Dispute Resolution 101: Make it a reasonable and respectful appeal to their good nature

The sweet fragrance of language

Just a few hours after someone suggested that the way I write is ornate, I had to dig into the reserves of that sometimes flowery and elegant use of the English language to dispute a penalty fine and write an appeal.

As I was about to pay for a service yesterday, I found that my bank card had been blocked, a penalty fine had been applied to my account that my bank in their probably aggressive fraud checks decided was questionable, so they held up the transaction and blocked my card.

Looking up what had happened, our local transport service provider had applied a penalty charge on my card for my journey back home from the hospital, I got a bit emotional.

Banking on prudent checks

My bank sent a text message early in the morning to ask if I recognised the transaction, I knew the vendor, but I did not recognise the one-handed cash grab, something inadvertent had happened, and this was grounds for appeal.

I disputed the charge, called the bank and at the third time of asking the obsequious and unintelligent bot, it handed me over to a human being. It eventually realised, “Can I speak to a human being?” meant just that.

The bank with their layers of security and protocols lifted the pending charge but said I must contact the vendor and be ready to prove that I had done that as part of the dispute resolution process. My card was unblocked, and then I logged on to the vendor site to address the matter of penalty fares.

Circumstances are part of the story

My visit to the hospital left me a bit troubled but I also wanted to stop along the way back home to do some shopping. Using my phone, I tapped the contactless reader at the beginning of my journey and disembarked at the next stop. 

That was where I had forgotten to tap out for that journey. 30 minutes later, after doing my shopping, I was back at the same stop where I tapped in again and remembering my earlier mistake, I tried to tap again, but the system indicated I was tapping in twice.

I boarded the tram and at the following stop ticket inspectors got on and checked passengers for evidence of valid travel tickets for their journeys, my phone bleeped their device and I thought that was the situation resolved. I then tapped out at my destination and walked home. The penalty charge of £60 came 2 days later.

The scaffolding of an appeal

Thankfully, my phone records the exact times of tapping the contactless reader, with all the series of taps documented. After filling in the mandatory fields on the vendor website, these were the characteristics of my appeal and dispute.

• I shared the circumstances and my state of mind after my hospital visit.
• I logged every instance of using the contactless reader and agreed that I might have forgotten to tap out at the first stop out of the distraction indicative of my hospital visit.
• I then detailed all the other encounters before appealing that these were extenuating circumstances to rescind both the penalty fine and any further proceedings related to the journeys of the said day.
• I closed my appeal by thanking them for their understanding.

Appeal by appealing to their good nature

Now, I have seen appeals and disputes written by some rather more erudite and learned people than me, everything suggested their appeal would not be successful for many reasons. They were angry, ranting and raving about the system, projecting their superiority and emotions into their arguments, and making demands and threats.

The whole reason for an appeal is to appeal to the good nature of whoever might read your disputation. You do this respectfully knowing they have a job to do, you invite them to walk in your shoes, so they are persuaded to see things from your perspective and engage others if there is an escalation, to agree with your viewpoint.

You appreciate what they do and ask for their consideration of what you desire, a refund without dragging out the dispute, then close the appeal with thanks.

Do what works not what rankles

The art of effective communication is in the use of language and the appreciation and respect of the reader. It has worked for me in many places, at work, in business, and in my general writing, especially for formal communication. Deploy the skill deftly.

When I need to be fierce, ranting, debunking, condemning, and excoriating, that only applies to other issues where I am not seeking a dispute resolution in an appeal process.

Yes, my appeal was successful, I will be refunded the penalty charge, that is what I wanted to achieve and nothing more. The lesson is that the tap-in tap-out system works best when there are barrier gates at the entry and exit points, else, if you forget, the system is not as forgiving as you might expect.

The person who reviewed my appeal did say, “As it appears you intended to touch in for this journey, we have upheld your appeal on this occasion. We will shortly be refunding £60 to your account and recalculate your charges for the day to what you would have paid had the correct touches been made.” They came onside and were amenable to my wishes. That is what matters.

Love Thy Neighbour - II

Neighbours always matter

Early this morning, I found myself answering a question posed on Twitter that garnered a lot of interest and it stated, “Single people who live alone, who takes care of you when you’re ill?”

Much as I do not follow the original poster on Twitter, as it had come up on my timeline, I felt there was a need to answer the question from my own experience. This became even more pertinent when I read some responses, many of which suggested people just took care of themselves, though I guess ill to them was probably mild or just being indisposed, as in slightly unwell.

