Sometimes getting the proper introduction to an essay is the reason why
you delay and dawdle for ever and never write it. At least the reason
why I
dawdle. Anyway, I decided that if I were to attempt to even fill in the
gaps about where I have been and what has happened since then I will
just be wasting valuable time I can use on dwelling on the present. SO
that is that for the opening.
I received an email on Friday last week from one of my bosses. Now, even though I was copied into the email, it was not directed at me. It was directed at my subordinate and it referred to and carried a previously discussed, restructured organogram. In this new structure the aforesaid subordinate had been pulled up to my level, and as a result would not report to me anymore, and she had a number of people under her, who were under me before and a whole new title. I was surprised. The very idea that the email had been sent to her was an indication that whatever changes were being announced in the email had already been made- at least in the eyes of the sender. That notwithstanding, we were told - or rather, she was told- that we should discuss the new structure and agree on it so it could be implemented into policy. Have I already said I was shocked? I called my office Business Controller, who doubles as our accountant, and my sometimes confidant in the office. Apparently, the email had not been sent to her, but she began to make sense of a few strange instructions she had been given, One of such instructions was that she had till the end of that day to make the subordinate in question a signatory to the account - her credit limit I do not know. Also, the same boss had told her to hurry up and get more chairs for the office as that subordinate would have to move upstairs as she could not continue sitting with us downstairs. I then called the subordinate and asked her what it was all about, she said she was in the office with both my bosses when one of them said she should write an organogram and the other said he would do it, hence the email. (Of course that could not have been the whole story.)
For the umpteenth time I became really frustrated with this job and with the whole stupid situation; it was only because I spoke with my mum and a dear uncle of mine that I did not hand in my resignation that day.Yes, the lady in question is waaaay below me in both experience, education and even age. Heck! This is her first job, while this is my 12th year of working! Yes, decisions like a change in organizational structure and reporting lines should be discussed with the General Manager (me) before it is passed down to staff. No, this will not be the first time this sort of thing is happening. But to understand why exactly I am frustrated you must hear the story from the beginning.
I began this job sometime in May last year - May 2nd to be precise- with good intentions. It was after a long stretch of unemployment, exaggerated by single parenthood, and I was quite happy to have something worthwhile to do. At that time I was living in Benin and I was promised a house, a car and driver, 10% commission on anything I brought in and some percentage of shares. Because of this, I accepted the salary I was offered - 250k - even though I knew General Managers in most places earned at least the perks, I felt, made it worth it. I should have sensed with all the dilly-dallying that delayed my arrival, that something was not quite right. But I did not. And even if I did I would not have taken it as anything because I wanted-needed- a job. So when upon my arrival my boss - let's call him Martin for these purposes- asked me if I would stay in the BQ attached to the office , and if I would allow his brother stay with me , I still did not detect anything strange. To cut a long story short, I slept on a mattress laid on the bare floor, in a room in the office for 8 months!
I actually received my rent money in October, 2012, after a long but unnecessary argument with the bosses. They called me into their office and proceeded to tell me how they had a policy of giving a specific amount as rent money. This policy, by the way, only began at that moment. They then denied ever promising me a car, 10% commission or even equity. Infact, on the matter of equity, when I mentioned it, they guffawed and said I had to be here for 30 months and show signs -known to them- of contributions to the team before the issue of equity will even be discussed. So, at the end of the day, I had only my minimal salary and the now well-pared-down rent to hold on to. What could I do, I needed a job. I noticed once my boss gave me rent money he increased my workload substantially and began to speak very rudely to me, all the time asking what I was still doing in the office space. (Due to work and a lack of time, it actually took me 2 months to find a place and desperation drove me to a place that I ordinarily would not be able to stay in. If you live in Lagos then you will understand when I complain about living in Oregun but working in Lekki. I spend a minimum of N6000 (six thousand naira) a day to go to work, in a month that becomes 120 000, which when taken from my salary of 250000 a month, leaves me very broke. But I digress.)
