Between haughty Hillsong and bounty biltong

Giving thanks but no thanks

It was with great anticipation that we decided to choose Hillsong Church as the place to attend to give thanks and praise for triumphing over situations and circumstances that had befallen us for the last couple of years.

From a natural perspective, many things seemed insurmountable but providence and good fortune even with limited resources gave such an opportunity for celebration and we were excited about it.

We arrived at the church in Century City, just outside Cape Town and followed the crowd into the building. An usher was closing access to the first entrance to the hall we got to until I said we were first-time visitors. We were allowed into the darkish hall with bright lights on the stage as the praise and worship session was about to begin.

We found seats, squeezed between people who appeared to want to be elsewhere as we joined in congregational worship, and we just went with the flow. Once everything was done, we left as we came, unnoticed, unengaged, and quite unwelcome too. We were blessed but did not have the feeling that we would return.

Surely welcoming is standard church practice

Cape Town is an international tourist destination; we usually attend St George’s Cathedral when in Cape Town and we have always felt welcome. One would expect as with church traditions we have witnessed in many places that there is an acknowledgement of visitors to the fellowship with an opportunity provided to meet up with new faces, presenting the church as a welcoming and open community.

We found it quite strange that at no time during the 11:00 AM service we attended at Hillsong that visitors were welcomed or acknowledged. The church was just busy, too busy being church and probably feeling too full to notice anyone attending for the first time. My partner felt that the worship leading had become a self-absorbed performance to entertain us, it was lots of activity accomplishing little.

Maybe it was an oversight as it did bother me, I volunteer as a steward in my local church in Manchester, we welcome people as they come in, the clergy acknowledges visitors during the service, and everyone is invited for refreshments at the end of the service. We are a community regardless of when you come or where you come from.

Writing to the blind and deaf

I decided to write to the church about our visit and the atmosphere we encountered, apart from a boilerplate response, no one acknowledged or replied from the church. Seeing that the pastors of that church had gone on to lead the global fellowship. A few days later, I forwarded my original email to the main church in Australia, another boilerplate response without acknowledgement or reply.

Even for a business, basic standards of professionalism would suggest a basic response for emails sent on the 25^th of June and then on the 3^rd of July, the substantive elements of our experience and observations might be dealt with later.

It is not a scandal, we eventually concluded Hillsong had decided we did not matter, and we could not have been so uniquely affected, we were random worshippers who thought there was a prospect of adding a Pentecostal flair to our Anglican devotion in fellowshipping with the Hillsong community. We can however conclude there are more issues in that family than meets the eye.

Biltong engagement was much better

In comparison to the biltong shop that used to be in the Time Out Market that moved into a vending van at the other side of the Watershed at the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, even after almost 2 years of last patronising them.

The different vendors that manned the van on the separate days that we bought biltong were enterprising, engaging, welcoming, friendly, and inspiring of the desire to return. It is quite bizarre that I am comparing Hillsong to biltong, much was desired of the former, but we found a better relationship with the latter.

Everything is about establishing connections for human relationships, if a church cannot effectively do that, it has by all terms lost its purpose. In my email, I did suggest that we were not trying to change any Hillsong traditions, just highlighting something that could be useful.

My experience with Hillsong London was different, but that was 11 years ago before the scandals happened. I have written a bit about those issues before, my feeling is things have not changed, a window dressing does not a shop make.

Blog - Thought Picnic: Where Everybody Shares Your Pain (August 2013)

Blog - Hillsnog: How the scandals at Hillsong took root (September 2021)

Blog - The Hillsong controversy and resignation (April 2022)

Essential Snobbery 101: Writing letters you hate to write

It has always mattered

I remember once asking to go on an assertiveness course; those courses exist for a reason, my manager scoffed. He said, “Akin, anyone but you needs an assertiveness course.” Whilst I seemed to doubt myself, it appeared there was no doubt that I was an effective communicator.