If ill were to involve having to be admitted to hospital or incapacitation due to serious or terminal disease where agency and ability are severely limited, you would hardly be doing things yourself because you just cannot. That is where I have a story that I have written about in a few blogs that will be referenced below this piece.

My answer was: “Neighbours and friends, that's when I realised loving my neighbour as myself was for my safety, not an inconvenience. I had cancer, I was in the hospital for 18 days and when I returned home, I had literally no strength for anything, my neighbours came to help with everything.” [Twitter]

Blog - Love Thy Neighbour (October 2009)

Cultivate neighbourliness

I went on to develop the context of my response about cultivating neighbourliness because when something happens to you, it is probably your neighbours who will need to attend to you first and then contact others that need to know about your situation.

“Cultivate neighbourliness, put the effort in knowing the people living around you, make conversation and further, socialise, invite them for tea or dinner. There are times when having your neighbour check on you might be the only help you have before family and friends know.” [Twitter]

Another thing I wanted to stress about neighbours was that there might be no similarities or commonalities between you and your neighbours, but just the proximity of living spaces. You have to be ready to embrace their humanity in all its difference and diversity just as the Good Samaritan to the stranger.

I could imagine the surprise of some when I said my closest neighbour that did my laundry, some cooking, collected my medication from the pharmacy and did some shopping amongst other things were a Dutch and French-German couple.

Neighbours are your safety

We had cultivated our relationship for years, they were always on the lookout for me, when they first moved in, I welcomed them, they could use my parking space, I celebrated the birth of their children, and if I was in town, we would spend New Year's Eve together into the early hours of the New Year. I was frequently invited for dinner, they were family. A decade after I left the Netherlands, we are still in contact, and I will forever owe a debt of gratitude to them.

Without trying to rewrite blogs that I have written before as this is just to reiterate the usefulness of neighbourliness, I conclude with a saying that became my guide for every place that I have lived. “Love thy neighbour as thyself is not an inconvenience, it is for your safety.”

Blog - Love thy neighbour and bike off

On my own terms with my own story

In the quest for self-respect

One morning 4 years ago, I exited a telephone conference that was not going well and walked out a job of three years at Barclays Bank. Things came to a head out of a growingly irretrievable relationship with my manager who was appointed to head the team I was in just 6 months before.

I could not put my finger on it, but in attitude, tone, demeanour, and much else including microaggressions, matters had deteriorated for reasons he only could say for his lack of respect, or courtesy towards me. The many times decisions for which my input was required got to me through indirect, if not unintended means.

Too many times, I tried to have meetings to discuss issues that he would not commit to. As I tried to engage his peers to intervene, not much traction was gained. My role progressively reduced in significance to the point that I was a mere box-shifter called in to firefight where my knowledge was material but with no acknowledgement of my contribution.

I was done with it

Much as it seemed a cushy job, it was also soul-destroying and that conference where it came down to being asked whether I was going to do it or not. A mundane task precipitated by a colleague who had walked the boards from a junior to his position and probably would never get that status in any other organisation.

I looked for the most senior person around, handed in my badge, my laptop, and my phone, whilst being asked if I was sure of what I was doing. I was more than sure; I was done with it. I left without a notice period, called the taxi company, and returned home.

I told my own story

Later, I called the agency to inform them of my decision and then wrote a comprehensive notice of my abrupt resignation which was copied to the other managers I had served during my time there. Sadly, in a response from one of the managers who I had reported to for almost two years, he said, there are two sides to the story.

I thanked him for his consideration which was in reality a dispassionate view of my situation. My ex-manager himself never had the courtesy to respond to my letter, not once. It was disturbing, but not too surprising. He eventually was let go of a few months after I left. I can’t even remember his surname; he is that forgettable.

Out of this came other opportunities, even one where a consultant I was working with recommended me for work with his company and this presented a thriving development as I completed a 30-year career. When I think about it, this was my story, whether I was believed, or anyone needed to hear the other side did not make any difference to what I experienced and how I told it. I am grateful for my life; it is mine and no one else’s.

South Africa: Rubbish!

Rubbish everywhere

As an outside observer in South Africa where every day seems to present scandal, impunity, ineptitude and corruption as headlines, nothing better exemplifies a fundamental dysfunction in this society than the sight of refuse strewn over the streets in Johannesburg City centre.