In November, my job description and contract - none of which I have ever received to date - changed significantly. My other boss, Pat for this purpose, decided to award contracts from the multinational he works in to his own personal company. To this end, I was informed that I would front as the owner of the company and execute the jobs. And that that was part of my job.So that began a long and tedious road of providing marketing solutions ( radio ads, online viral ads, branded t shirts,branded mugs) for a company along with my day job . I was the accountant, the creative director, scriptwriter, producer, printer, business manager and everything of the company. From Lekki, I would go- always in a cab- into the heart of Balogun to buy 10000 mugs, or 600 t shirts, source a printer in Shomolu and convey them there. ALL FOR FREE. I did EVERYTHING on that job, the only thing I didn't do was sign cheques. If the only issue I had was that I was overworked it would not have been a problem. But there was disrespect and there were insults too.
Late November, towards December, Pat was travelling for his week with his family in Abuja as he usually does, we had a series of online viral commercials to shoot, after his usual slashing of the production fee and the cost price of the suppliers we had agreed on a cost for production. He then gave me a few signed cheques so I could dispense the money out. The money to be dispensed came to about 5 million naira. I dispensed the money and we shot, and began editing. I was spending all days at the edit suite in Ikeja. At the same time, Martin also was out of town, and our accountant was in her hometown preparing to be married. I had just been made a signatory to one of the company's accounts but my mandate was not close enough to pay salaries. What I did, therefore when the end of the month came was that I used my rent money to pay salaries for all the staff excluding Martin, Paul and myself. The problem came when my boss asked me to give money to the staff who wanted to travel for the accountant's wedding. I reminded him that there was no money. His immediately retorted ' You were paid today! Give them your salary, it will be returned to you.' I told him again that I had no money but that even if I had my salary it was my personal money and I had needs and responsibilities. He went beserk! Asking me what rubbish I was talking, how can I tell my boss that it is my money, etc. All this on bbm. When he returned from his journey he sent the cleaner to call me from my (then) room in the office and proceeded to scream, insult and berate me for the crime of calling my salary 'my money'. He reminded me that he was the MD of the company just in case I forgot that.
A week or so later, in trying to supply the mugs I took the office cleaner with me, in the process of supplying he spent all the money I had given him, claiming he gave it to the driver of the bus conveying the mugs, but it was in excess of the amount needed for the bus. When I confronted him with that he became very rude and ordered that I come over there and give him some more money. When he repeatedly called my phone and kept screaming at me, I informed him he was fired and that he should go to the office and pack his things. Anyway, Martin had obviously heard his story the next day when he came to work and he immediately ordered the accountant/office admin lady to print out the HR policy on termination of employment and hand it to me. Then, probably changing his mind he called me to hear my side of the story and then informed me that he did not think I had any right to fire the guy since he was not working as a cleaner but helping me out in my job.He asked me to call the guy back and when I did he was rude to me again. AT this point, to my surprise, Martin called I and the cleaner before him to begin to 'testify' on what happened! Long story short, he told the cleaner to go back to work.
Pat's own madness also began when he came back to Lagos. I had gone to his office shortly after the shouting incident over my salary. He complimented my glasses - fake ray bans which cost me all of 6500 naira - and took the dvd of the edited OVC from me. I showed him some slips which were transportation costs I had incurred over the course of the jobs we were executing.( I have no car so I had to take cabs everywhere, most times for up to 14 hours.) The total cost was 68000 naira. After meeting with him I went to the bank to cash a cheque for the amount. The nest thing I know, about an hour later, I received an angry email from him saying I should explain this! 'This!' was the routine email from the bank which informs you of a transaction. I explained to him that it was the slips I had shown him. he demanded that I update the project spreadsheet and send to him immediately. I felt like a thief, and for doing nothing wrong. I sent the updated sheet to him and at the close of work, retired to my room, only for him to come banging on my door at about 7.30pm complaining about the spreadsheet. Truth be told, he thought I was stealing his money, and he told me my spreadsheet was incoherent and unclear. I noticed, as he ran me through the spreadsheet pattern he was following, that he would put a sample comment in the comment section, and that comment was always an insult; ' you are an asshole' was one I remember clearly. I found it amusing then, but not anymore now. But when he had checked and realised that every expenditure was accounted for, he calmed down and started saying maybe he had higher profit expectations than were realistic- moe to himself than to me. That incident taught me never to spend any penny of mine on his tasks even if it delayed the execution because getting it back would be like pulling teeth.
