BusinessDay 30 Mar 2018

BUSINESS DAY
Workplace Palaver
Bisola Peters is a 27 year old
graduate of International
relations with a Masters in
Human Resource Management.
She lost her parents 4 years
ago and has been taking care
of her brother’s welfare by the
profits she makes from selling
lady wears. She completed her
Masters two years ago but has
been job hunting. She is very
optimistic about life. She lives
with her brother (who is always
in school, a 300 level student
of Accountancy at University of
Port Harcourt) in a self-contained
apartment.
While going through one of the
dailies, she saw an application
for the position of an executive
assistant in a reputable firm with
top notch clientele. She wondered
however, why the company did not
indicate their name in the ad. Nevertheless,
decided to give it a try.
A week later, she was called
for an interview. On her way to
the interview, luckily for her, there
was no gridlock. The time slated
for the interview was 9am. It was
a quarter to nine and she was
almost there. A she was about
to make her turn to get into the
compound, the car in front of
her refused to move. She kept
honking but the car was blocking
the way. She got down from the
car, walked up to the driver of the
shamrock green 2017 Mercedes-
Benz G500, all tinted in black.
She got to the driver’s side and
tapped the glass. The driver rolled
down the glass and asked what
happened? She was so furious.
How dare he? “He is even claiming
rights” she thought to herself and
responded “Sir, you are blocking
the way, I have been honking my
horm but you obviously didn’t
hear because the music playing
in the car is loud”. The gentleman
at the back seat, who was on the
phone rounded up his conversation,
tilted his head forward
towards the driver and asked the
driver to leave the road for her to
pass. She saw his face briefly, and
walked back to her car.
She quickly parked and walked
briskly into the office. It was an oil
and gas company. She looks at the
clock on the wall and it was 9am
on the dot. She saw 6 seats and
5 were occupied. She walked to
the receptionist and informed her
of the reason she was there and
Friday 30 March 2018
WOMEN’S HUB
For Bisola, experiencing the brutal reality
of first impressions was inescapable
I
was doing a research for an upcoming
project on sustainable
development goals past midnight
on one of my many working
nights on my bed in January this
year and as I researched further,
information about the kind of
content I was looking for on SDG
surfaced. I stumbled on the Global
Festival of Action for sustainable
development goals slated for 21-
23rd of March in Bonn city, Germany
which I had heard about in
time past but never paid so much
attention to.
I signed up because I was excited
to learn and meet global
communicators, social innovators
and activists, change makers
and sustainability experts and also
experience the culture of the host
city which has so much history and
culture.
That feeling and role lasted
for only a week as I got another
mail from The UN Action Sustainable
development goals campaign
(media team) stating that they had
evaluated the most inspiring comshe
said to her “You were the last
person we were waiting for. Luckily,
you made it on time.”
They were all ushered into a
room and they took their seats.
One after the other, they were
called into another room and were
all interviewed separately. Each
one asking the other how the interview
session went when they
got back to their seats.
The Human Resource Manager
, who was part of the interview process,
came back to meet them 30
minutes after to inform them that
they all did well but only one person
would be given the position
of being the executive assistant
while the others would work in
other departments within the company.
They were all excited about
the news and couldn’t contain
their joy. She later informed them
the MD/CEO would like to have a
brief meeting with them and asked
them to remain seated.
Five minutes later, the door
opened, the Human Resource
Manager led the way and the next
person that followed was the man
at the back of the seat in the G500.
Steve Balogun is his name. As he
stepped in, looking dapper, the
Ermenegildo Zegna bespoke suit
was royal blue, sharp-looking, and
well-fitted. Cut to exactness, bold
across the shoulders, the perfect
inverted triangle. Complementing
the blue suit was a plain white
Tom Ford shirt, accompanied by a
Charvet white tie with fuchsia pink
polka dots scattered all over the
tie. The pocket square was fuchsia
pink, correctly folded in and taking
a peep outside the square. He
looked spruce! He spotted Bisola
and turned his look away so fast
like he never saw her. He sat down,
straightened his broad shoulders,
attuned his tie to a rakish angle,
and said in an engaging voice that
took over the room. “Good day
everyone”.
By this time, Bisola was sweating
profusely despite sitting not too
far away from an LG Floor Standing
Air Conditioner (92000 Btu/h). She
began to shiver. She actually wanted
to get up, open the door and run
faster than her legs could allow. “I
am done!” she muttered beneath
her breath “I am finished! Same
man whose driver I harassed…but
he was blocking my way…was I
rude?...but I wasn’t…I merely asked
his driver to leave the way…was my
tone harsh?...NO, he did not really
see me…” she almost went nuts
thinking and revisiting the matter in
her head. She was certain she was
about to experience the brutal reality
of first impressions. She had no
choice but to pay rapt attention like
everyone did. Half of the time, she
was looking above his head and he
did not for a second look towards
her direction.
“Does anyone have any questions
for me?” he asked just as he
ended the welcome speech. Only
two people asked questions and
he responded brilliantly after which
he said “Thanks, the HR Manager
will be with you shortly”. He got up
and left to his office. Immediately
he left, Bisola thought to run out
instantaneously. “There is no way
on earth I am going to get this job”
she thought to herself and after 10
minutes , as she got up to ‘escape’,
the HR Manager calls out to her and
informs her that the MD wanted to
see her. “Ehmm…Ma, do you mean
me?” she asked and the HR Manager
responded “Yes you Bisola”.
