Initiation: Urgent 20k
Chapter 1:
I attended a very prestigious University in Nigeria, did a prestigious course (Mechanical Engineering) and graduated with a second class upper division. This is what anyone would call “Triple threat”! We were initiated with stories that once we graduate and go for interviews, employers (especially Oil and gas) will say “grads of Obafemi Awolowo University, stay here…..others, stay there”. You guessed right, I am a grad of OAU!
Yes, you guessed right, they lied! Several months after graduation and during my service year, I did not get a single interview; not even at a palm oil or cooking gas company. That period was tough; I learnt humility and became closer to God. Finally, in the last week of November 2013, I got my first interview invite at a ‘consulting firm’ in Lagos. I was excited, studied GMAT materials, browsed current affairs, tried to understand what the firm does, learnt about consulting, practiced interviewing and so on.
On the day of the interview, I borrowed my cousin’s suit and tie, wore my best shirt and shoes, the interview was for 9am but I was already there at 7:30am. I was among the first batch of candidates to write the test; it was extremely difficult. However I was confident that I would be selected amongst the 50+ candidates that wrote the test. We were asked to wait behind as the result would be out immediately. When the test time was up, a young man came to address all of us and started telling us about how we don’t need to ever look for another job in our lifetime. He was the CEO of the company, and he was going to initiate us into the “GNLD products” marketing clan. I left the venue disappointed, depressed and angry.
When I got home that same day, I received a phone call from a distant uncle asking me if I would be interested in joining a telecoms engineering firm as a trainee on 20,000 naira salary. At least this was in line with what I studied in school and with the right packaging will help me land my dream job. I agreed and was invited for an interview at the company — Petrolseal Oceans and Energy Limited. The interview went smoothly until I was asked how good I was with MS Excel, and I said I was 9/10. I could not understand why the panelists started laughing. I confidently told them I could do division, multiplication, addition, subtraction… “Can you do pivot tables, concatenate, vlookup…”, Ibk asked. “Sorry, lookup...I did not get that ma”. At that point, I knew I could only lookup to heaven for a miracle to land the job.
Twenty-something young guys and I joined Petrolseal as trainee Engineers on the 2nd of December 2013. Petrolseal was a telecoms site maintenance vendor for a big network operator in Nigeria. We were going to be trained for one month (on generators, electrical calculations, telecoms architecture, leadership, maintenance, about the company etc), then write an exam and only 12 people would be selected. I initially did not take the program seriously until the 3rd day when I saw a popular and brilliant classmate (Ay’) from OAU at the training center begging to be part of the program, and they still did not agree. That was a wake-up call for me, and I decided to dedicate all my strength to the program.
At the end of the classroom training, I was the third best, behind Moses and Tolu. I did not even feel bad, those two guys were very good! However, what made me feel bad was that we all were going to be transferred to the Eastern part of Nigeria for the next phase of training. We were going to be in Enugu for four months on 20,000 naira salary and then permanently posted to any of Aba, Ebonyi, Anambra or Enugu. I had a hidden strong phobia for traveling which no one on earth knew about.
You can read the next chapter here >> Planning I: Conquering the phobia
