You Are Fired...

Just when I thought I could no longer be impressed by the antics of this management types, now this comes up. The art of firing people have taken on a life of its own. I have heard first hand accounts of the " You are fired emails..", "You are fired conference calls" or the "You are not fired, but you need to reapply for you job, then 24 hours later you get a oops my bad, all the available slots have been filled".
Now this is what happened to a friend of mine. They were at a recruitment show, telling the youngings how beautiful their company was, how much job security there was in their own company. How they were better than every other investment bank and how the market share of those who had fallen by the way side was theirs for the taking. Half way into the show those dreaded blackberrys goes off. They all received the much dreaded email at the same time. Some folks where in mid-interviews with potential trainees. Isn't that ironic?

Abeg file this one under perfectly synchronized heart break.

Related Post: The Slaughter

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To The West: A Night In Cocody...

Wale, a Nigerian low level expatriate, he knew the nooks and cranny of Abidjan. He had an ego to boot, you would think he had the key to the city. It's Friday and I am sitting at the 27th floor of an office building in Plateux (Abidjan's CBD). I am patiently waiting for Wale to wrap up his unending series of phone calls. I look down to the street and I see people scuttling toward the park, hopping onto Woroworos (mini-bus, danfo, tuke tuke). Wale lifts his head up, covering the mouth-piece of the telephone with his palm, and says, 'it is on tonight'.
We head to L'hotel Ivoire, on our way we are stopped by some gendarmie (mobile police, oh yes in Africa we have entire units of SWAT teams making sure the roads are safe). Wait a minute this dude isn't supposed to stop us, we were driving a marked car, we are now working up some anger, and practiced a line or two of our phony American accent. The guy takes one look at us, we chorus 'Hi', and he hisses and goes L'American. We nod, and he waves for us to go ahead. Aha, works every time.
The skating rink is broken, the ice partially melted, since there isn't liability insurance in Africa we pass on that one. I end up sitting back sipping some local brew and watch Wale play table tennis with a drunk, pot-bellied, French man, in his Hanes underpant. Oh yes Abidjan is as hot as Lagos, with a smelly lagoon too. Oh how all those French paint and chemical plants polluted the water day in day out.
It is dark now its time to party, I never knew techno melded so well with mapouka, as I dance the night away with my logobi moves (sorry I can not describe this, it involved a lot of booty shaking though). I ought to mention that Ivorien's are healthy people, wink, wink, all that rump shaking was a delight to watch. This was one night I would live to remember, everything went well until the French folks started throwing off my rythm on the dance floor. As we walked towards the car that night, I thought to myself, the beat did start from Africa.
A couple of days later, I was woken by the sound of mortar, nothing was on TV. We get a call from pop's office asking us to vamoose to the airport asap.Thank God it was only me and pop that time. As we made our way towards the airport, the only cab we could get, driven by some greedy Nigerian guy who charged us enough money to build a tiny bungalow, I looked back at Cocody, it was so serene and so beautiful. I miss Abidjan.

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Blackberry Brigade: The Slaughter...

Earlier this week Mr Greenspan used the 'R' word, analyst were up in arms, waving his commentary off, the rants of an old man well past his prime, they said. How dare you Mr Greenspan use such abominable words as recession to describe our strapping economy. An economy so promising one would think, for a moment, that we were reliving the late nineties all over again. Oh well, the first Dow correction was written off as a glitch in the system, the second dip was a nuance, we would put that on the account of unscrupulous China. There is no point arguing with the Economists who have successfully predicted 10 out of the last 5 recessions. My focus is on the guy on the streets, the broker, the sales person, the account manager and the relationship manager. I am talking about the Blackberry Soldier.

The Blackberry Soldier..

The blackberry wielding, PDA flashing, smart phone flipping, messenger bag carrying individual, he comes complete with a sweet mouth. He has the paraphernalia of the busy and multi-tasking squad. His income depends solely on how many emails he can reply in sixty seconds. He is risk loving, and earns a premium on the risk.

The Slaughter...