For weeks, there has been a workers’ dispute with their employers, the waste management company, Pikitup and basically, no waste or rubbish has been picked up for quite a while.

The problem is not so much that the rubbish has piled up on the pavements and at lampposts, but that to exacerbate a seriously deteriorating situation, some agents of anarchy have taken to a kind of muck-racking that involves spreading the heaps of rubbish out onto the roads in a deliberate attempt to accentuate the inconvenient sights and create a reprehensible eyesore.

Rubbished heads

Yet, all is not at ease in South Africa in what appears to be a problem with placemen in charge of various organisations who appear to have lost the confidence of both their staff and the public.

At South African Airlines, the South African Broadcasting Corporation and the South African Weather Service, people have been demanding the heads of the chiefs and none either by the hand of the government or by plain indifference in defending the indefensible is ready to leave.

In another dispute, the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) wants its money back for a train deal that looks as murky as it is incredible along with their attempt to reclaim all remuneration paid to their ex-chief engineer who allegedly falsified his qualifications within the broader issue of the trains being ordered not suitable for South African train lines.

The list goes on about falsification, misrepresentation, dodgy deals, corruption, incompetence, ineptitude, lethargy, obfuscation, impunity and the comedy. Yes, the comedy most exemplified in President Jacob Zuma laughing off the seriousness of giving an account of his stewardship in parliament that it has become part of a skit on television where the idea that leaders are solving the people’s problems is met with that laughter.

Rubbishing legacies

It makes you wonder if this is the same South Africa that gave us such world respected figures as Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Invariably, it appears people are being promoted beyond their competence, others are unable to grow into the responsibilities they have assumed and there is a crisis of leadership that ensures disputes become the norm where no amount of arbitration is possible except where it leads to disaster until the parties exhaust themselves in the squabbles.

I watch South Africa as a land of great promise on the verge of a greater disappointment and loss of opportunity, the symptoms are deeper than anyone is ready to accept, yet, one must commend the judiciary, the public defenders and the watchdogs who seem to be the most able preservers of the democracy at play in this country, loudly seeking accountability and responsibility of those who hold power in all spheres of society.

What South Africa needs the most is great minds given the opportunity to steer this amazing country, but as long as politics, expediency and mediocre minds shown up by more competent people remain in charge, you can expect that the rubbish on the streets is only a symptom of the rubbish in the deeper recesses of the national psyche, and that is a great shame.

Decade Blogs - Chuba Ezekwesili - The Hidden Costs of University Strikes

Decade Blogs

Chuba Ezekwesili in his piece for my #YourBlogOnMyBlog Series commemorating my Decade of Blogging writes about the true costs of strikes in the tertiary educational sector in Nigeria.

Blog - To Celebrate My Decade of Blogging

I would not once suggest that he might have experienced another hidden cost first hand by reason of a relation who might have returned home with headaches about the inscrutable, intractable, interminable and incessant default to industrial dispute between academia and the government of the day.

Yet, I have some really enlightening conversations with Chuba, his mother and his brother on Twitter, whilst his blogs when published are quite insightful and knowledgeable in the use of facts and data and in offering useful opinion and thinking points.

On Twitter, he goes by the handle @ChubaEzeks and blogs at http://naijanomics.me/, and I am honoured to have him write for my series.

Students are most affected by the strikes, whether they are in school, graduated or seeking admission. Chuba identifies those areas and laments about the fact that students do not seem to realise how affected they are to get agitated enough to demand engagement, change, accountability and responsibility.

That is in my view, a great shame, indeed.

The Hidden Costs of University Strikes

Got back to Nigeria over a year ago and I’ve had the unfortunate opportunity of experiencing a fuel strike and a Universities Union strike. As should be clear to anyone, strikes negatively affect the economy directly and indirectly. The direct costs of strikes are mostly financial. [BBC News] [Vanguard Nigeria]

According to Reuters, the 2012 fuel strike cost Nigeria $1.2 billion after only 8 days of striking. Also, the Punch newspaper estimates that the total sum in salary for the lecturers during period of the ASUU strike may run into billions of naira. So yes, we’ve lost billions thanks to these strikes, but there’s more to them than financial loss.

The indirect costs are less obvious and perhaps more potent to the economy in the long run. Worse still, these indirect costs tend to be far greater in the skilled sectors-especially the academic sector-than in the non-skill sectors. Why? Cause it has long lasting effects that cannot be solved solely through money. Atrophy of knowledge. Knowledge – like a muscle – declines the less one makes use of it.