There was nowhere to hide or
run. She fearfully and reluctantly
got up but when she realised the
others were looking at her and wondering
why she was acting strange
after such an enviable call, she
adjusted herself quickly like nothing
happened. As she drew closer
to the MD’s office, her heart beat
was almost visible. The HRManager
opened the door, she walked in, the
HR Manager turned around, shut
the door and she stood there utterly
confused. Steve was not facing her.
He was looking for a document in
the drawer behind his seat. “Bisola
Peters, how are you?” he said as he
turned his seat around and this time
he was face to face with her.
Observing she was petrified,
He got up, opened his windows
and wittily said “…or you want
to jump out of the window?”
and Bisola managed to fake a
smile. So he continued, “I have
told the HRManager to give you
the position…” “What?” she
exclaimed and he responded
“Oh!, so you can speak?... Interesting!”
And she said in a
shaky voice, “Uhmm...I am sorry
sir, I did not mean to exclaim, I
was only shocked sir”. He gave
a brief smirk on his face and
continued “I am not a lion Bisola
and I don’t eat people so relax.
You are starting your job next
week. You can leave now” to
which she responded “Yes sir,
thank you sir” and as she turned
around rapidly to leave the office,
walking towards the door,
she heard his voice say “Onomatopoeia!”
she knew he was
definitely talking to her even
though he did not mention her
name. So she turned back and
he said “Onomatopoeia is when
a word’s pronunciation imitates
its sound…`while speaking
to my driver, you said ‘Honk
the horn’. That is an example
of Onomatopoeia…by the way,
you should work on your temper,
it will help you always.”
“Thanks sir” she said and left
so fast because she wanted to
ensure there was no reason for
her to turn again.
When she got out, they all
looked at her like “how did
it go?” and she responded
openly to their thoughts “I got
the job!” And as they all congratulated
her, she said to them
“the congratulation goes to us
all after all, as we have earlier
been told, you all have jobs in
different departments in same
organisation”.
Bisola started a week later.
Jittery at the initial stage but
soon found out that her boss
was one of the easiest persons
to work with. Very meticulous
about his work but truly an inspiration
to her on work ethics,
dedication to duty and integrity
on every level. 18 months and
counting, Bisola has no plans
to change jobs….yet!
From her point of view
CHISOM OGBUMUO
My Global Festival of Action experience
municators, storytelling and social
media advocates and influencers for
SDGs from all world regions and I
had been chosen to be an SDG story
scouter, whose role is to be the main
voice capturing the voices, energy,
atmosphere and tapping the most
exciting stories happening at the
Global Festival of Action for sustainable
development goals.
That automatically meant that
my role in being just a delegate
had vanished and work took over. I
absolutely loved that and grateful to
be accredited for my past jobs done.
A week before the festival, we
had webinar to enable us virtually
meet each other as colleagues and
as well Yusuf Omar, who is a CNN
senior social media influencer, Tedx
Speaker and co-founder of Hashtag
Our Stories, trained us on storytelling
and engaging communities
through social media.
All story scouters as well as other
team members from other departments
arrived at the venue which
is The World Conference Centre
on Tuesday morning for brief,
committee meetings and trainings
to yield the guide and agenda for
the festival, and also collected our
identification cards.
The festival officially commenced
with the sound of beat
boxing and call for actions done
at The SDG studio. Director, UN
Global Festival of Action, Mitchell
Toomey, addressed us about the
purpose of the festival and the
#leavenoonebehind which was one
of the major hashtags for the festival.
The festival featured an SDG
studio booth for a series of dynamic
discussions, cross-generational
dialogues, press moments, webcast
interviews and inspiring talks showcasing
change-making initiatives
and revolutionary solutions to key
global challenges. This interactive
space will serve as a platform to
engage participants in constructive
conversations for the achievement of
the Sustainable Development Goals.
An Innovation fair also took
place to showcase novel approaches
to advancing the SDGs. Over the
course of three days, the fair invited
people to get their hands ‘dirty’ with
some of the best examples of immersive
storytelling, data, tech and
community organising.
A wide array of organisations
showcased some of the best new
tools out there to involve people in
policy decision making, mitigate
the challenges revolving around
the SDGs, make them more accessible,
providing participants
with new chances to discuss,
explore and connect with the
masterminds behind the latest
innovations across the globe.
There was an official selection
of films curated by the UN SDG
Action Campaign to inspire SDG
actors worldwide to scale up their
action.
Key points I learnt at the festival
includes; there is no democracy
without the youth, a collection
of little actions will generate the
largest positive acts in history, we
need more bravery, tenacity and
innovation to get the message and
importance of SGDS beyond the
usual suspects and actors.
Others include: Our voice,
our power, our solidarity are the
success ingredients for any global
ingredients and if we want to go
far, there has to be unity of inclusiveness.
The festival served as a platform
to share ideas and thoughts
and collaborate with every participant
on how to achieve the
agenda 2030 of the sustainable
development goals.