Since November of '06, the soldier has been at war with the economy, hanging on for dear life. This week the battle was lost, it was a massacre, there is blood on the streets. Three major investment banks closed shop today, thousands of workers in finance lost their jobs today. The soldier was left with not barrack to retire to. Imagine this, you arrive at work in the morning and there is a notice on the door, all operations are suspended, and you find yourself without a job. Management didn't have the decency to allow the staff to reyrieve clippings of Homer Simpson on the office bulletin board.

The warriors dilemma...

How will the bills get paid? Mortgage, car note, Brooks Brothers credit card, black-berry bill, LOL. I should not be laughing, this are perilous times. Suddenly that aerodynamic Saab becomes a burden rather than a status symbol. Chei... if only he was informed of things to come, shey he would have chilled on the happy hour thing, saved some money. All those burnt bridges, friends abandoned forthe sake of the 'career'. Missed family hook-ups and cook-outs, all for the sake of climbing the corporate ladder.

Capitalism will play the working class over and over, leaving us with the short end of the stick. We shrug it off, and we live to fight another day. My heart goes out to all those who lost their jobs today and throughout the month of February. I leave you with the sound track from Hustle & Flow, It's hard out here for a pimp...

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To The West...Khartoum

I was having some 'me' time this Saturday, I had my play-list set to Afro, the label for my African song collection. As the tunes played, one after the other, it brought back memories of Africa. Not only Nigeria, but Khartoum, Abidjan before the political turmoil, Tunis my new home and of course Ibadan the land of rusty rooftops and burly black men.
Khartoum
As I. K. Dairo's Fi ona Mi han mi, spewed forth from my speakers, it brought back memories. I remembered the hot Sudanese sun. You could not get anything done during the day, the sun saw to it that one was disoriented. My Dad would play I. K. Dairo and Orlando Owoh on rotation in the Toyota Hiace pick-up truck whenever we went to get Ice cream in Khartoum Talata. Khartoum must be the city with the largest ratio of pick-up to sedans. Over time I. K. Dairo became quite an acquaintance of mine, my whistling was in perfect harmony with his accordion, as he belted those melodious tunes in succession. Those were the days.
I remember Sharaf and Samira, they tried to migrate to Nigeria, with us, they where good people. They envied the free society. Time after time I would go on picnics, with some Sudanese college students, and their ways never ceased to amuse me. We would drive for two hours to a particular citrus plantation. We would then sit under the shades of the trees, sing and then clap for hours, they would then proceed to swim in the upstream side of the dam. Boys would swim and the girls would remain under the trees telling stories. In those days toasting a woman was frowned upon. I do not know if this still remains the status quo.
I remember Chidi, he drove a Mercedes Benz S-Class and lived like a king, right there in the desert. If you asked him how he pulled this feat off, he'd reply, I am a trader. I recall the American club vividly where expatriates mingled and exchanged stories about encounters with the locals. One had to get through a bomb detector before admission into this club/compound. The giant burger was very good. The food was free and locals were not allowed in. I remember the Greek comedian, he still the funniest person I have ever dealt with one on one. He confided in me that he still believed that Benin girls were the best at taking care of a man in the bed department. This was news to my fifteen years old self.
I remember being caught in the middle of the Ethiopia-Sudan feud of the mid 90's. I was stuck in Addis-Ababa(the city of flowers) since Ethiopian Airlines had some beef with the Sudanese government. My time in Addis was put to good use, I hope to write the story some other time. The story includes, smoking palors, Jamiacans, touts, lost in translation, and the police. Wheeew that was a close call. Keep in mind all of these happened in the 90's.
For some reason whenever I read any article about Dafur I see a vivid parallel with Nigeria and all other troubled spots in Africa, the economic savvy Arabs, the political (brown guys..I do not recall what this ethnic group is called) and the persecuted blacks int he south. The forces of oppression, are the same everywhere, same ole familiar problems just another country. I miss the restaurants on the boats on the bank of river Nile.
Will be back with some more disjointed gist of Abidjan and Tunis.

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