I know life is a gift, and I'm glad to be alive, but sometimes it gets so difficult that you begin to question your existence in the general scheme of things. You think you've got it all figured out sometimes, and then suddenly, it throws a curveball that you swing at, only to land on your ass, which is coincidentally right where you started.
I remember April of 2018 when I was just fresh out of NYSC(National Youth Service) and very hungry for employment. I got wind of this "employment opportunity" from an acquaintance back in University, so I jumped at the opportunity.
The job role was "Territory Sales Assistant", and I thought, well, being an assistant can't be that hard. Plus, I'll be handling a whole territory, therefore big bucks pay, thanks a lot bro, sign me up for that shit. So I eagerly rushed down to Bayelsa from Jos where I just concluded the NYSC. My blood was hot and I was brimming with enthusiasm, ready to take on the corporate world.
After the 15hour frustrating road trip to Bayelsa, I spent a few days with my family, then got done with all the early excitement of seeing me after 6 months, now it was time for business. The first step was a short 2-hour trip to Port Harcourt from Bayelsa for a meet and greet with the company reps and some orientation.
Rude Awakening
Now, this is the part where things started to get a little...dicey, if I may. You see, all along I was expecting a job, like an actual job that involved doing office job stuff. You know, taking records, using spreadsheet and all that assistant stuff but that's not what this shit was.
Okay, a little background to the company; The name of the company can't be mentioned because I signed a non-disclosure agreement, but I can tell you that they're a conglomerate of some American franchise that specialises in making solar equipment. I studied Mechanical engineering, and while this isn't directly linked with Solar powered things, I figured adapting wouldn't be too hard, so what the hell. Okay, back to the story.
So, it turns out the Territory Sales Assistant is a fancy way of saying door to door salesman. All my dreams and fantasies of working on Spreadsheets and doing all that tech stuff dissipated like a fart in the wind. All that was left was this big blob of disappointment that hovered over my head, but you know what? I ain't no quitter and I certainly ain't no punk either, so I went against my gut and took the job anyway.
After all the documents were signed, blah blah blah, it was time to work, and boy was I pumped up. I was going to walk around town with a big bag filled with overpriced solar lamps and try to convince people to buy them. My supervisor who turned out to be a great guy after I quit was busting my balls because they set a freakishly high sales target for me and the other "Assistants". The first day of work was a disaster, or at least that's how it felt because I sold a grand total of zero and that set the tone for a miserable four-week spell of my life.
That period of my life was absolutely horrible like I can't mince words. Now I always knew I wasn't suited for the role so it wasn't supposed to affect me mentally, but the woefulness of my failure was too much for my nonchalance to ignore. So after two weeks of excruciating pain, I wrote a "Quit letter" to HR on the grounds of Education, which was technically true, but at that point, I'd have simply just stopped going to work if they refused. HR was very understanding, and accepted my resignation, but requested I worked an extra two weeks to complete the month and receive full pay for my services.
I reluctantly finished the month and put that short but painful chapter of my life behind me. It wasn't all bad though, because I bought my current laptop with that salary, and this laptop has earned me a reasonable amount of money because it facilitates blogging and despite being a second-generation core i5 processor with ancient NVIDIA graphics, it runs some powerful applications, is very sturdy and generally gets me across the line. So life gave me a shitty job, and I turned it into a money-making laptop, I guess sometimes, quitting pays.