Academic schedules are created with strategic amounts of time to ensure that students are able to learn as much as possible. Sadly, the unpredictable nature of strikes immediately interrupts such learning processes. “The academic calendar of the students has already been disrupted. This would mean the adjustment of their timetable and a delay in their year of graduation. The man hours lost over this period would have to be paid for,” notes Professor Yomi Akinyeye, the Dean of the Faculty of Arts, the University of Lagos.

Worse still, it creates a wedge in knowledge assimilation. During the strike process, students forget a major part of what had been previously taught. Add this to the fact that with the Nigerian rote method of learning, assimilation is hardly possible. So, with an absence in tutorship, the rate of atrophy is much faster. Consequently, when the strike is over, students are guaranteed to return back to school dumber than they left. How then are they all meant to graduate with Upper Second Class degrees?

Given enough strikes, students can end up spending 2-3 more years attempting to obtain a measly degree. Worst still, by the time these student graduates, they'll be inducted into the one year of NYSC Service. By the end of their NYSC year, few will be retained at their Primary Place of Assignment i.e. where they 'worked'.

Those searching for a job afterwards will be faced with job applications with a requirements like "Applicant must not be older than 24". Consider also that this requirement gets worse as time passes. If one cannot get an entry level job this year due to one's age and lack of work experience, then his/her situation is bound to worsen the next year. This is the reality of thousands of graduates. A system that holds the students back and proceeds to alienate them once they attempt to be economically productive.

Interestingly enough, the consequence of this regressive game of strikes reaches further back to those outside of the University gates: applicants attempting to get into these universities. The delay in the academic calendar of Universities causes a backlog of applicants who end up with more competition over time.

Do the math: the more the applicants to a constant and finite number of universities will only result in the rejection of capable students.

Students will be rejected, not because of their academic inability, but because there’s simply lack of university spaces to accommodate the backlog of applicants. Most of these Secondary School students will have to wait a few years before they can be admitted into these Universities with subpar education.

Within their universities, they will face the same issue of strikes that kept them out of these same universities for so long. Then, they will eventually graduate and be faced with the same age barrier as the rest of those before them.

Sadly, the interesting part of the strike system is that it never affects the two major jousting parties; at least not significantly. The Government suffers no adverse effect from it; after all, the professors are not drilling oil, so their strike is inconsequential to them.

The professors on the other hand do not significantly feel the weight of such strikes as most of them probably have speaking engagements and other projects on the side. Best part of it, they can’t get fired; ask Nyesom Wike, the Education Minister, he tried. [ThisDay Online] [Premium Times]

Once we begin to understand where the incentives lie, we begin to understand who really endures the most of these strikes: the students. Many of whom might be unaware of the true cost of the strike and might just be happy to get back to school.

The game of strike in the education sector might have ended now, but assuredly, another strike will commence once the $1.3bn Government payout runs out. There’s something to continuity that takes more than $1.3bn. The money is nothing but a Band-Aid for a problem that cuts much deeper. It would take the overhaul of a system that encourages incompetence and lack of accountability.

Like Mr. Akin's persistent 10 years of blogging - which has made him proficient - adopting an efficient system improves efficiency & specialisation.

Besides, students must understand the need to become more vocal about how they choose to influence their academic lives, no one bears the cost more than them.

Students were disappointedly quiet during this ASUU strike, and unless they become vocal about the accountability of funds supposedly doled out to ‘improve their education’, they’ll be nothing but pawns on the chessboard of power. Those with the most to lose need to be the most vocal.

Nigeria: A new horde of atheist super-zeroes

A new horde

It is amusing when you exercise a prerogative on Twitter and a certain lot believe that they have the inalienable right to override that prerogative having arrogated to themselves the entitlement to be engaged at all costs.

With time, it has become obvious that the opening line already shows the slippery slope to conflict, their feigned quest for understanding is never what it seems, they are perched ready to debunk, deride, excoriate and ridicule – they are the new atheist horde from Nigeria.

They believe that they are the bastions of logic, driven by scientific reasoning they have become completely unreasonable towards the reasons why others might believe quite differently from their apostate godless existence, they are right and you are wrong.

Seeking prey

If you have the smarts to refuse to engage them, they feign hurt, they demand a hearing, they flail and ache with shrill whimpers of an abused dog that you have had the temerity to deny them, but they must be denied.

