracker toyeen.com
Twitter: @firecrackertoyn