(Epiode1 ):THE JOB STORY

Jerry woke up to a jarring start. He had been dreaming all night long of different job like scenarios he could experience. Whether it were the ones, he would lose due to lack of composure; or the marks he might lose of any extra test usually employed to streamline desperate applicants. It could be a simple question and that could be it, he mused.
 “hmmm…this life na wa o”



He knew one thing: that in spite of all things, everything would work well. All things work together for good. He had to be optimistic for himself. If not for a little carelessness, I wouldn’t be here in the first place.” He opined.

Jerry Oluwatosin Meyer served as a classic economist in Ikeja, Lagos. Life then was really good to him. He didn’t have to graduate with a first class like his counterparts at the prestigious Obafemi Awolowo University; though he sorely wished he did. His offence that cost his job’s life span was carelessness and a bit of folly on his side; folly regarding not possessing common sense and the thinking on one’s feet strategy- not the folly of not knowing SPSS data packages or ACCA and a bit of Oracle programming. It was just a simple deal, one he never recovered from even after the three months job drought. He had had countless sessions with his pastor and God, confessing his sin and restituting. His hope of getting a high paying job like the one he lost was totally dashed.

”If only I didn’t join the multitude to sin,” that he muttered was his sore mistake that would take him three weeks to recover from. Thank God he already paid his rent for the year and bought a classy car that elevated his status. Even with the eighty thousand take home pay, he was able to manage it within four years amidst his bank extra bonuses for being the phenomenal master mind that he still is and was, to make an almost perfect life for himself and parents. He was about to become an assistant to the branch manager, having managed several projects for Fidelity Bank with his honesty and astute capability for figures, numbers and logistics, he seemed the perfect man for the mouth-watering job. His fall was colluding with a group of fraudsters in grey suits and black ties to improve their personal network. The project was however done with the deal signed but his job was to ask a million more from their Keystone partners to complete three of their branches and to improve the shares between both companies. The branch Manager and the board of trustees kept him on a short leash with an informant in the group sealing the deal.

He chickened out, developing cold feet at the tail end, but did nothing to stop the deed from being completed, since, of course, he was very involved. The bank manager and the board had no other choice but to sack him and the others and publicly disgrace him. He was almost threatened with charges to court, save his goodwill even to back out before the end, he was cut lose. He wasn’t told to return his fat fringe benefits but he was reprimanded so much that he couldn’t stay long on the job. The manager was thorough in cleaning out bad behavior. His biggest undoing was not backing out but letting the bank’s integrity get questioned by their longest standing benefactors and business partners, not excluding his fear in stopping the deed.

A lesson he learnt bitterly, not to allow evil triumph in his presence, or even within earshot.

Today was big. He had been on this job for a month now. He wrote the examinations first, following which he was streamlined to the fourth list after three heavy screenings and short listings by specialists. To land a job with this multinational would be huge a record..

 to be continued in our next episode......