I remember the last time I went for a job interview back in 2015. I had done the first stage of the interview via phone. It was an Interior Design firm that claimed they were London-based and were extending their business activities to Nigeria.
They were looking for someone who had gone to Design School and had working knowledge of the industry. I had finished Design School in January of that year and had just started my Interior Design company. I was still struggling to get clients and I thought working with a multinational company would give me more experience.
Imagine the joy when I was sent an email that I passed the phone interview and that I was being invited for a conversation to talk job offer! I called my parents and told my sisters. After hundreds of job applications, I was finally going to “discuss salary and sturvs”.
Chai! Body sweet me o! I ironed my favourite dress shirt and pencil skirt, shined my small pumps and set an alarm to wake up very early so that Lagos Traffic won’t conspire with my village people.
That’s how I got to the address I was given on the day, and instead of an office building, it was a school. I asked the gateman if so and so office was at that address and the man just shook his head.
In my mind, I thought “could there be another Number so and so on this Toyin Street?” I immediately thought of my village people conspiring again since they didn’t win with the traffic.
If you’ve been to Toyin street in Ikeja, you know that it is several kilometres long and always busy. I trekked the entire length of the street with my feet now sore from the pumps, just to be sure there wasn’t another number so and so. You know we can’t trust street numbering in Lagos.
I got hit by bike riders twice and screamed at by motorists because I forgot my glasses; and because I am shortsighted, I tend to misjudge distance on the road, walking into oncoming traffic obliviously.
By the time I got to Ikeja Under Bridge, I realised I must have been scammed. I had been calling the contact number I was sent, and after the first ring, they switched off their phones. I didn’t know whether to be grateful to God or angry. Who knows what I might have been saved from.
Still, all these were not even the parts that broke my spirit.
When I got to Ikeja Under Bridge, I knew enough was enough. I decided to take a bus to CMS and just go home and count my losses.
I’d been trekking for almost 2 hours and I was starving. I bought a LaCasera drink and Gala snack to quench my hunger while I sat in the bus, waiting for it to get full.
I had just torn open the Gala when the first wave of chest pain hit me. It wasn’t physical pain. It’s the pain you feel when you realise you’ve suffered in this life. The tears just started rolling down my sweaty face unrestrained.
I felt like I was in one of those Nollywood movies where the young person who graduated from University cannot find a job and has to suffer under hot sun and all the other gruelling antics life throws at them. It didn’t feel very nice.
I consoled myself with the fact that in those movies, those people eventually get to have a happy ending. I made a vow to find my happy ending that day.
I’ve not yet reached the end of my story, but the woman typing this post right now, is a faaaar cry from that gangly girl eating Gala and LaCasera like a hungry lion just 5 years ago. She is happy with where she is right now.
Five years may seem like a long time to some people, and for others, it may seem like a flash, it depends on how you interpret time.
You could be struggling and hustling today and in 5 years, become the biggest thing on the planet. Don’t give up on your dreams, they’re valid. I’m glad I didn’t. I always knew I wanted to help people and today I get to do so.