For, they are the carrion seeking godless hyenas desperately seeking who to feast on, their forlorn existence given purpose by negating the beliefs of others. They are ready to deem you arrogant, condescending and disrespectful, but if you mount the rostrum they construct all in the ploy to wrong-foot you, they claim a form of superiority that appears to validate their existence.

Ostracised from their communities, they adopt multiple identities shape-shifting on the Twitter landscape hoping to find the luck of the draw, they are frustrated to distraction if you refuse to take their bait, if their persistence is rebuffed it is taken as rude.

Brusque, brash and brutish

They have no finery in language, no broad interest in the good things of life like fine wine or banter for all discussion must lead in one direction only, the purpose for which they exist, a life without God fulfilled by hacking down the gods of others.

Black holes that gravitate to endless disputing, argumentative to disagreeableness, they drive you to exhaustion, but as you review everyone else you engage of the thousands you communicate with on Twitter, these are radically different, odious and repugnant, they must be withstood at all costs and the best way to achieve that is to treat them like strangers – ignore them; if you must humour them, tease them but never fancy them.

They seek to unsettle your equilibrium and make you a drifting cloud bereft of water for rain, obscuring the sunlight needed for warmth, life and growth, you follow at your peril into the abyss of bottomless rancour.

The Taliban in new garb

My opening gambit was, “So take your ball back home, no one wants to play in the rain.” I should have brought a trailer of tissues for the sniffles that followed for I had not appealed to their sensibilities because their extroverted inferiority complex worn in every intonation to show some superior knowledge is too burdensome for them to engage without conflict.

If for once they can divorce themselves from the extremism that is quite similar to the Taliban but without the religion, you might take them for nice chaps, but even the social graces they might have once possessed has been lost with their kind of indoctrination, they must ram their guano down your throat and woe betide you if you attempt to gasp for oxygen.

Like those who have received their religion prone to error with obtuse interpretation and practice, so have these too, we seem to be predisposed to practice what was not intended of those who schooled us in the new knowledge and beliefs we have received – it is unfortunate – even where reason should prevail, we find ways to suspend intellect for the purpose of obstinacy at where we immovably stand.

I could be persuaded

Surely, there are reasonable atheists out there, ones who having railed about the divisiveness religion brings who do not go on to create another dimension of divisiveness their consciousness exudes in – I seek common ground in most things – where I see conflict looming, it is unnecessary to be unduly confrontational for kicks.

I am tolerant of others who are ready to be tolerant of me, the human race is too diverse in culture, beliefs, views and persuasion for anybody to think where they have arrived is the final destination of human knowledge be you adherent, agnostic or atheist – if we seek co-existence where we meet and when you go away fellowship with those of your persuasion, there is harmony and where we agree to disagree, it will never become disagreeable.

I might be persuaded differently of the opinions I have expressed here, but to date, these views have been reinforced, if this is a pattern, extremism finds a home in the character of anyone regardless of what they do or do not believe and that is a very dangerous thing.

[Comments are closed to this blog.]

Incredible India: Up Against the Koenig Imperative

Boot camp revamp

I had a major falling out with my trainer this morning on a number of issues regarding the delivery of the curriculum leading to a certification I am in interested.

When it comes to boot camp training, it can be difficult to balance the issues of time, complete coverage, teaching, explanation and preparation for tests.

Much as I will like to attain my certifications as soon as possible, my learning methodology has never been by rote, accepted views or concepts have to have undergirding logic and I need to know that I am extending my body of knowledge.

The burden of history

For someone who has been in the ICT profession for 23 years, one can safely say a good deal of the concepts we take for granted today have their foundations in fundamentally primitive things we did decades.

People new to the field may have no need for the history of how, why and what things are today, maybe that is an advantage or disadvantage but it is impossible to expect those who have experience to just become sponges of new thinking without referencing knowledge they already have or activities that have practical affinity with the topic under discussion.

Intensive versus effective

Again, the curriculum is delivered in 6 8-hour days and sometimes Sundays, the danger of saturation looms, the trainer wanting to cover the requisite material, the trainee wanting to pace the absorption so that the quality becomes of greater significance than the quality.

In other words, there might be a case for 5 hours of effective training over 8 hours of intensive training, each trainee knows what they can handle before they begin to wilt and that is only just human.

Delivery prowess

Then, there are amazing differences between the two trainers I have had, the Microsoft Official Curriculum is tied to Powerpoint slides that were followed quite closely and made the taking of notes less easy especially in a one-on-one teaching setup.

