Every Boss is a King in his own establishment.
I am a firm believer that no matter how bad a person is, there is still something good about the person.
The mistake many employees make is to tag their difficult boss as evil and not deserving of any kind of appreciation whatsoever.
Early in life, I learnt that people's personality are a sum total of their genetics and the things they've been through.
Most people become tough-skinned and appear hard-hearted on the outside because of the experiences they've had in Life.
I was opportuned to work with someone like this 4 years ago.
COVID-19 had us Nigerian students sent home and by this time we were having lectures from home.
Being a penultimate year student, I decided to get some observership at a nearby hospital close to my house.
More like I was volunteering to come watch and learn.
It was not paid.
So I chose somewhere that was closest to me so that I wouldn't be spending extra money on transport.
In my short time there, (I spent about 4 months there),
I soon noticed the contempt that filled the air whenever the boss (the Chief Medical Director) came in to the hospital.
He is an elderly man most likely over 65 years of age.
The moment he stepped in, whatever smile, radiance and laughter that was on the faces of the nurses and staff would immediately cease.
I noticed it as a pattern, so one day I decided to ask my closest person there.
She was a Registered Nurse.
Then she spilled and recounted how "bad" the CMD was.
The crux of the matter was that he had anger issues.
I don't like to discuss other people, so immediately I got a hang of what she was saying, I said "Alright, I see".
Mind you, he didn't owe them their salary.
I had my own fair share of his anger outburst one day.
So I determined that I would do all it takes to not get into his anger path ever again. Lol.
We moved on and it was soon Christmas season.
I honestly didn't know why, but I felt the need to get him a gift.
Remember I was still a student and I wasn't being paid.
So I decided to speak with a few other close staffs if we could pool funds together to get a gift for our boss that Christmas.
source
To my utter shock, they bluntly disagreed.
They said he wasn't deserving of any gift, that they could never spend their money on such a boss.
They said if I still wanted to get him a gift, I could go ahead but I should count them out if it.
Confused 😕 and in shock, I felt sorry for the chief medical director.
I tried to shove the idea away but it kept coming that I should get him a gift.
So I decided to give it a try.
I thought about what would be the best gift to give such a man high up there.
After my back and forth, I decided to gift him a fruit basket.
I'm sure you probably didn't see that coming.
I usually made fruit hampers to sell so it was easier to curate one for him. (This picture is one of the fruit baskets I made)
So I packaged a cute fruit hamper with a bottle of non alcoholic wine 🍷 and took it to the hospital on the morning of Christmas Eve.
I never knew this simple act was going to mean so much to the "almighty boss".
He wasn't in the office yet that morning so I kept it by his door with a note.
When he came, he was almost in tears.
He quickly entered his office, I guess he tried to hide his face and expressions.
Later by noon, he called me into his office and he said "Do you know, you're the first staff that will ever gift me something?"
And for the first time, I saw him smile
I stared in amazement!
How come? Was he that bad?
All the same I felt so happy that I was able to make the boss feel loved and appreciated.
That's not all,
My gift definitely sowed a seed that day and he asked for my account details.
I was reluctant to give him, but respectfully, I obeyed.
Before the day ran out, I got an alert of 30,000 naira.
When I went to thank him.
He then said, he would be paying me stipends from hence forth.
Remember our initial agreement was that it was just an observership without pay.
From this experience, I made up my mind that day to love people genuinely and not always allow what people say about someone hold us back from doing the little good we want to do to them.
This is my submission for the Hive Naija Weekly Prompt for week 74.
Thank you so much for reading.