In my engineering class, many of my classmates did not pay heed to the need to study English, which was a necessary elective. Obviously, we had to run the gauntlet of English lecturers who came to show off their loquacious vocabulary, communicating nothing but providing the entertainment of malapropism and meaningless sesquipedalianism of words strung together without grammatical structure or purpose.

Put it all in

My view was that, regardless of what profession you were in, it was essential that you could convey your ideas in your chosen language of expression with clarity to persuade and to convince. Now, when to comes to written communication, I like to think I am better equipped to get my point across, the intent, the context, the tone, the appeal to their humanity, the veiled insult politely delivered as a slow-working poison that causes little offence whilst eliciting praise, maybe an English putdown can find a showing too.

Concision is not my strongest point, and brevity is probably only needed for telegrams; clarity in prose is what matters more to me, so that by the time the reader is done, I am both comprehended and understood with responses appropriate to my requirements.

That it might tend to flourish or the flowery is a temptation I have too often yielded to, yet as a copy editor and proofreader of other material, I would be more conservative, active, and direct.

Then a grubby email

I guess I hate writing emails that have to do with contractual negotiations; they can be emotional and easily be grubby when professional persuasion is required. In such cases, it must be in the view of a sensible seamstress, like a good skirt, long enough to cover the detail, yet short enough to keep the interest and close the matter.

Once a client wrote to demand payment on the premise that I had been overpaid, by the time I put together the whole chain of evidence that suggested otherwise, what I received was a curt thank you in response and nothing more. Too recently, I noticed an error in my remuneration, not too significant, but on a matter of principle, we had an agreement that appeared to be irregularly and unilaterally recast as something else.

Now, I say

At first, I thought it was an error at the payment processing company; their prompt and useful response suggested it was further up the chain. Grudgingly, I made the case for respecting gentlemen's agreements and signed contracts that had no indication of the variation of terms, then closed with the deployment of the polite 3^rd person singular. “As such, one is owed moneys due.”

The purposeful switch from the apparently casual and familiar to the stuffily formal was for maximum effect. If as a person well known to me, you need to be addressed with titles and formality, you can be sure we are on the business end of issues that need to be addressed with alacrity, importance, and seriousness.

What mattered was that my intervention was effective and what I have requested will be granted; the slight on their part might suggest the need for an apology, not grovelling, just the acceptance of an administrative error on their part that would be made right is enough. Effective communication matters always, and if you are not that good at it, get the training to represent and express yourself better than anyone can.

Thought Picnic: Manicured talons of keyboard dread

Coping with anger

As I have written many times before, anger is an emotion I try as much as possible to avoid. Well, I avoid it when it requires that I express myself vocally.

It takes hold as a trembling leading to a possible loss of my voice as it goes higher in pitch before it completely trails off. One place you never want to be in is where you suddenly cannot talk where there is much to be said.

In essence, I have decided that when I am so angered, I would rather leave the room and find a place to cool down before I return to apologise later than I could not continue with the meeting.

Fingers on the keyboard trigger

Now, very few things anger me, however, none do so as much as being at the receiving end of rank incompetence or incomprehensible bumbling.

My patience is so quickly exhausted by those situations that whilst I would not be caught blurting out an expletive to express my displeasure, I should not have a keyboard to my fingers because I would be parting with a piece of the mind I do not want to retain.

I suffer fools gladly to a point where my expression in words would both be damning and excoriating without being abusive.

Saying it nicely

When people waste my time, they had better be ready to be wasted with the coolness of expression lacking in any kind of commendation, but short of calling the person an idiot.

Yet, idiot would be the closest term of endearment and that would be effusive with praise. I have work to do and others have their work to do, when either of us shirks in doing what we are supposed to be doing with efficacy and efficiency, you can be sure someone would be so seriously pissed off.

You do not want to be at the receiving end of a pissed off letter or email, penned so daintily by my manicured talons of dread, no you don’t.

Thought Picnic: Political regain from office pain

Wants and needs

It was like entering a bazaar of the bizarre. My engagement extended just a few weeks ago had someone asking if I still required the privileges I had to do what I was brought in to do.

Immediately, I replied ensuring my manager was copied in that the privileges are essential to fulfilling my role – that should have been the end of the story.

