Bob, the 39 years old & only child of a multimillionaire CEO of a Mississauga-based publishing consortium is an enigma of a character you can not afford to ignore. The two Phd’s holder naturalized Canadian of Greece descent has the best education money can buy having attended the most prestigious institutions in & out of Ontario, Canada.
He’s single &, of course, a nonreligious celibate as he’s married to his career as the group MD of the family business situated in an expansive estate.
Bob is elegant in gait and mien and equally given to good, affable & quality life!
He’s a beautiful dresser, connoisseur of elite recipe & a chèf at barbecue rendezvous.
The family business interests that boast of lucrative investments in real estate, inter continental online merchandise, shipping, publishings etc are as seamlessly numerous as the tentacles of an octopus!
I’ve been a recluse for weeks, almost living like a monk in a monastery & my disposition naturally & unreservedly loathes, nay, abhors inaction.
At almost 65, I believe I’m still fecund enough to be productive. Indeed, I had protested & craved for a cerebrally challenging endeavour!
My hosts here do not even either help matters as their scheduled daily routine for me was: wake up, eat, sleep, eat, sleep, cycling, computer room, eat, picnics, time at the gym/community library, eat, extensive commuting, worship time…etc, eat & sleep.
One would think I was in for a fattening session.
It all soon became sorely boring!
Then this catchy advert…!
The online job advert had read, in parts & in paraphrase;
Proof reader/amateur editor (English Language) on volunteer service or paid employment needed.
No age limit, experience & academic qualification not a condition but knowledge of an additional international language, especially French, shall be an advantage.
There shall, however, be a 4-hour writing, reading, pronunciation, spelling & aural comprehension test.
Employers, here, in Canada, emphasize cognate experience & on-beat
skilled performance rather than undue preference of ineffectual paper qualification!
Canada is bilingual & indeed, French is the official language of Quebec. Ontario, however, is officially bilingual. The two are provinces of Canada!
Out of the 33 examinees; (13 male & 20 female) from 11 nations & of the 7 continents, I had come tops!
Even as a junior amateur desk editor, I was rated a pro sequel to my performance at the qualifying/selection test & as attested to by the sheer quality quantum of my job output.
Ontario, like the remaining 9 provinces of Canada, is a multi racial settlement, a peaceful place to live, free of gun-trotting/triggers-happy racists.
Just like the USA prides being the policeman of the world, Canadians enjoy, cherish & are quick to defend this enviable global unanimity of not only having a peaceful country but being the most immigrants friendly settlement in the inhabited world.
Canada is as such heterogeneous & multinational that, for example, a neighboring congregation of my faith, here in Mississauga, parades, unbelievably, 123 regular congregants from 37 nations/tongues!
Three of the applicants are Nigerians; Chika, a single mother from Imo State, Tarkumba, male from Benue & myself from Ekiti. Only myself from Nigeria & three others were successful & finally hired, on probation.
Humbly, I do not consider myself better than any of the other candidates but my proficiency & ease of flow in French Language which I adroitly handle like my native Yoruba Language surely must have given me a clear leverage!
A huge heap of write-ups arrive my desk & which I must studiously burrow through &, willy nilly, daily, turn out, error free.
Errors of grammar, punctuation, facts & printer’s devil; all must be arrested on my desk & spared the eagle eyes of Bob, my MD & supervisor.
I work myself silly nuts, burning the late night candle…doing all to be at my best to enable my appointment merit confirmation & in record time.
Others, as led by Bob, tauntingly refer to me as Nigeria, causing me needless distraction & discomfort!
I had given up hope on rejection of this toga & the possibility of correcting them that I’m Johnson & not Nigeria.
Rather than giving me accolades for being the best hand in the editing pool, lampooning discussions often drift to leadership ineptitude, unemployment, unpaid wages & general insecurity, especially the horrific havoc being wreaked by herdsmen-kidnappers & bandits etc in Nigeria.
Then came this fateful Thursday morning.
Bob had cynically asked, “Nigeria, how are wages paid in your country”…”how often?”
“Once in 2 or 3 months…?”
“How do workers manage?”
“Is it true that people scavenge from waste bins to feed …?”
“Why can’t they go to court…?”
“No unions…?” “…no trade arbitration bodies?”
“Are these stories ever true…despite the world-acclaimed abundant natural resources in your country?”
All sorts of questions….from the most sordid to the egregiously ridiculous!
Do you blame Bob?
In Ontario & possibly generally in Canada, much as I know, minimum wage is $14/hour (#627,200/month) for both public & private endeavours & hired skills.
It’s also unimaginable that wage payment can be delayed for an hour, even services like electricity, piped-borne water, transportation, postal, communication, waste disposal, etc are, like the God-given air, taken for granted….!
I was aghast, with my heart in my mouth & almost not believing myself, I retorted, “Bob, things are getting better in Nigeria; in my state, for example, the Governor, on his first day in office, hit the ground running & I’m cock sure he’ll, subsequently pay wages monthly & at the very latest, by the second day of the following month.”
Bob replied, “I’ll bet $1000 for each of the months of May & June, 2019 if workers’ wages were as thus paid early by your Governor” & then he added “but news has it that your leaders had frittered off the treasury of all workers’ emoluments”.
Then Bob took the next ten minutes telling, whoever that cared to listen, how the vampire Nigerian leadership class have deftly used the insidiously polarising & divisive instruments of religion & ethnicity to destroy whatever remained of cohesion amongst the citizenry, nay, the downtrodden majority.