As if that was not enough, Martin was giving out end-of-year bonuses and he just gave them out randomly based on personal biases. I and his brother , who is/was the laziest in the company got the equivalent of 40 percent of our salaries! The closest percentage to us after that was 85 percent. To this day, I have no idea how those bonuses were awarded; especially as I brought in most of it.
But the last straw happened recently when Martin randomly increased the salaries of most people in the office. Well, everyone but me, that is. He had employed someone over the holidays and apparently in his negotiation with her, she had asked for a higher salary than her immediate supervisor and got it. (He obviously though highly of her up to the extent that she would report people in the office to him and he would summon and query them- myself inclusive, and in her presence. I had googled her, though and found that she was not who she said she was, but that is a story for another day.) When the time came to pay salaries, the accountant wanted to know what her salary was; he dilly-dallied and finally ended at increasing the supervisor's salary, the accountant's and his brother's. When I queried the accountant on why their salaries were higher, via email, he said it was based on assessment and that mine was incomplete but when it was done I would be given an increase in salary. There has never been any assessment done in my office save for staff skill evaluation which I hurriedly had to do at the end of last year. That did not contain any points or marks scheme as no targets were set for that at the beginning of the year. A company that has no job description or contract for staff that has worked for up to or more than a year will certainly have no basis for appraisals. But that's Martin's story and he is sticking to it.
This holiday I am assessing my position in that company. I have nowhere to move but down. I will not get promoted and my salary seems quite large to them so they will never increase it. There is no future for me there. The contract jobs I am doing for my greedy boss will always be thankless. I never wanted to be one of those people conspicuously in jobs they hate, but now here I am. I hate going to that office, I hate the work that I have to do, I no longer speak up because my opinion is only valued in retrospect. I am tired.
I received an email on Friday last week from one of my bosses. Now, even though I was copied into the email, it was not directed at me. It was directed at my subordinate and it referred to and carried a previously discussed, restructured organogram. In this new structure the aforesaid subordinate had been pulled up to my level, and as a result would not report to me anymore, and she had a number of people under her, who were under me before and a whole new title. I was surprised. The very idea that the email had been sent to her was an indication that whatever changes were being announced in the email had already been made- at least in the eyes of the sender. That notwithstanding, we were told - or rather, she was told- that we should discuss the new structure and agree on it so it could be implemented into policy. Have I already said I was shocked? I called my office Business Controller, who doubles as our accountant, and my sometimes confidant in the office. Apparently, the email had not been sent to her, but she began to make sense of a few strange instructions she had been given, One of such instructions was that she had till the end of that day to make the subordinate in question a signatory to the account - her credit limit I do not know. Also, the same boss had told her to hurry up and get more chairs for the office as that subordinate would have to move upstairs as she could not continue sitting with us downstairs. I then called the subordinate and asked her what it was all about, she said she was in the office with both my bosses when one of them said she should write an organogram and the other said he would do it, hence the email. (Of course that could not have been the whole story.)
For the umpteenth time I became really frustrated with this job and with the whole stupid situation; it was only because I spoke with my mum and a dear uncle of mine that I did not hand in my resignation that day.Yes, the lady in question is waaaay below me in both experience, education and even age. Heck! This is her first job, while this is my 12th year of working! Yes, decisions like a change in organizational structure and reporting lines should be discussed with the General Manager (me) before it is passed down to staff. No, this will not be the first time this sort of thing is happening. But to understand why exactly I am frustrated you must hear the story from the beginning.
