Sometimes I wonder whether all the trainings we were given as young kids was to prepare us for this rat race. I look back to my childhood with so much joy, we did have fun growing up. Ironically, We were also very excited at the thought of becoming adults. If only we knew it was all about the rat race!!!!
I remember my first job when I was fresh out of school. For one, I had always day-dreamed about having a whole office to myself. You know like the ones we see in most movies. To my chagrin, I was put in the office pool alongside my peers and senior colleagues. It took me a while to get over the heartbreak. I think no one really prepares our mind for the professional world. The policies on resumption time, overtime without allowances, vacation and even sick policy. It is just assumed that when we find out, we will adapt. I remember asking one of my senior colleagues at the time when I just got employed:
Me: how long have you been working here
Bola (not real name): about 5 years now
Me: you mean you have been coming here every day for the past five years and seeing the same people every day of your life (I literally screamed)
Bola: Yes, and I kind of don’t mind.
Me: oh dear......
Ironically, I find myself doing the same thing for younger colleagues who are fresh out of school and do not just get the fuss about resumption, break time, dress code etc
These days on my journey home, I spend most of the time thinking and rummaging about the future and also reliving the past. I find it hard to believe that all those years in primary and secondary schools and university was spent in preparing us for the rat race that laid ahead. A life of waking like a zombie and going through the tasks of the day absent mindedly, spending endless hours in traffic, not seeing your house in the daytime and depending on your schedule - not seeing your kids or even spouses, looking forward to public holidays and those allotted 20-30days of vacation in a calendar year.
This Lagos own is even getting too much, sometimes I wonder if Lagos life supports family values. Now I am no longer talking for myself alone as I am aware of families where the parents barely get to see the kids during the week. Some crazy employers also introduce weekend trainings and the parents end up barely spending anytime in the house, or with their kids. Even youths that are searching for their better half are stuck with going to the cinemas or hanging out in restaurants. A good number just hope that they will come across someone worthy in the course of performing their assigned duties.
When you look at it, we are almost enslaved to this rat race. Working harder so we can be recommended for promotion or better still so that we earn a better pay. Well all I can do for now is rummage about it, in as much as I am not yet ready to resign and carry out hubby’s suggestion t of us resigning and moving to our village. He says all we have to do is earn a decent living working as civil servants, breathe fresher air, have a farm for subsistence living etc. It all sounds tempting especially now that I have been stuck in traffic for over an hour and concluded that there is no way I am making my 8:30am training. However the suit wearing, high heel loving and not quitting part of me doesn’t seem to be ready. But who knows……
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