Apparently, that was not the case, as the week began, I noticed that certain ordinary things I was once able to do, I could do no more.

Lose to lost

Sometimes you ignore the little issues because at the time, the situation is not as significant as to warrant further investigation, some other things I needed to do, I could do all because I was still registered with the environment.

However, yesterday, I decided to check why exactly a restriction came into place only to find out that literally all my privileges had been revoked without notification.

This is the sort of unnecessary frustration of activity and productivity that one sometimes encounters in the workplace that it borders on an atrocity.

Find the wind

Usually, on occasions like this, you settle into forensic mode, obtain earlier requests, approved implementations and compare those with the current state of play before the matter gets escalated up the chain for a speedy resolution.

Speedy it had to be, but not before the email church of scores of meaningless power plays that fail to grasp what needs to get done until someone up there bellows and suddenly there is someone to assume responsibility to resolve the issue with alacrity.

Just two hours later, things seemed to return to normal but it would tempting fate to want to determine the how and why of the loss of my privileges apart from the apparent lack of processes to ensure that such events do not happen willy-nilly.

Room to bloom

Where you find you are about to fume and fulminate, you take 10 sharp breaths, type with consideration without letting go of the piece of your mind you desperately want to express and allow the system to adjust itself as the responsibility chain that depends on your services sorts out the politics to get the technical issues resolved.

As you drum the desk with your fingers, don’t forget that you are still charging for the time you have been made idle by forces within the organisation that should have been facilitating your greater productivity.

Social Engineering: For the avoidance of Mrs Mary Williams

This is not for me

I just got an email with the subject Dear Customer: I would presume whoever is addressing me does not know my name; the email portends to be from MoneyGram with the email address of money326@msn.com which immediately indicates that it is really not from MoneyGram.

I will humour myself by reading the email and you will find my comments inline in parentheses, it will just pertain to the content of the email, I will not do much technical analysis to ascertain the genuineness of this email.

From Office Of The Money Gram Money Transfer. Accra-Ghana Republic / Address No 450 Ring Road Accra-Ghana.

[Now, I would have thought this would come from the office of the MoneyGram Money Transfer Bureau, emphasis on Bureau, which might be in Accra but is it not the Republic of Ghana?]

Appearances of deception

Website:WWW.money-gram.com/

[The genuine MoneyGram Money Transfer website is http://www.moneygram.com the one in this email does not exist.]

Phone:+233244841003.

[Yes, that is a Ghanaian phone number but I doubt I will be calling it.]

Email: mg179435@w.cn

[Now, I have a second email address and this is in a Chinese domain.]

Dear Customer:

[These people do not know me, here again I am being addressed as Dear Customer.]

The letter

Be inform[ed] that we have been giving [given] and [an] instruction by, Hon Ado Seth, DP Ministry of Finance Accra Ghana to start sending to you $5000usd everyday through money gram money transfer, Until your total amount sum ( $1.2 Million us Dollars, AID FUND) one million two hundred thousand united state dollars is completely transferred to your custody .

[I really cannot be bothered with correcting this, too many errors in this paragraph, I could do with a transfer of $5,000 into my custody and eventually my bank account everyday but I will settle for Paypal donations to made though clicking on the Donate button at the top right of this blog.

But read this, I am over a period of 240 days supposed to receive the sum of $1.2 million in daily deposits of $5,000; I suppose a vulture is a patient bird but I doubt it will wait for the egg to be laid, incubated, hatched and the full lifecycle of the bird to carcass before it feeds.

The poor Ghanaians whose aid pornography pictures have moved aid agencies to sympathy to donate to their plight are not going to get sight of the aid, it is about to be drip-fed $5,000 a time into the account of Dear Customer, Yours Truly.]

Affected by an avoidance

Today our department have affected [Why can’t they avoid affording the misuse of affected for effected?] your first transfer of $5000usd to your name, Transfer Reference below.

[Indeed, they need to be reminded of my name which they never knew before.]