I began this job sometime in May last year - May 2nd to be precise- with good intentions. It was after a long stretch of unemployment, exaggerated by single parenthood, and I was quite happy to have something worthwhile to do. At that time I was living in Benin and I was promised a house, a car and driver, 10% commission on anything I brought in and some percentage of shares. Because of this, I accepted the salary I was offered - 250k - even though I knew General Managers in most places earned at least the perks, I felt, made it worth it. I should have sensed with all the dilly-dallying that delayed my arrival, that something was not quite right. But I did not. And even if I did I would not have taken it as anything because I wanted-needed- a job. So when upon my arrival my boss - let's call him Martin for these purposes- asked me if I would stay in the BQ attached to the office , and if I would allow his brother stay with me , I still did not detect anything strange. To cut a long story short, I slept on a mattress laid on the bare floor, in a room in the office for 8 months!
I actually received my rent money in October, 2012, after a long but unnecessary argument with the bosses. They called me into their office and proceeded to tell me how they had a policy of giving a specific amount as rent money. This policy, by the way, only began at that moment. They then denied ever promising me a car, 10% commission or even equity. Infact, on the matter of equity, when I mentioned it, they guffawed and said I had to be here for 30 months and show signs -known to them- of contributions to the team before the issue of equity will even be discussed. So, at the end of the day, I had only my minimal salary and the now well-pared-down rent to hold on to. What could I do, I needed a job. I noticed once my boss gave me rent money he increased my workload substantially and began to speak very rudely to me, all the time asking what I was still doing in the office space. (Due to work and a lack of time, it actually took me 2 months to find a place and desperation drove me to a place that I ordinarily would not be able to stay in. If you live in Lagos then you will understand when I complain about living in Oregun but working in Lekki. I spend a minimum of N6000 (six thousand naira) a day to go to work, in a month that becomes 120 000, which when taken from my salary of 250000 a month, leaves me very broke. But I digress.)
In November, my job description and contract - none of which I have ever received to date - changed significantly. My other boss, Pat for this purpose, decided to award contracts from the multinational he works in to his own personal company. To this end, I was informed that I would front as the owner of the company and execute the jobs. And that that was part of my job.So that began a long and tedious road of providing marketing solutions ( radio ads, online viral ads, branded t shirts,branded mugs) for a company along with my day job . I was the accountant, the creative director, scriptwriter, producer, printer, business manager and everything of the company. From Lekki, I would go- always in a cab- into the heart of Balogun to buy 10000 mugs, or 600 t shirts, source a printer in Shomolu and convey them there. ALL FOR FREE. I did EVERYTHING on that job, the only thing I didn't do was sign cheques. If the only issue I had was that I was overworked it would not have been a problem. But there was disrespect and there were insults too.
Late November, towards December, Pat was travelling for his week with his family in Abuja as he usually does, we had a series of online viral commercials to shoot, after his usual slashing of the production fee and the cost price of the suppliers we had agreed on a cost for production. He then gave me a few signed cheques so I could dispense the money out. The money to be dispensed came to about 5 million naira. I dispensed the money and we shot, and began editing. I was spending all days at the edit suite in Ikeja. At the same time, Martin also was out of town, and our accountant was in her hometown preparing to be married. I had just been made a signatory to one of the company's accounts but my mandate was not close enough to pay salaries. What I did, therefore when the end of the month came was that I used my rent money to pay salaries for all the staff excluding Martin, Paul and myself. The problem came when my boss asked me to give money to the staff who wanted to travel for the accountant's wedding. I reminded him that there was no money. His immediately retorted ' You were paid today! Give them your salary, it will be returned to you.' I told him again that I had no money but that even if I had my salary it was my personal money and I had needs and responsibilities. He went beserk! Asking me what rubbish I was talking, how can I tell my boss that it is my money, etc. All this on bbm. When he returned from his journey he sent the cleaner to call me from my (then) room in the office and proceeded to scream, insult and berate me for the crime of calling my salary 'my money'. He reminded me that he was the MD of the company just in case I forgot that.
