I'm at work and I'm tired and it's not yet midday. I feel achy, fluey and sore throat-ish. It is also doesn't help that all my potential clients that promised, yes promised me that I would have my cheques by the end of the month are now not living up to the promise.
I'm burnt out and it's still only July, it's like February is ages away. One of the the other youth corpers in my office (there are five of us) came in this morning and made a whispery confession to me that she is counting down to Feb in her head and I'm like "what? you only just started counting??? Huh I've been counting down since June!!!".
I can't stand the fact that for the month of July I haven't brought in any clients. It's so disturbing, I didn't think it would be like this , that I would even be bothered but I'm sooooooo bothered, cos I'm sure that at one point our MD will catch me in the corridor and say "so how much naira have you brought in today??"" AArrrrrggghhhh I hate the finance sector.
Let me start from the beginning, it's all NYSC fault, my fault and a bit of my Dad too. I didn't want to come back to Nigeria at the beginning of the year because I felt that for once things were starting to settle with me or that at the very least I was getting pay back for all my slogging during my Masters. I had graduated with a great result, I was getting interviews and was hopeful, I was seeing ex-hottie (it soooo wasn't Romeo and Juliet but he was cool) and i felt that good things were coming . Then my Mum and my Dad are like come home and come home now!!! I had had a huge one year battle with my Dad the year before about me going to Law School and I just didn't have the strength to fight anymore, I also felt that there might be an opportunity in Nigeria waiting for me so I gave in very ungraciously (I was hurting before I came back).
So here I was in Nigeria in January and I start doing my research for NYSC, then my cousin gives me the information that your job assignment will be done according to your first degree!!!!
THAT IS NOT GOOD, my first degree was Law (as a back up) and then I did my Masters in Public Relations and Public Communication ( job offers anyone?) which is where I was working and what I loved doing , the thought of being posted to a law chambers or something was quite horrifying .
The worst thing of coming back to Naija after a while as an adult is the complete cluelessness. The not knowing nothing about nothing... that's how i felt. I was told that with some cash you can alter your posting as long as I could get some company or agency with PR related jobs to give me an offer letter . My Dad was like he would sort it and that he can handle it and he is in control. Oh dear!!My Dad is a very busy man, he is on the go from sun up to sun down and I know he doesn't mean to but his very nearest and dearest can end up being the bottom of the pile.
I ask around but it's not working, I could have asked some of my Mum's siblings (very cool aunty's and uncles) but I had already declared that Dad was on it and I suddenly felt that by asking I would be unloyal, which is just nuts. The thing is I seriously wanted to believe that my Dad could do this for me. In one of our worst arguments he accused me of not trusting in his ability to help me in Nigeria and i wanted this to prove that I was trying at the very least.
He did come through in the end but by the it was too late. I had been posted to an investment house that also does trust funds and asset management. I could have applied for a re-posting but I was a witness to the stress my fellow corpers were going through as they were tangled in the web of red tape and general Nigerian ineptitude and I so couldn't be bothered.
What made me feel better was that I was told that even though I was working in Trust Services (cos of my law degree init) they wanted to raise awareness of Trust Funds through seminars, literature and well placed articles!!! Fantastic that's PR in a nutshell isn't it ??? Well that didn't turn out to be particularly true.
Yes I have written copy for our new financial products and done some work on the company brochure but instead what they have me doing is personal marketing, trying to accumulate clients and convince people that opening a trust fund for little Maggie is the best thing they can do as a parent, NOT A SEMINAR IN SIGHT.
SO back to today, I work with lovely people, but I'm not motivated, I'm not inspired and I think I'm coming down with the flu. I do have a partner in crime but she was engaged and planned a far away wedding only to wake up pregnant a month later so she put together a marriage in a month and has been seriously distracted and pulling sickies left, right and centre. If it's not her family giving her stress, it's morning sickness and planning the budget for the two separate wedding ceremonies (that's right, traditional and white).
I'm seriously low cos one big client is now unreachable by phone and I can't be bothered to write the company's bloody mission statement. I just want to go home and cry and drink Lemsip. I need a client before the month is done , I also want to run away to a luxury resort in Antigua or Mauritius, I'm not picky.