The better delivery method with regards to the Powerpoint slides should have been having the slides offered as notes to trainees to annotate thereby helping link discussion with concept and reference.

In the case of my CCNA trainer, she is no less than prodigious, in the 4 days of my training already, she has not one referenced a note, she fills the board with point after point with literal total recall, in the probably 500 sentences she has written on the board, she has only once asked if one point had been written and that point was probably the least significant of the lot.

Rhyme without reason

Things began to reach a head yesterday when first certain definitions appeared to challenge the conventional use of language, English being the medium but meanings appearing to indicate the opposite.

I could not absorb the idea that Least Feasible Distance could go on to mean Best Option, regardless of tone, context, syntax or semantics, this was an exceptional anomaly and I felt quite uncomfortable with this.

I dare say English is not really the same between what is spoken and written in America and what the English speak especially when there is a purist determination in one’s mode of expression – that is just a fact.

English usage and meaning

I have worried that I might get caught out with American usage and Americanisms and a typical example I give is our pants are never exposed whilst Americans wear theirs openly. Alright, pants are underwear in England but trousers in America if viewed from an English perspective just as a negative is always a negative on our side of the pond no matter how many you string together whereas in America the mathematical double negative take precedent to yield a positive or the affirmative.

Another usage of Active and Passive which had the implication of opposites in the class seemed to be given a much more acceptable reading when explained in another context from other material I reviewed.

Just as we have English and US English dictionaries, I am beginning to think whilst allowances can be made for similarity and difference, there might be a case for clearly differentiating the material and not assuming English is really the same around the globe.

However, it was when a formula was written on the board that combined two unrelated units that I had had enough. I was not in class to jettison my engineering background and there had to be a reason why that formula was the accepted code.

Oranges and apples

At this point, I was impervious to the illogical and scientifically incorrect; I could not imagine that all the engineering in Cisco had produced a dimensional and mathematical inexactitude without reason.

That reason was not forthcoming, I was to absorb this by law and learn it by rote – for a person who was first precocious, then inquisitive, interrogative, curious, questioning, researching and challenging assumptions no matter how widely held, this was one of those moments where without reason there could be no progress.

Yesterday, I got up, closed my book, slammed the lid of my netbook and was ready to walk out of the course, she was able to placate me but I was far from satisfied.

Now, I know

On returning to my hotel, that was the first topic I researched and then I saw the extensive formula that got condensed to what was written on the board, the engineering and mathematical proof was evident – that for me is what you call the impartation of knowledge and the fulfilment of understanding – the why and how was there to see.

So, in the morning I took my discovery to my trainer and she acknowledged she knew this but it was beyond the scope of the course I was on. Whilst that was appreciated, I felt a conflict brewing because I was not just going to take everything as gospel but will require clear detail where assumptions are made that seem to challenge the concepts of language or science as predicated from my “wealth” of experience.

Fracture!

By the time we had exchanged a few good views about the material it was time for my trainer to say she could no more continue the training and I felt we had reached an irreconcilable impasse.

I then had a meeting with the officials and technical manager where generally what they seemed to be concerned with was the method (The Koenig Imperative – course material delivered within constrained time-frames leading to certification).

In some ways, I acquiesced and we agreed to continue the course because the curriculum is really an abridged version of the more serious engineering concepts that I will find more interesting and aligned to my engineering background.

Patching up

I can understand my trainer’s frustrations though I cannot say she fully appreciates that I cannot extend my knowledge of these concepts just by faith without seeking the fundamental reasons for why and how such conclusions were arrived at – it is just the bane of my kind of background, that I have become a somewhat difficult and impossible trainee after her having delivered this curriculum to well over 500 trainees is unfortunate.

I am not a robot, God help my intellect and we both need a healthy dose of patience with each other.

We appeared to patch things up and continue with the training, an interestingly eventful day. 

Love Thy Neighbour

Trash on our screens

When I was growing up in Nigeria in the 70s and 80s, whilst there was a lot of homegrown material produced for television, I must say we were a dumping ground for a whole range of British situation comedies and farces.

Along with those were some upwardly mobile American ones about African-American families and businesses on the up or in trouble, I cannot say there was much we could identify with in many of these offerings as Nigerians, but sometimes our local fare only had a few geniuses and the rest did not impart knowledge, wisdom or insight, they just reinforced the bondage to animist customs and affirmed superstitions that flew in the face of logic and reason.