He continued that with the induced disillusionment in the camp of the marginalized, the have-not & the wretched of the earth, the final rape & pillage of the already cornered national treasury is being continuously & gradually consummated.
That was all on Thursday, May 23, 2019.
One of the rare low times one is tempted to wonder why one was born a Nigerian!
As if I had not been enough, rough shod, run over for the day, I got back to the apartment to discover that Joe, my cousin had sent in a repulsively abusive mail from Nigeria.
Joe is cocky, vain & unduly self-opiniative. He has garnered the unenviable notoriety of being an albatross on the neck, the black sheep of the family. He’s an enfant terrible, a gold digger & a spoilt braggart.
He had wasted his youth on debauched living akin to the biblical prodigal son.
Surely, one sad spot too many & for a single day!
I had run off from the jeers in the office into the ambush of Joe’s lethal jabs.
I first felt an eerie/uneasy feeling of forebodings of ill fortune but I sensed it might rather be a herald of budding goodwill.
Self consolation was not far fetched for on March 3rd, earlier in the year, the same day I bagged the job, Joe had doused my joy with a long winding repulsive kill-joy call from home for the usual/unending financial assistance.
He has needlessly caused me heartache twice; first on the same day I bagged the job & the other, the day Bob dared me with the $2000 challenge.
I have, however, protested the two cases of insubordination to a corps of elders of our family, seeking redress.
Though not superstitious, I knew I had won Bob’s betting deal since any act of rebuff from Joe correspondingly devolves into good fortune for me.
So to say, as Joe serially yanks the mat off under my feet, each time I have an occasion to rejoice, destabilising me into stupor & a near devastating crash, so Jah keeps spreading his fluffy soothing rug of succor!
It was 5pm Tuesday, July 2nd, 2019 Nigeria time but 12 noon in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Lagos is 5 clear hours ahead of Toronto!
Lo & behold, there it was on my cell phone the payment alert for June, 2019 pension!
The following day, Wednesday, July 3rd, I had kept praying on the tram bus, on my way to work, against any olive branch from Joe as that could portend ill luck!
Please recall that for months running Joe had needlessly made a sworn enemy of me, refusing being on talking terms with me in protest of my stoppage of his continued overindulgence of harvesting where he did not sow.
I have progressively over a period of twenty years invested in him with but zero dividends. He’s impossible, a ripoff & a bad biz!
I’ve since learnt that most immigrants here, especially from the non developed world, have their variants of the Joe story narrative.
The scenario has sadly been concomitantly precipitated by bad leadership & harsh economic situation back home.
I almost ran from the walkway into the elevator and to the 17th floor of the high rise building where the office is holed!
“Nigeria, I warned you, you would lose out.” Bob was jovially thumbing my nose.
“Must you disturb this early morning seeing this much on my desk…I have to speedily scan through?”, I queried as I pointed to the heap of job entreating my attention.
He went on, “Give me $2000, right away or credit me later in the day, as you always have Thursdays & Fridays, alternately, off”.
“Did you hear that, Nigeria?”
“I beg your pardon, I’m Johnson. Please, address me properly or you burn & rubbish the deal”, I could not believe myself saying.
” Ok, Mr Johnson, can I have our deal; the $2000?”, derisively pleaded Bob.
I shoved under his nose my June pension payment alert.
Bob, staring in utter disbelief & almost choking, cocked his right index finger, inviting me into the inner cubicle of his personal office where he immediately paid me & in full.
As I made to take my leave of him, he soberly submitted, “Nigerians individually are exceedingly resourceful…”
“I’ve read intriguing encounters of worthy Nigerians; how they have made indelible marks in their sundry callings & fields of endeavour…”
“…But the contraption of an entity called Nigeria, however, is a failed project!”
He further rhetorically quizzed,
“Hasn’t the historical amalgamation of Nigeria failed?”
“The North has not only retarded the growth of the South but has wantonly underdeveloped it, especially, the Southwest!”
“Religion too is another bane…”
Bob was to continue but I patted his forearm & said, “We’ll talk, later; work hours are burning”.
I wasn’t ready for the saddening truth of the blessed Nigeria having become a parry in the comity of nations!
Two earlier events are worthy of mention.
On June 14th, the Toronto Raptors, Bob’s favourite basketball team became the first Canadian team to be crowned NBA Champions having walloped the USA Golden State Warriors 114-110 to win the series 4 games to 2.
Monday, July 1st, 2019 also was Canadian 152nd independence anniversary & the two occasions were marked with pomp & pageantry by Canadians.
Bob actually hosted a lavish gig (at which I officiated as support MC) to celebrate each of the events at the family’s splendidly furnished country home at Oakville beach, Milton Town.
Does the prompt payment of the $2000 by Bob testify to his worthy character & affirm my assessment of him as a man of his words or was I only riding on the waves of the infectious joyous mood of the moment?
Time will, however, tell.
Characteristic of me, I chose an auspicious time, later in the day, to make a loud announcement of the $2000 deal to the entire staff.
Bob has since been off my neck but I’ll keep taunting him…breathing down his neck until he confirms my appointment & recommends me for upward pay rise review & promotion!
Bravo!
JKF paid May, 2019 pension by the 27th of the month & June pension by July 2nd!
Had JKF reneged on his promise of prompt & regular payment of wages & pension, I would’ve been indebted to the tune of $2000, lost space & voice in the office, browbeaten & become Bob’s continual foot mat.
How else do I end this story other than in the manner with which I started?
JKF Made Me Win $2000 (CAD)!
To Be Continued…
Niyi Oladimeji
Toronto, Canada