Sunday, 16th May 2021
Monday
It was my last shift, my last night on the phones. And so, I didn’t mind too much when I had one of those annoying respondents. You know, the ones who think they know more than the researchers who have put together the questions of the study—a study that has been running successfully for many years. Rather than just answer a simple question, or at least, say that it does not apply to them, they treat me to a long tirade. Which is often ironic because such conversations invariably start with a snippy remark about how little time they have to spare.
“That question is inappropriate,” he told me. “Don’t you know what has been happening to the hospitality sector? Nobody is working now. Why would you ask me that? Absolutely no one in my sector is able to work at the moment. Your question makes no sense and neither does this survey.”
I tried to explain to him that the purpose of the survey was to get a sense of what people might be doing, including if they were unemployed, and especially if this was as a result of the pandemic. But it was no use.
I figured that it was also going to be useless to point out to him that, as a matter of fact, not everyone was jobless as a result of the dire situation in the hospitality sector. There were lots of people I had spoken to who had pivoted and were up to something else, and that, actually, my question “Were you in paid employment in that week?” was not a foolish one to ask. In his case, the answer was clearly “no”, but he was completely wrong in assuming that it was the same for everyone else. That was the point of asking people these “senseless” questions: avoiding the pitfalls of assumption was sort of why people conducted surveys.
However, as I say, he was not going to be convinced. After he was done telling me off for my inappropriate and useless survey, he politely declined to continue and put the phone down. Some people cannot be helped, I thought with a mental shrug and dialled the next number. At least, it was my final phone shift. I would never have to deal with this again.
***
Tuesday
“So, as part of your induction, you will all do a shift on the phones—just to get a sense of what it’s like in the telephone interviewing department.”
This was the HR manager speaking, at the welcome meeting the next morning, to all the new starters.
Chai!
Apart from that awkward development, it was a great first day. It really is a great company to work for, and everyone was friendly and supportive. I am excited to be learning so many new things, and to discover a whole new side of myself.
Speaking of which, I might already be on the brink of the first shift in my personality.
A few days before my first day, Jay insisted that I make an effort. (Remember Jay? She’s my very best friend in the whole world. Read more about her here and here). She scolded me in advance for the shabbiness I was likely going to carry on top of my head for my first Zoom meeting.
“You better do your hair! And put on some makeup. And earrings! And a nice blouse! You have to look fine from the chest up.” She was adamant, and I was instructed to send photo evidence of my compliance.
Therefore, that weekend, I shampooed, conditioned, and oiled my hair for the first time in I’d rather not say. And in the early hours of my first day, I sat in front of a mirror and sectioned the hair (with Lu’s help), trimmed it, and then twisted it into something interesting. Hair done, I turned to my outfit.
Now, you should know that I have teased Lu mercilessly about his tendency to iron his clothes before he wears them.
You are part of a dying breed, I have said to him, proudly standing inside my creased clothes, the sentiment of owning irons and ironing boards will soon be extinct.
He does not appreciate my comments. But he ignores me and continues to iron everything he wears—even his jeans.
Me, I grab and go, and will shut down anyone who challenges me with a “who says clothes fibres were supposed to lie flat?” kind of response. I iron nothing. Not even linen trousers, which, when retrieved from the laundry basket, looks about as smooth as used aluminium foil. But I don’t care: if it is creased, then that is the way it will stay.
That is, until Tuesday morning.
When I tried to send a photo to Jay for approval, I gave a long hard look at the blouse I had ‘grabbed and gone’, and I realised that my arrogance had to stop somewhere. I could not appear before my new work colleagues looking like that. And so, making sure that Lu was out of sight, I quietly brought down the iron and the ironing board.
Blouse straightened out, I turned to my face. Jay had insisted on makeup, but the last time I put any on was at Mr President’s birthday in August 2019. The time before that was at Lil Sis’s wedding in October 2018. To start wearing makeup regularly would be too big a change. So, I compromised. Leaving all else untouched, I pushed some lipstick back and forth across my lips. I was ready. I took another photo and sent that to Jay.
