It’s the 12th!
One year ago today, I joined BuyCoins, and it’s been the most amazing and busiest twelve months of my professional career. Don’t worry; it’s not a “this is how I did it, you can also do it” article cos I didn’t do anything. It’s just a good excuse for me to write my first article ever.
The 12th day of every month is important to me, and it’s a personal superstition that has been with me throughout my professional career. It started on August 12th, 2015, when I got my first job offer. It was an accounting officer role at a Telehealth start-up, and my first day at work was October 12th, 2015. My first day at the two other companies I worked for after that was the 12th!
You see, this happened so many times that it’d have been ridiculous for me not to be superstitious about it. So when Tomiwa called me on December 6th, 2018, to offer me the job, it was a no-brainer that I picked Wednesday, December 12th, as my resumption date. Because of this, I couldn’t give enough notice to my former employers, so I had to forfeit my leave bonus and December salary. It hurt, but I felt better when BuyCoins paid me 100% of my December salary even when I didn’t do jack that month. That was when I knew I’d die there — [And also because the salary offer was way more than I requested during the interviews].
Small aside: When I told my parents that I was quitting my job at the bank to join BuyCoins, they were scared and thought something was wrong with me. They weren’t happy that I was dropping accounting/banking and felt like it was a wrong career move to work as a customer support representative. “Why are you leaving your bank job to join this company?” “Which one is bitcoin again?”, “Are you sure you’re okay?”, “So your goal in life is to be picking calls “…as if I was doing anything reasonable at the bank.
Working as a customer support professional isn’t the easiest job, and I think it’s one of the most critical, yet overlooked roles in organizations. My job at BuyCoins is to ensure that every user has a fantastic experience, and for about 11 months, I was the first point of contact for every user whenever they had a complaint, suggestion or inquiry on all our inbound channels. This meant that I had to know everything about everything. Delivering top-notch service is always the goal, but there are times when I can’t provide exceptional service to our users, and it sucks! This usually happens when the fix is out of our control and dependent on third-party partners. The few and far between “thank you’s” from customers after their complaints have been resolved makes it all worth it [my salary makes it worth it too].
My best moment at BuyCoins was when I got a raise (obvs). Ire screamed my name from the conference room to break the news to me. Apart from the fact that I was getting a pay raise, it also meant that I was doing something right, and that was a huge morale booster.
It’s been a year of growth, and I’m proud of the products I’ve been able to build with the team. I’ve had the opportunity to work on several projects and try my hands at new things. Some days have been super challenging, but because I work with some of the most amazing people in the world [I don’t care if Alephilomath is reading this and calling me a kiss-ass], it makes it worth it. I can’t even begin to explain how great it is to work with people that care about your wellbeing and will invest their time and money to see that you’re okay.
A few months ago, we were dealing with an issue and had a lot of customer calls, and I started having spells of anxiety every time the phone rang. At first, I didn’t want to talk to anyone about this because, I mean, it’s my job to handle these calls. But it started affecting me, and my boss noticed. He asked me to take a walk with him, and when he asked if I had anything to share with him, I told him about the anxiety I had been getting from the calls. He took the phone from me for about a week and asked me to take three days off work to get some rest. I was so shocked that that had happened, so I kept checking Slack every day for those three days to see whether they had kicked me out of the company. It’s not normal in my experience for employers to show that level of empathy or any level of understanding, tbh. There are probably nine kind employers in Nigeria. 3 of the 9 are co-founders at BuyCoins.
It’s almost ridiculous how committed the founders are to helping everyone reach their personal and professional goals. I sometimes dread my 1-on-1s with Timi because he never forgets the things my lazy ass said I wanted to achieve and constantly follows up to see my progress while listening to my new goals. He has definitely made me better at setting personal goals and timelines to them.
It’s been one year of doing my best work, making friends, losing bets, bossing game nights, and getting called “Sino.”
Cheers to the next one year! 🥂
Shoutout to Tola! Wherever you are (she’s in Trono), thank you! I’m not sure I’d have given me a chance after the way I fumbled my interview, but she did, and I’m super grateful to her for whatever she saw in me.
