At the spa today, the owner called a guy at the back to attend to me. He set up his pedicure tools, face lowered and serious looking. I kept trying to find his eyes and say hello, but he never looked at me. I blurted out a greeting, and he grunted. When I compared today’s customer service to the waiter who attended to us last night at Texas Roadhouse, there was a huge difference. I took a cue that the man didn’t want to make small talk, so I brought out my phone and began scrolling on X.
He kept talking on the phone with an earphone while he scrubbed my feet. You could tell that he was a pro at his job, but his silence bothered me. It wasn’t me, I believe; he was just unhappy.
Anyway, after the pedicure, I walked over to the desk for my fingers. The lady in front of me was nicer, smiled often, but needed to delete about “3,000” photographs on her cellphone. She pleaded with me to give her a minute while she tapped each photo for deletion. I waited quietly. Finally, she was ready for me. So we began. When she was done, I asked her the name of the guy who did my pedi. She told me. I asked why he seemed unhappy. She said he’s not usually like that, but he misses his partner.
I paid for the service, withdrew cash, walked up to him, squeezed it into his hands, smiled, and said, “I hope you have a nice weekend.” That was the first time he looked at me and said, “Thank you, honey!”
Thank you, honey??? So all these time I was your honey, but you didn’t look at me? I thought to myself.
I tipped the lady and made a smile gesture with my fingers, and whispered, “Tell Chris to smile more!”
She laughed. I left.
While on a video call with our new financial advisor, he asked us if we wanted to discuss our investment plans separately because there are couples who prefer separate meetings.
I told him: we invest separately, but I’m the chief financial advisor of the family. You can tell us where to put our money, but he trusts my financial decisions and won’t approve anything on this call unless I’m signing up too.
The man laughed.
Throughout the years, I successfully convinced my husband to invest in stocks, bonds, and other savings opportunities. In return, he has seen good growth. Since we don’t have an urgent need for lots of money right now, I tell him to dump it all in investments instead of saving it all in the bank. Banks don’t make you rich!
Fela began telling us about Nigerian leaders as far back as 1989 when he sang Beast of No Nation and he wasn’t wrong!
Many leaders as you see dem
Na different disguise dem dey oh
Animal in human skin
Animal he put a tie oh
Animal he wear agbada
Animal he put a suit oh
The lyrics also mock the concept of human rights given by oppressors:
And together dem wan dash us human rights
Animal wan dash us human rights
Animal can't dash me human rights
Throwback to when I attempted making chocolate popcorn because my children said they wanted it. They tasted it and didn’t touch it again. I ate popcorn until it started coming out of my nose and ears. Don’t listen to children!
A Nigerian in the UK called into a TV show discussing the violence in Belfast. He said it reminded him of the same issues in his country, and then urged the UK government to protect the country for the sake of immigrants even if they don’t want to protect their own people.
I’m not making this up! The video is in the comments.
Being a decent human won’t stop others from being shitty.
My husband posted a product on Marketplace. A woman paid for it to be shipped to her address in Texas. He even confirmed her address in the chat with her. Five days later, the package was delivered, and this woman immediately did a charge back to her credit card. Facebook refunded her while the shipping update showed delivered to her address. We disputed and recovered the money, but I’m always shocked at how wicked humans are. Why would you want to take back your money after placing an order? No complaints, no chats, just straight to the point theft!
I don’t blame animals that detest humans. Humans are terrible.
I regret leasing a car. First, I started a new job and my employer wanted me in the office 3 times a week, so I leased a car. Then 6 months later, they told me to work from home full time. Now I’m stuck with a lease for the next 3 years and can’t return it early and I rarely drive it. The worst part, I pay hundreds of dollars monthly! 😒
One of the things you’ll learn as a contract specialist is attention to detail. You’ll start to notice things you overlooked in the past.
The other day, I was reviewing a proposal and the first thing that caught my eye was the lack of an issue date and effective date, but there was a 30-day valid period. It’s illogical for a proposal to not have dates on it, as this is legally binding. It’s also illogical for a valid period to exist without an issue date. They both go hand in hand!
So I emailed the sender to correct the proposal and resend it. The sender angrily replied that this service has already been rendered and that this proposal was just drafted at the last minute to show what work was done. I told him I can’t approve a proposal with incorrect or incomplete information, and therefore we can’t release payment for it.
It was when I called him on the phone to explain why the proposal wasn’t complete and cannot be processed, that he apologized and resent it.
If someone gave you N100,000 right now and asked you to choose someone else to give it to, would you? I mean, you really need the money, but there could be someone else who urgently needs it. So would you put others before you?
I went to a store, and during checkout, the cashier asked me if I’d like to donate to charity. Sometimes I do, but this time I asked him if the business donates to charity or uses the public donation to front as their own donation. The man stared at me confused, then called the manager to explain. I repeated the question to the manager, and she said it was an interesting question but she wasn’t sure but believed they do.
A customer walking out of the store overheard us and said, “I’ve thought about that too.”
Donation wasn’t the problem, but I needed to understand how some stores take credit for people’s donations. They announce millions of dollars in donations whereas it came from the customers. They use it for tax write-offs too.