THE LADY (Cont'd)

Hello!

It’s a new week, I want to believe we are ready to take on this week with a positive mind-set and work to achieve what we couldn’t achieve last week. I was able to get a lot done this past week, mostly meetings, working on content for ‘The Lady Painter’ website (I am so excited about this), shopping for new painting tools and spent some time with family. Anyways, ‘The journey to discovering me’ continues…

I resumed work at the Mortgage Bank feeling cool with myself, that I am finally where I “thought” I should be. It was my first real job and I didn’t know what to expect, I only knew I had to show up at work. So I was asked to work as a business developer in one of the branches at Onikan, Lagos Island. I had been told some terrible things about being a marketer: you are given a huge target of millions of naira, for a woman you might have to sleep your way to meeting your target and all. So I was scared. I was scared that I wouldn’t be able to convince a client to have an account with us, I was scared of having to speak in front of so many people, I was scared that the bank wouldn’t want to retain me after my NYSC. Somehow I survived working as a business developer for almost 2 months and then I wanted more. Yes, I was going out, yes I was meeting clients and getting contacts, I was even able to open a few accounts but it wasn’t enough for me, I got bored doing it. Then I decided I wanted to move to the Operations Unit.

I was excited when I was asked to move to the Operations Unit. Behind the counter, I had to understudy an experienced teller. During the understudy period, I was so eager to get behind a counter with no supervision. I wanted to start attending to customers on my own, debiting and crediting their accounts, counting their money. Well I finally got my own counter and just on that first day, I felt this was finally what it meant to be a banker (LOL!)

On my second day of working behind the counter without supervision, it hit me that this can’t be all that I wanted. I mean, it became a very boring thing to do, I couldn’t imagine me doing that for much longer (debiting and crediting accounts, counting cash and making sure my till was balanced at the end of the day). I started complaining about the job, I asked the experienced tellers how is it that they have been able to do this job for years??? I couldn’t understand it. Yes I totally understand that someone has to do the job, but man! And I found out that they were all not satisfied, they literally hated the job but when I asked why they wouldn’t leave it for something else that would make them happy, they look at me like I was crazy lol , like do I think another job was easy to come by. I suggested they could start a business on the side and make plans to leave, at some point I felt they didn’t understand what I was trying to say. Then I realized I should be worried about myself and think of what else I could do, and I remembered my cleaning business.

I still had about 7 months to complete my NYSC, I did not have capital to start the business. While I was thinking about my business I was also working on moving to another unit (maybe I would be happy there). The only unit left for me to move to in the branch was the Customer Service Unit (CSO). I was a teller for a little over 3 months and I was finally moved to the CSO unit, once again I thought this was it.  After a while of working in the CSO unit (attending to customers enquiries, opening accounts etc) I got tired of the routine and at this point of my life I was scared and frustrated because I thought that this was what my life would be like unless I did something about it.