A SCHOOL CALLED UNISELF

‘Kayode Oyero

à “You can't be loaded and not be needed.” – O. J. O

Tears flowed freely down his cheek like waters from a mountain fall. His eyes crimsoned like burning embers of fire. Though as human being we’ve got peculiar ways of expressing our grief. While women are naturally dispose to quick sobs, men by the programming of nature are often emotionally disengaged and resilient even when flogged by the most pathetic scourge of life.

But in an instance where by a full grown man wails hysterically like a stubborn kid hungered by a disciplinarian mother, then you know ‘water don pass Garri’ as its being used to describe situations that has gone out of hand in local parlance.

He’s a potential father whose wife is eight months pregnant. He has just lost his white collar job in a sought-after corporate firm located at a country’s economic nerve-center and business capital. He’s a victim of the numerous work force downsizing embarked upon by most organization in Wazobia. An extant aftermath of the presence of marauders in the land!

*****

Away from the pathetic episode above, I recall as if it occurred only yesterday seated amidst men of the pen fraternity sometimes last year during a monthly editorial training section when he cleared his throat with the force of a concrete mixer, then uttered with the persuasive mildness of an itinerant Evangelist who scouts for Converts. He said: ‘for you to be a man of relevancy and distinction,’ he paused allowing his words to percolate the minds of his addressees, ‘you need to be a man of constant learning. You need to be an eternal student at the University of Self.’ He submitted amongst other prudent admonishments.

Barely a year after, I recalled this bit amid countless others when I resigned to the closet of solitude making a roll-call of events that lately unfolded in my sojourn in this ‘vanity world’. And before long, legion of thoughts sprouted in my mind like cactus in a desert. Then I began to stew in the pot of unpalatable thoughts as to what the astute Managing Editor of the foremost Socio-political Weekly Magazine where I had undertaken my media attachment meant by being an ageless student at an institution he christened ‘University of Self’; UNISELF for short.

Fortunately, it wasn’t long when one of the warring thoughts ousted its contenders and thereby called to occupy the entire space in my heart. And as an aftermath, I ruminated in the direction of the ‘winner-thought’ like an exuberant young Lover whose heart is filled with the caressing thought of a beautiful countess.

To him, the ‘University of Self’ engenders constant self-capacity development through reading of information cum educational materials and listening to sagacious life coaches through value-adding audio materials, attending seminars and workshops.

“Quite haplessly”, he noted that to many, “reading is a time-wasting venture, consequently shoving truism to the common axiom: ‘If you want to hide something from a black man, detail it in a book.’

Little wonder why your contemporaries climb the pedestal of promotion to top seats at the workplace while you are still there reeling with a portfolio for donkey years like an untroubled germ-infested solution in a gully during dry season? The rationale is not far-fetched.

Entrepreneurial wisdom demands Proprietors of organizations to value through remuneration and promotion staffers who add value to their organization via productivity.

To be a man of value is to be a Caterpillar that devours the leaves of books because embedded in it is the ideas that you need to be a solution-provider at the Workplace. Ideas rule the world! This necessitates that you must be an Idea-generator to remain relevant at the workplace. Reading avails one the opportunity to cruise in the ship of unending ideas that serious-minded wealth creator needs to escape the rat-race of eternal subservience. It makes for exclusivity. Remember the golden rule that he who has the gold makes the rule,” he tendered.

 *****

Again, just like a meandering river, my mind drifted during my nolstagia tour to the story of a partially literate but active and affable Salesman who sells five-times put together of what his marketing colleagues sell in a week in a day. Though of a junior rank, but he’s no doubt a man of uncommon strategy and marketing wits! Then, after months of consistent fattening of the barn of the organization’s profit, his day came (your day will come). His issue was raised in consideration for promotion at the board meeting of the firm where he works.

Just as I had asserted in my recent work: Attaining the top is not free, it costs a fee that swimming through enmity-infested Ocean is one that is inevitable for aspirer of enviable positions, antagonistic ‘ogas at the top’ among the board members raised  opposition to his potential elevation saying the vocabulary power of the debated-to-be-promoted man is sub-standard. “His sentences are so incoherent. I wonder how he wins over the heart of clients who presently are our cornerstone patrons.” One of his antagonists expressed in a laudatory but mockery tone. So goes on and on in the air of the air-conditioned state-of-the-earth boardroom rebellious voices rising into the sky the way steams of vapour escapes a closed-lid pot on fire into the atmosphere.

And tired of their sentimental and nonsensical din and in a bid to insulate the poor but result-yielding man whose promotion is being debated from the sting of the scorpion tongue of ‘ogas at the top’, the Board chairman who has kept mute all through the heated argument of rebellion said in a pre-emptory tone: ‘WE ARE HERE TO SELL AND NOT TO SPELL.’ So was his promotion effected with immediate alacrity (A prayer to all those who are not found wanting in the area of value-adding in their respective firms but yet denied the reward of promotion by the so called ‘ogas at the top’ who indulge in what I call ‘I’ll occupy till my children graduate’, don’t go dismay. Soon shall you break from the one hundred Lilliputian nails that impale you to an official status for donkey Years).

Aside metaphysical undertones, one would discover on a tacit watch of the issue on the front burner that complacency is the cause of all official stagnancy. Just like a self-satisfied and over-confident brilliant student who does not bury his head in studious vigils swallows the bitter pie of failure so also do many White-collar-so-called individuals who are okay with their information level suffer demotion, to sound mildly, official stagnation.

Let me sound a caveat before I’m being misquoted. Exploring one’s potentials is a fantastic thing to do (like in the case of the hardworking junior staffer heralded above.). But, the business of credentials acquisition is also one that must not be allowed to suffer. Don’t forget that ours is a dispensation that glorifies the ‘certificate mentality’. This is unarguably an era of certificate conscious business landscape. Again, this reminds me of another story of two good jolly friends who worked in the same business establishment with a National Diploma Certificate as their educational qualification.

While friend B reeled in self-satisfaction of the stipends he called salary, friend A was cognizance of the ‘obtainables’ that are obtainable at his turf of operation: the opportunities that may abound in his extant firm in the yet-to-come but fast-approaching future if he bags a senior qualification.

Pro-actively, friend A enrolled to be under the tutelage of a reputable professional institution and thus bagged a ‘senior qualification’ after the spelt number of years. Luckily, an opening in the form of an internally-advertized vacancy with the educational requisite of what friend A just bagged was announced afterwards. I need not complete the story. But a deductive point is that friend A’s intellectual capacity is not one to be equated with friend B’s poised and diminishing brain power. Their viewing lens of the world is far wide apart!

In actual fact, people who are not informed are deformed. If you're not updated, you're outdated. Those who know are always in the flow while those who don't know lie down in the low. The boardroom is not a bedroom. The boardroom is a place for busy brains not for sleeping brains.

Dare to be a man of value!

Dare to be indispensable!

Dare to be peculiar and spectacular!

Dare to be the last man standing!

…Kip da Optimism Alive