Sender First Name=Dr Victor

Sender Second Name =Ike

Amount=$5000.00 USD

Question=Code

Answer=233.

[Who is Dr Victor Ike?]

Contact Dr Victor Ike, Foreign Operation Manager on the below address, to issue to you, your Fund Clearance Certificate and give to you your Money Gram Transfer Control Number to pick-up your first payment of $5000 us dollars.

[So, Hon Ado Seth (Don’t be deceived by titles, this man is hardly Honourable by any stretch of the imagination.) in corrupt enterprise with Dr Victor Ike are in this together and looking further down, the latter is the Foreign Operation(s) Manager at MoneyGram in Ghana – Interesting.]

Dr Victor Ike{Foreign Operation Manager Money Gram Accra Ghana}

E-mail {mg179435@w.cn}

[And though he works in Ghana he has a Chinese email address.]

Tell-+233244841003.

She’s a scammer

Cheers

Mrs Mary Williams.

[Mary Williams? Cheers? Maybe I am being pedantic here but you cannot without knowing me end up closing an apparently formal letter with Cheers. Who the heck is Mrs Mary Williams and to what do I owe this random windfall from three unknown people in Ghana?]

Like they say, if it is too good to be true, it probably isn’t worth your while. To close, I just attempted a search on Mrs Mary Williams and before I finished typing, the suggestion of “Mrs Mary Williams email” was offered by Google and well, she appears to have a reputation for scamming people.

Mrs Mary Williams, please go take a running jump off Fort Elmina, you’ll be doing yourself the greatest favour.

Social Engineering: That Epsilon email data breach

Another data breach and scare

News that Epsilon [1], an email marketing service provider had suffered a security breach that involved the loss of data has been received with some angst and the analysis of security of data on corporate systems.

This firm handles the email marketing for quite a number of big names in the US like Target, Chase, Marriott & Tivo referring to the names that came up in the opinion pieces that form my source for this blog.

It is interesting to note that the first article dealt with the matter of Outsourcing email [2]; this is just a matter of responsibility, the data is vulnerable no matter whose system it is on but where the data is hosted in-house, after the fire-fighting and damage control there might be a person or department to take the blame with the possible rolling of heads in mock absolution for faults.

This is a big deal

The second article dwells on the value of an email address [3] but only in reference to the service provider from reputation, through information management to the possible loss of custom – the figures are high but they hardly address the more important point which is how it affects the customer.

Another news story suggests Epsilon sends out [4] over 40 billion emails annually from over 2,500 clients which include 7 of the Fortune 10 companies. This is big business at first and quite a large customer base too.

You’ve got mea culpa mail

In one instance the writer had received an apologetic email from Epsilon and seemingly exculpatory emails from three other organization which whom he had registered for some service that used his email as part of the transactional and interaction process.

Interestingly, even one comment suggested the receipt of emails from organisation they thought they had already cancelled subscriptions to, in effect, cancelling a subscription only stops emails from going out, it does not expunge the host database of the email information.

Where it gets worrisome is that what was exposed to unauthorised access was email addresses and/or customer names.

Proof you exist

There are a number of inalienable facts that derive from this piece of information, the fact that it was on Epsilon systems means there is a likelihood that the addresses are active and where a customer name is attached, it serves enough as a uniqueness identifier just for a spammer to use or purvey and even conduct more extensive searches that can match that information to home addresses and other personal information that could be found online.

This is the equivalent of looking through a telephone directory which probably contains current and valid information to use a service or contact a person.

Over a year ago, my phone number strayed into the hands of scammers in Ghana, one of whom called me at an unholy hour, the moment I answered the call, I had validated the working order of that number and for 5 consecutive days I received calls from different people in Ghana and it was my ignoring the subsequent calls that fed back into that network that it was useless calling me.

Another analogy is the having an email address with a customer name is the equivalent of knocking on a door and knowing there is an occupant of that premises that offers the opportunity for the criminal to watch out for when they might burgle the premises.

Getting familiar

Beyond that, having a customer name allows for the spammer to send friendlier and more familiar type communication that can break down the usual resistance to spam email.