She approved. But do I? This person with clean hair, ironed clothes, and red lips—was she me now? And if so, what was next? Clothes that belong in this decade? Shoes with intact soles? Matching jewellery?
Or—dare I think it—unholey socks? No. That would be pushing things very far. I refuse to change quite that much.
***
Wednesday
Something that does need to change though is my inexperience with ‘office life’.
“What do you mean when you say I should ‘Zoom you’?”
“Wait, you said you would ‘check the diary’—what diary?”
“Hang on, how do I send you what’s on my screen?”
“Right, so, how do I optimise my email rules again?”
“Sorry, just remind me: how do I attach a file to an email on Outlook?”
That last one was ridiculous. I mean, I know how to send an attachment with an email. There’s that button with a paperclip on it. You just click it, and the rest is easy. It’s just, I couldn’t find the button with the paperclip on it. So, I panicked and started to just click everything. That didn’t work either. Then it was time for a Zoom meeting and the link included, by the meeting scheduler, on Outlook calendar (that’s ‘the diary’ by the way)—well, that link wasn’t clicking. I didn’t know how to get into the meeting, the email wasn’t letting me attach a file to it, and I didn’t want to ask anyone any more silly questions.
I abandoned the email, copied and pasted the link to a new browser and once in, I smiled like the capable user of technology that I’m not. One day, I’ll get it. Until then, I can fake it like the best of them.
***
Thursday
“Mummy, it’s five o’ clock. You’re not supposed to be working.”
“Mummy, are you done yet?”
“Mummy, when can we go to the park?”
“Mummy, can you come and watch me ride my bike?”
“Mummy, I don’t like your new job.”
A whole new dimension of guilt has started to creep into my mind. Like a bad smell that is at first only slightly perceptible, it is making its way to the centre, where it will make sure it is no longer ignored.
The boys will be fine, I keep being told. You are not the first, I am reminded. They will adapt, is the reassurance. And I need it, often.
It was nice the first few days to be able to spend the evenings with them. They had cheered loudly when I told them that I didn’t have to go up anymore at 5PM to work those evening shifts. Suddenly there was a lovely opportunity to have me available, on more days than just the weekend, to make their dinners, give them long relaxing baths and read their bedtime stories.
However, when it became clear what the trade-off was, they weren’t quite sure they preferred the new arrangement.
It will take some getting used to, I know, and they will adapt. But until then, and maybe even after then, what do I do with this weight on my chest that is slowly getting heavier? Have I made a terrible mistake? I have three (three!) small boys. Am I ridiculous to think I can have a full-time job? Even if it’s one I really enjoy, or one that pays an income we really need right now?
Most of the time, I know the answer to these questions, and, often, after a quick prayer to God to help me continue to trust Him, I feel better. He’s looked after us all this while, why do I fear that He will stop now?
If I am honest, things could not have fallen into place more beautifully. My job started just as Lu’s classes finished, leaving him available to look after them during the day. This will be the arrangement until he submits his dissertation, and when he will be looking to go back to working in an office, from September, all three boys will be in school (or preschool) full-time. In the meantime, right now, mine is a remote position, allowing for a slow transition, and even when it’s not and I have to go in, it won’t be every day. God’s hand is in this.
So, they will be fine, and so will I.
This is what I told myself, on Thursday evening, as I rushed around gathering ingredients to bake fairy cakes with them—an activity that would surely result in a late bedtime (it did) but would undoubtedly fill them with glee (it did). And, perhaps, assuage my guilt for not being there all day. (It did.)
***
Friday
Can I just ask: why is it so hard to do something as simple as take my children swimming? For this reason alone, I would move back to Lagos, where finding a body of water into which to put three small paddlers is not such a feat.
Timi has been asking for months to go to the swimming pool. At first it was a case of, the pools are closed because of the virus. And then it was a case of, Daddy is really busy with this coursework now and there needs to be two adults to go with. Now that the pools and Lu’s schedule are open, I cannot, for love of dodo or puff puff, book a place.