A week or so later, in trying to supply the mugs I took the office cleaner with me, in the process of supplying he spent all the money I had given him, claiming he gave it to the driver of the bus conveying the mugs, but it was in excess of the amount needed for the bus. When I confronted him with that he became very rude and ordered that I come over there and give him some more money. When he repeatedly called my phone and kept screaming at me, I informed him he was fired and that he should go to the office and pack his things. Anyway, Martin had obviously heard his story the next day when he came to work and he immediately ordered the accountant/office admin lady to print out the HR policy on termination of employment and hand it to me. Then, probably changing his mind he called me to hear my side of the story and then informed me that he did not think I had any right to fire the guy since he was not working as a cleaner but helping me out in my job.He asked me to call the guy back and when I did he was rude to me again. AT this point, to my surprise, Martin called I and the cleaner before him to begin to 'testify' on what happened! Long story short, he told the cleaner to go back to work.
Pat's own madness also began when he came back to Lagos. I had gone to his office shortly after the shouting incident over my salary. He complimented my glasses - fake ray bans which cost me all of 6500 naira - and took the dvd of the edited OVC from me. I showed him some slips which were transportation costs I had incurred over the course of the jobs we were executing.( I have no car so I had to take cabs everywhere, most times for up to 14 hours.) The total cost was 68000 naira. After meeting with him I went to the bank to cash a cheque for the amount. The nest thing I know, about an hour later, I received an angry email from him saying I should explain this! 'This!' was the routine email from the bank which informs you of a transaction. I explained to him that it was the slips I had shown him. he demanded that I update the project spreadsheet and send to him immediately. I felt like a thief, and for doing nothing wrong. I sent the updated sheet to him and at the close of work, retired to my room, only for him to come banging on my door at about 7.30pm complaining about the spreadsheet. Truth be told, he thought I was stealing his money, and he told me my spreadsheet was incoherent and unclear. I noticed, as he ran me through the spreadsheet pattern he was following, that he would put a sample comment in the comment section, and that comment was always an insult; ' you are an asshole' was one I remember clearly. I found it amusing then, but not anymore now. But when he had checked and realised that every expenditure was accounted for, he calmed down and started saying maybe he had higher profit expectations than were realistic- moe to himself than to me. That incident taught me never to spend any penny of mine on his tasks even if it delayed the execution because getting it back would be like pulling teeth.
As if that was not enough, Martin was giving out end-of-year bonuses and he just gave them out randomly based on personal biases. I and his brother , who is/was the laziest in the company got the equivalent of 40 percent of our salaries! The closest percentage to us after that was 85 percent. To this day, I have no idea how those bonuses were awarded; especially as I brought in most of it.
But the last straw happened recently when Martin randomly increased the salaries of most people in the office. Well, everyone but me, that is. He had employed someone over the holidays and apparently in his negotiation with her, she had asked for a higher salary than her immediate supervisor and got it. (He obviously though highly of her up to the extent that she would report people in the office to him and he would summon and query them- myself inclusive, and in her presence. I had googled her, though and found that she was not who she said she was, but that is a story for another day.) When the time came to pay salaries, the accountant wanted to know what her salary was; he dilly-dallied and finally ended at increasing the supervisor's salary, the accountant's and his brother's. When I queried the accountant on why their salaries were higher, via email, he said it was based on assessment and that mine was incomplete but when it was done I would be given an increase in salary. There has never been any assessment done in my office save for staff skill evaluation which I hurriedly had to do at the end of last year. That did not contain any points or marks scheme as no targets were set for that at the beginning of the year. A company that has no job description or contract for staff that has worked for up to or more than a year will certainly have no basis for appraisals. But that's Martin's story and he is sticking to it.
This holiday I am assessing my position in that company. I have nowhere to move but down. I will not get promoted and my salary seems quite large to them so they will never increase it. There is no future for me there. The contract jobs I am doing for my greedy boss will always be thankless. I never wanted to be one of those people conspicuously in jobs they hate, but now here I am. I hate going to that office, I hate the work that I have to do, I no longer speak up because my opinion is only valued in retrospect. I am tired.
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