Where the customer has different email addresses with particular ones being used for trusted Internet activity, receiving spam emails on those addresses can be rather irksome.

By the time the customer has been irredeemably spammed even important emails would have ended up in the bin whilst ameliorating acts of changing email addresses can be fraught with unnecessary administrative problems of reviewing all subscriptions, informing all contacts and many other troublesome issues.

The cost to the customer is high and I have in certain instances had to discontinue the use of a service provider just because they were doing nothing to stem the flow of spam.

Remediation is fraught

However, as it stands, there is really no compensation for the inconvenience of the expected deluge of spam from a new set of spam addresses and who because they now have customer names could suggest they have established a relationship with the victims of these criminal activities.

I am saddened that of most the computer press I have read about this data breach have not really addressed this angle of the matter, it is the multitude of customers that give the companies the business they have, they seem to have been forgotten in their face-saving and damage-limitation quests.

Taking care

Customers should beware of phishing email, check that URLs in emails are really from where they purport to come from, never send any personal details to anyone seeking such information via email, at least not before verifying that with the company via a telephone call.

You should never have to share your security number, home address, credit card numbers or personal identity numbers with anyone either by email or on the phone, if in doubt, ignore the email especially if it reads like a threat and if on a phone call, excuse yourself from the call, recompose yourself and call at another time – the taker of your call should never fill you with additional angst and anxiety.

Sources

[1] Epsilon is a subsidiary of Alliance Data - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[2] Outsourcing email: Do the benefits outweigh the risks? | ZDNet

[3] Epsilon data breach: What's the value of an email address? | ZDNet

[4] Massive Breach at Epsilon Compromises Customer Lists of Major Brands | SecurityWeek.Com

A recall I obtain

No faffing about

I did not waste my time in deciding to go on holiday immediately after learning that the project I was on was suspended literally without warning or notice; things were just up in the air.

It meant bringing my holiday forward a good 6 weeks in the height of summer heat as I had planned that Gran Canaria would be the place to return to.

The general idea was whilst the companies sorted out the considerations and goals of the project we had the freewill to seek other opportunities or wait out the possibility of recall for the month of August.

Courtesies with recalls

This morning I got notice that we were being recalled to the project but I missed the basic courtesy of expressed regret at the way matters were handled, those in permanent employment would simply have been reassigned to other duties, and people like me in self-employment were just left high and dry.

Surely, there should be a sense of gentlemanliness in the conduct of business and it appears certain conditions will be written into the recall to ensure we are not met with this kind of situation again.

The Englishman in me was a bit miffed but again glad that I did not have to visit the job market so soon seeking new opportunities.

Expectations and abilities

We expect the details to be fine-tuned and finalise over the next couple of weeks and hopefully we can return to doing what we know best to do; take on challenging projects, offer working solutions and deliver excellent results.

One question remains for me though, should I retain my Wednesdays off or stretch myself for the 40-hour week – it has been over 5 months after chemotherapy, I feel good and strong though still not as fit as I once was – it might just be smart to take things easy, doing my best over 4 days is probably better than petering out over 5 days.

Meanwhile, a week of holidays still remains with a trip to the island of Tenerife tomorrow, the alarm is going off at 04:45 hours, surely, I should still be in bed then.

Social Engineering UPS delivery

Showing fishy emails

I have decided that each time I see receive an email that threatens to expose me to scamming by reason of the genius of its construction, I will post the email and annotate it to expose the suspect activity, without getting too technical.

Looking through my inbox which receives close to 80 emails a day from so many email accounts there was one that appeared to arrive at my business account from UPS, the courier company.

From the header, I noticed there was no subject – No business with any sort of organised system should ever send a customer an email with a subject, on a personal basis, it is rude, in a business setting it is unprofessional.

Appearances and realities

The email appeared to come from UPS Support with the name of the sender, it looked official enough with a UPS.com email address too.

If you get an email from any organisation and the email domain does not reflect the organisation or business name, the sender is an impostor. Many lottery wins and collect emails do not use company email domains they can be classed as scams no matter how too good to be true the content might be. Yahoo, Hotmail, and MSN addresses should be ignored.

