I was tidying up my desk on this beautiful Tuesday evening, I was going to hang around
a bit before heading home, maybe try a new restaurant, I just got paid, I’m
allowed a self treat. My office had become a comic center, my "yeye' 'I know it all colleague'' had just been shamed by our new intern. I know right... 'An intern' was all he needed to be shamed kai...Gbenga made life a living hell for us all, he knew it all, every other person's idea was crap and because he was one of the landlords of our office, we all had to tolerate him and smile like he had the most brilliant ideas when infact all he does is tweak our ideas and present them to the board as his, and most times the ideas he presents are tweak free but the credit still goes only to him.
We came up with a plan to deal with him, it was simple, we just stopped giving him ideas, the sad part is, we had already produced ideas that would last twenty-five weeks, we were all counting down to his 'big shame day'. Every time he asked us for our new ideas, we just kept beating around the bush. I had learnt the hard way, the crazy and malicious competition that goes on in Gidi offices. One minute you are playing with your colleague the next minute he/she is reporting you to an official that can get you fired. I sincerely couldnt deal, I'm all for the healthy competition that propels you to be a better version of you but this scheming and hate was definitely beyond me. It felt like we were all competing for the non-existent staff of the year award and the fact that they all acted like BFFs just made me cringe.
The intern was our life saver, God bless outspoken rich kids, we were having our board meeting, remember I said we all agreed that no ideas till we embarrass Gbenga, little did I know I was probably just an over obedient child, even before the CEO asked for ideas, my so called BFFs started this crazy rant, that sounded like gibberish to me, I simply just zoned out and took a trip to fantasy, when I suddenly heard, FUCKING CRAP!!!!!!!! even my CEO was tongue tied, by the time the intern started with his idea, I was thrilled as God would have it, I had thought about something similar so I helped embellish his idea and YES!! we got the accolade they were about to kill for. My shoulders became balanced and I walked around with the "I am the boss'' attitude and ofcourse the BFFs were raving jealous they had no clue, I could be a super bitch. Gbenga was in his most sober mood, I suddenly became his consultant in the coming weeks, he sought my opinion on e-ve-ryt-hing and I smiled at him scornfully.
My house-mate buzzed me, in falsetto style , she literally ordered me to run home, she had a huge jaw dropping surprise for me. So I jumped on a bike to beat traffic, nothing ever excited Tinuke, she’s too much of a cynicist, I nick-named her kill-joy, whatever it is must be the surprise of the year. I landed In my house and the surprise greeted me, our friend who had been touring Europe with her boo had landed with many goodies, I hugged her heartily, she slowly showed me her new bling, Femi had proposed and three of us were screaming and yelling at the top of our voices. We began planning immediately, picked colours and found our way to the aso-ebi Bella page, we chose our bridal train outfit, then the who would be your chief bridesmaid question popped up, Simi was at a crossroad……….
I couldn’t sleep that night, I wondered how and when I lost my moral compass, first it was joining the unhealthy competition gang at the office, I used to be a super blunt person, I naturally would have just stood out but I joined, I condemned others for doing the same thing I had become a master in, I had changed even without me knowing, my personal credo did not even count and somehow I had learnt to silence my conscience. I was scared for me, I was scared that soon I might be on the way to doom Island and the society would cheer me even Tinuke ‘the social media activist’ always calling people out and condemning them for one morally wrong thing or the other was on the ‘Femi’ train, she even tweeted it. I wondered if she too, was having a hard time sleeping or maybe I missed ‘my twenty-first century wokeness’ pill today and that’s the reason why my moral compass made an appearance because even my laptop was a gift from a friend whose fraudulent online scam is not hidden from me.
I knew Simi’s relationship with Femi was wrong and suddenly the trip to Europe and the bling, made it right. How would I feel, if I was in his wife’s shoe, but I guess it’s fine because I am not in it. My friend had hopelessly fallen in love with persistence Femi after her boyfriend had dealt with her terribly, we had eaten free meals and gotten free stuff from Femi as friends of the girl friend. We even had her call him to take us out on our lazy days and never did it occur to me that I was on the part way of destroying a home. I once learnt that a winking tolerance in unethical behaviour makes you as guilty as the offender, It’s crazy how the society encourages you to do wrong and still condemns you for the same act, maybe if we all decide not to attend the wedding we would help save the poor woman’s marriage, just maybe if we learn to call a spade a spade we would help make the world a better place.
INSTAGRAM HANDLE:
