ENTRY #4: The Comfort Zone Hives

Dear diary, you know the feeling you get on that first bite into a bar of chocolate or cheese cake during indulgence hour? That feeling of absolute perfection and rightness! At that moment, all is so well and right with the world that ‘Al-Qaeda’ simply becomes the name of a crèche where kids go, ‘Boko Haram’ the name of a research facility that focuses on agricultural development, ‘ISIS’ a rock band with the hottest rock music and stars, and Adam and Eve still in the garden, walking around naked, eating fruits, and staying in shape. Well, that was the feeling I

didn’t get when I walked into the office on Monday morning! Don’t get me wrong, I was happy- who wouldn’t be? Everything’s been working exceptionally fine at the office the past few weeks; we’ve been meeting our targets, our profitability had spiked, my team was more of a team than ever before; summarily, my work life was a breeze- effortless, colorful, and happy! Then I walked into the office on Monday, and it all didn’t feel right anymore. I felt as though something was wrong, something was missing but I couldn’t place my finger on what it was.

After drifting in a haze of discontent all through Monday morning, I attributed my foul mood to fact that I had had an overly active weekend; maybe I was just tired (this is why one should never spend all of their weekend in the company of adventure thirsty female friends; especially if you have a 9-5 job, and you are not twenty-two years old!). I dragged myself around the office, doing my regular job which somehow failed to hold my interest or enthusiasm longer than thirty minutes at a stretch; and by mid-afternoon, I was spent, I could take no more. Having no important deadline or pressing tasks to complete, I sent Mr. Olivier a lengthy mail concerning a doctor’s appointment (which I knew he wouldn’t read because he knew I was lying), grabbed my bags, and ran off; turning off all my mobile phones (after all, my doctor always wanted me to do that) as I drove home blissfully. Well if there was anything I learned from ditching work on Monday, it was that running away from a problem never ever solves it; as I was soon to realize when I walked into the office on Tuesday and felt the same crappy way I did on Monday. I spent the first few hours of Tuesday responding to emails, fixing daily reports, updating spreadsheets and charts, and executing other regular office duties; and by mid-morning, I was bored. Bored! That was it! I had identified what my issues were! Plain boredom.

That was acceptable; boredom. It was something I understood and could deal with and it was way better than loony. It was even easy to see why I could be bored. My department had quieted down to one of those lull periods before the mad rush of year’s end financial closings. Those long autumn days without specific deadlines, as though we were being given time to indulge in what little rest and fun we could afford as all our waking hours were soon to be dominated by numbers crunching. I decided I needed a project to occupy my spare time. Now don’t get scared or queasy dear dairy; my understanding and application of the term ‘project’ have long evolved; so no, I didn’t turn up with a tattoo, a bright blue hair, or anything too adventurous for my ‘project’ this time around. As a matter of fact, I simple settled for some basic investigation.

ENTRY # 3: The Most Important Person.

Dear dairy, I missed you! This week has been too exciting and simulating to update entries; but here we are, together at last! OK, I know I still sound very excited and you are dying to have me tell you all about it, so I’ll just dive right in.

After the immense stress of the previous week and the final closure on Q1 analysis, we all thought we were going to have some quite days ahead; but that was not to be. What began as a peaceful week, with a much welcomed uneventful Monday and an even quieter Tuesday, quickly disintegrated into chaos when Mr. Olivier strolled in on Wednesday morning, wearing a suspicious smile on his face. No one was particularly surprised when he called for a 5minutes-in-the-boardroom later that morning. These 5mins meetings were one to the many changes that came with the new Mr. Olivier. The general specifications of these meeting included the restriction of the entire meeting’s duration to five minutes, the prohibition of chairs- everyone remained standing, and the achievement of a clear result at the end of the meeting; this could be in the form of a decision made, an information passed across, an idea birthed, as assessment given, a feedback received, or a matter shoved into suspense.  As a rule, all staff of the department must be in the board room exactly two minutes after one of such meetings have been called or be penalized for tardiness.

A minute after I received Mr. Olivier’s alert, I filed the reports I had been working on, locked my screen, and headed to the board room. As I was the last one in and quite pressed for ‘execution time’, I quickly kissed Mona good morning, pulled her along and squeezed us in between Uche and Sam after quick ‘Hellos’. Dear dairy, I had been planning this maneuver all morning without even realizing it. You see, both Uche and Mona had been avoiding me since last Friday’s night when I

ENTRY # 2: The Management Course.

Three points: hire tough, coach everyone to become better, and let go of those who can’t meet the standard

Okay dear diary, don’t get all excited already because, no, I haven’t been promoted to a management staff yet, and no, you won’t be getting that Michael Kors’ leather dairy jacket anytime soon; but dear dairy, I heard those three points this morning and all that’s been happening the past few weeks suddenly made complete sense and the future instantly got brighter! Okay, so I’ll take a breath here and explain.

I first perceived the change at the office two weeks ago; it was an added weight on the already existing unease. I figured the added tension had something to do with Macy’s resignation but I thought it would blow over soon enough. Macy had been very good at her job, she had a good relationship with everyone, she was one of those people who genuinely cared, and she had suddenly packed up one morning and resigned out of the blue; and just after a raise and a golden performance award had been given to her. Naturally, everyone was upset; half the staff thought she was ungrateful and full of herself (assuming to play God on people’s emotions) while the other half could almost swear that there was more to the saga than the management was letting on. Several conspiracy theories were spun

ENTRY # 1: Like Cogs in a Wheel

I suppose there should be a difference between being born with a silver spoon and having to acquire a silver spoon somewhere along the line. Whatever differences exist between the two are of no particular relevance to this entry; except for the fact that keeping a journal is a completely acquired skill to me. You see I used to be among the bandwagon that said ‘my secret and precious moments are safest in my head’. Well good luck y’all because I’ve come to realize that words on paper are the next best thing to Game of Thrones *winks*

So, dear dairy, now that I’ve told you how important you are to the world and so on, maybe be we can move on to more interesting stuffs; and what could be more interesting than my job? I know, I know, you haven’t official met the crew right? Well that because I’m still meeting the crew myself, and as usual, I need to put out feelers on everyone, get my impression on their persona before I can effectively introduce them to you. And don’t you dare say it! I’m not controlling; I’m just being thorough that’s all. Talking about thorough dear dairy, I was thoroughly snitched on last week! Apologies for the harsh word but that’s the most apt description for what happened. And of all the people it was Temi and Sam that hashed the huge conspiracy. I was at my work station battling with a report when the security manning the entrance enthusiastically opened the door. His actions already warned me that whoever was about to come through was pretty high in the hierarchy; but boy, I wasn’t prepared for the sight. As the door opened dear dairy, in came a troop of dark suits and briefcases.