I have tried three weeks in a row. I was either too late, too early, or too late again. Each week, I am sitting with a crushed Timi trying to explain why we might have to wait until the next weekend to go swimming and struggling to find something more exciting we could do that weekend instead.
So far, I have come up with nothing.
This past Friday, I was in that position again, desperate to draw his mind away from swimming by providing a more thrilling alternative. That combined with the ‘mummy-the-abandoner’ guilt I had been feeling all week, I was determined to please. This is why when they asked, at ten minutes to bedtime, whether they could go outside to cycle, I said yes.
So it was that at 7:50PM, my boys were laughing and messing about in the front yard. Until there was loud crash and Tomi came running to us crying, with pink patches of exposed flesh all down the side of his face.
Lu grabbed him and ran to the bathroom while I tried to bring Timi and Temi back inside. I could hear Tomi insisting hysterically, as he does whenever he’s hurt, no matter the time of day, that he wanted to go to bed. Timi went up and then promptly ran back down, looking torn between despair and excitement, to report that there was “blood all over Tomi’s face”.
I went up to investigate. Lu was trying to clean his lip, which looked a terrible mess. I winced. This was the third time in two weeks that same side of my clumsy boy’s lip had been cut. This time, though, it looked much worse than the earlier two minor injuries. Lu thought so too, and promptly lifted him up.
“He might need stitches. I’ve got to go.”
Half an hour later, he called me from A&E. He had rushed out without his phone, so he had had to use one from the reception desk.
“He might need a plastic surgeon…might have to be put under general anaesthetic…must always wear a helmet when cycling…no don’t cry…it’s not your fault.”
But how could it not be? At the time when he was tumbling over his bicycle handlebars, he should have been having a warm bath. I’d allowed my stupid feelings of guilt to cloud my judgement. And now I was feeling guilty about that.
***
Saturday
In the end, Tomi was fine. He didn’t need stiches or surgery. His lip was badly cut and looked a bit like corned beef on the inside (and a balloon on the outside) but he was fine. It would heal, they said. We just had to let him rest.
And so, we did. Instead of coming up with some more-thrilling-than-swimming activity for the day, we just pottered around the house. Lu did the laundry, I made the grocery list, and the boys just vegged.
Later, when my list was finished (and I sensed they were getting fed up with TV), I decided to take them to the shops with me. It meant that the weekly chore took me three times the amount of time and effort it usually does, but it was worth it to see the happiness on their faces as they whizzed down the aisles of Morrison’s with those child sized trolleys. It wasn’t quite the thrilling activity I’d imagined, but at least no one mentioned swimming for the rest of the day.
***
Sunday
The forecast today predicted rain, so my plan to take the boys to play in EO and NO’s garden was looking dicey. EO had been quite unwell the week before so Tomi had had to endure a week at Preschool without him, and he’d asked after him every day.
After Tomi’s “humdrum day”—his words, not mine—the day before, I knew he would really enjoy an afternoon with EO. All the boys would—if the weather would allow us to be great.
At one o’ clock, it hadn’t rained yet and the previous forecast of noon-rain had moved to 2PM. Then, at two, I saw that it had moved to 3PM.
Having learned the hard way (with piles of wet unhung clothes) to not waste favourable weather by anticipating its unpleasant sister’s arrival, I turned the TV off, ensured all bladders were emptied, and marched all four of my men into the car.
I’m glad I did. The boys had a blast, and so did Lu and I. With OO and DO, we ate, chatted, drank, and chased after five very excitable pikins. And the rain? It trickled down for about three minutes, at 7PM when we were getting ready to leave. Imagine if I had planned my day around it. Hian.
Anyway, our lovely afternoon out means that I didn’t start writing until this evening. Which, in turn, is why this is a particularly rambly post. I better stop now—it’s getting very late.
***
Photo by Suhyeon Choi on Unsplash
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