I'm burnt out and it's still only July, it's like February is ages away. One of the the other youth corpers in my office (there are five of us) came in this morning and made a whispery confession to me that she is counting down to Feb in her head and I'm like "what? you only just started counting??? Huh I've been counting down since June!!!".
I can't stand the fact that for the month of July I haven't brought in any clients. It's so disturbing, I didn't think it would be like this , that I would even be bothered but I'm sooooooo bothered, cos I'm sure that at one point our MD will catch me in the corridor and say "so how much naira have you brought in today??"" AArrrrrggghhhh I hate the finance sector.
Let me start from the beginning, it's all NYSC fault, my fault and a bit of my Dad too. I didn't want to come back to Nigeria at the beginning of the year because I felt that for once things were starting to settle with me or that at the very least I was getting pay back for all my slogging during my Masters. I had graduated with a great result, I was getting interviews and was hopeful, I was seeing ex-hottie (it soooo wasn't Romeo and Juliet but he was cool) and i felt that good things were coming . Then my Mum and my Dad are like come home and come home now!!! I had had a huge one year battle with my Dad the year before about me going to Law School and I just didn't have the strength to fight anymore, I also felt that there might be an opportunity in Nigeria waiting for me so I gave in very ungraciously (I was hurting before I came back).
So here I was in Nigeria in January and I start doing my research for NYSC, then my cousin gives me the information that your job assignment will be done according to your first degree!!!!
THAT IS NOT GOOD, my first degree was Law (as a back up) and then I did my Masters in Public Relations and Public Communication ( job offers anyone?) which is where I was working and what I loved doing , the thought of being posted to a law chambers or something was quite horrifying .
The worst thing of coming back to Naija after a while as an adult is the complete cluelessness. The not knowing nothing about nothing... that's how i felt. I was told that with some cash you can alter your posting as long as I could get some company or agency with PR related jobs to give me an offer letter . My Dad was like he would sort it and that he can handle it and he is in control. Oh dear!!My Dad is a very busy man, he is on the go from sun up to sun down and I know he doesn't mean to but his very nearest and dearest can end up being the bottom of the pile.
I ask around but it's not working, I could have asked some of my Mum's siblings (very cool aunty's and uncles) but I had already declared that Dad was on it and I suddenly felt that by asking I would be unloyal, which is just nuts. The thing is I seriously wanted to believe that my Dad could do this for me. In one of our worst arguments he accused me of not trusting in his ability to help me in Nigeria and i wanted this to prove that I was trying at the very least.
He did come through in the end but by the it was too late. I had been posted to an investment house that also does trust funds and asset management. I could have applied for a re-posting but I was a witness to the stress my fellow corpers were going through as they were tangled in the web of red tape and general Nigerian ineptitude and I so couldn't be bothered.
What made me feel better was that I was told that even though I was working in Trust Services (cos of my law degree init) they wanted to raise awareness of Trust Funds through seminars, literature and well placed articles!!! Fantastic that's PR in a nutshell isn't it ??? Well that didn't turn out to be particularly true.
Yes I have written copy for our new financial products and done some work on the company brochure but instead what they have me doing is personal marketing, trying to accumulate clients and convince people that opening a trust fund for little Maggie is the best thing they can do as a parent, NOT A SEMINAR IN SIGHT.
SO back to today, I work with lovely people, but I'm not motivated, I'm not inspired and I think I'm coming down with the flu. I do have a partner in crime but she was engaged and planned a far away wedding only to wake up pregnant a month later so she put together a marriage in a month and has been seriously distracted and pulling sickies left, right and centre. If it's not her family giving her stress, it's morning sickness and planning the budget for the two separate wedding ceremonies (that's right, traditional and white).
I'm seriously low cos one big client is now unreachable by phone and I can't be bothered to write the company's bloody mission statement. I just want to go home and cry and drink Lemsip. I need a client before the month is done , I also want to run away to a luxury resort in Antigua or Mauritius, I'm not picky.
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