The embarrassment of neighbourly love

I could remember watching The Many Wives of Patrick (UK), Good Times (US), Sanford & Son (US), Different Strokes (US), and Only when I laugh (UK), but there were some borderline ones that tried to address racial harmony like Mixed Blessings (UK) and Mind Your Language, but the most obnoxious and entirely politically incorrect that today cannot air without getting millions of complaints of false concern would be Love Thy Neighbour [1].

This was a story about a white working-class family coming to terms with living with black neighbours in the 60s & 70s. Whilst the wives got along well, the husbands just jibed at each other, if they had kids, I am sure the street would have had weekly race riots for what the kids would have heard their fathers say.

Notable was also the older man in the pub who never bought a drink for himself or others but when rounds were being bought he was prompt to say, “I’ll have half”. He always ended up with half a pint of beer and his glass in a manner of speaking was never empty.

These people were neighbours but really, not much love was lost between them.

A commandment seeking obeisance

I, being in hospital for 18 days brought home to me some essential teaching about Love Thy Neighbour very radically different from that in the situation comedy.

In 9 different places, if you were reading the 17^th Century King James Version of the Bible, we are told in the 10 commandments, by prophets, by Jesus and in the epistles after our devotion to God to “Love Thy Neighbour as Thyself”. In modern parlance, that would be “Love your neighbour as yourself”.

This might feel very grievous for some, a burden too heavy to carry, a situation that might have deteriorated to the point that the neighbour is accursed and the personification of everything evil.

Unnecessary conflicts and discord

It is amazing that some of the most trivial neighbourly disputes are in the courts or taking up police time and fertile ground for heart disease; people who have lived beside each other for years who have cultivated an air of indifference and a complete lack of consideration for each other, that they cannot abide each other.

The tension between them is so built, that if you as much as breathed the air that passed over your neighbour’s flowers there were grounds for grand larceny at the least – this ought not to be so.

Neighbourly conflicts could probably boil down to impatience, arrogance, pride, superiority, envy, jealousy or just plain pettiness. There is a possibility every dispute would have a sprinkling of these peace-less cardiac arrest herbs that we so liberally use to spice the potential discomforts of our entire.

A safety regulation

However, I see in this commandment, not some extraneous law of compulsion and duress, but the advice of safety that applies to all humanity regardless of creed, belief, disbelief or unbelief. It is a safety regulation.

In my case, I had cultivated a relationship with at least 2 of my neighbours on my 4-apartment floor, we had each other’s keys, tended our apartments when others were on holiday, watered plants, collect mail, visit each other and sometimes dined together.

We took the time to contact each other if the passing of time or the busyness of business meant we had not seen each other for ages, we were friendly enough, and maybe more could be done.

My neighbours are family and friend

As an expatriate, my immediate family is thousands of miles away, though I have friends here and I did learn I really did not have that many, most of those I have known for over 10 years live outside this country.

All these friends, family and some well-wishers would have liked to visit me in the hospital, bring me stuff I needed and minister to my needs in ways not to accentuate my vulnerabilities.

On this matter, in particular, it was my neighbour I could ask to go round to my home and pick things up that I needed, but they went beyond the call for help to visit, bring something, do my laundry and much more, I am so grateful for having neighbours I am in some fellowship with.

My other neighbour without prompting offered to do my shopping and did do it taking a serious burden of incapacity off me.

Your neighbour is your emergency call taker

In other, circumstances, neighbours are your emergency; friends and family usually arrive later and sometimes, it is your neighbour that makes those calls because you are already too far gone to do anything yourself.

A bosom friend's wife corroborated that view, she said she had at least 3 sisters in London, but for the day of trouble or distress, both her neighbours are her points of first resort, at least in the first two hours before everyone else arrives.

The importance of cultivating and building lasting relationships with your neighbours cannot be overstated.

Love Thy Neighbour as Thyself, is not so much a commandment attached to some nerve-racking drill, it is your safety being planned ahead for you on that day when your neighbour will be an angel, your Good Samaritan. Take heed, that your pride does not lead to a fall; when in that day you shall so helplessly need your neighbour to pick you up lest you perish.

My beloved, Love your neighbour as yourself. Please be reconciled, for your safety and for peace.

Sources

[1] Love Thy Neighbour - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[2] BibleGateway - Quick search: love thy neighbour