Where is my name in this email, they should know who they are delivering to, this is a delivery company for crying out loud. It looks like a fishing exercise.

PDF or broke

This email had an attachment with the name invoice. Be careful with attachments, the safest ones to open are ones with the PDF extension, anything else treat as suspicious, is probably a virus or a keylogger ready to steal your passwords to email or bank accounts. It would be safe to just delete those emails.

Nowadays, invoices must be emailed in PDF format, they are never too large to be undeliverable because of email service restrictions. ZIP files are like Trojan horses, open them and you can end up running a program that ruins your system or worse. EXE files, just NEVER open them. If they are TXT files, sometimes it is best to save the attachment first and then observe that they are really the format they say they are before you open them.

You must always have an up-to-date virus scanner on your system that scans emails too. AVG offers a free edition but the professional editions are inexpensive too.

Drawing you by the bait

Now to the social engineering part of this email; I have been informed that “Unfortunate we failed to deliv” then the rest of the text is obscured by an opaque grey box.

Out of frustration or curiosity, you will be tempted to find out what this was all about and find yourself opening the suspect attachment and you have been had – hook, line, and sinker.

I think it is a work of evil genius because many would end up opening the attachment, but I did not; there were two separate messages in this email.

The first was the text about a delivery and one I was not expecting, and the second was an invoice for something I cannot say I paid for.

No effect without cause

The invoice if I paid for anything should have come from the company, I bought stuff from and not from UPS except if I had engaged the services of UPS which I did not.

So, on the balance of probability, this is a scam, if UPS were unable to deliver a product, it would have arrived at my address and a note left in my post-box not an email sent to me.

The more this email looks authentic the more I am suspicious of its origins. In the worst-case scenario, I have replied to this email asking for it to be sent in legible text, with a PDF invoice and a letter sent by post explaining why they could not deliver the service. If your name is not in the email you received, do not sign off with your name.

Don’t give them more

They do not need my name or address in the reply, they should already have it – do not volunteer excess information to suspect situations.

People are looking to have you, so ensure you are not had by innocuous emails masquerading as authentic customer support emails. Benign as this might seem, it screams scamming to the rafters at best, I cannot think of what the worst of their intentions might be.

Social Engineering email scam

I don’t know you

I thought I would post this before dashing out to catch my plane to Berlin for the weekend.

This email arrived in my mailbox with the premise that one of my web mail accounts might have been illegally accessed.

That kind of information, I would like to know if my email provider is monitoring strange activity on my account, but when it is addressed to undisclosed recipients, one has to get suspicious and when they ask for your password, well, it is a scam.

Don’t believe a word

This is a classic social engineering means of instilling fear to obtain information from the unassuming, not only can this be used to obtain private details as passwords, it can be extended to more intimate information as account details, identification numbers and more.

Just class the email as junk mail and a scam attempt, NEVER give your personal details to anyone, you might be offered the opportunity to verify or change information but never to give that information for any type of administration.

The service is theirs to offer but the access codes are yours to keep and never to be shared with anyone except under the duress of the law where all adequate measures have been taken to protect your rights.

The graphic below shows my views of what I read of the email. Beware!

Nigeria: A typical Nigerian communication?

Assistance needed!

I should be incensed and angry but maybe not but it requires I make a very pertinent statement because it is necessary.

Very early this morning, I received an email from a Nigerian seeking “info from as per”, well, accommodation, grants and scholarships in the Netherlands for Africans, especially Nigerians to a particular university in the Netherlands – the text will be posted later in the blog.

Anyway, the person who I do not know had used the email address on my blog to seek this information – it is evident it was his first time on my blog because the trace evidence of visits to my blog shows a search was made about “Nigerians living in the Netherlands” just around the time I received the email.

Basic research

For that information, I visited the said university website where I believe such information will be and as any intuitive person with initiative would be expected to do and as I expected the enquirer to do – promptly and efficiently.

As I closed the email in response I decided it was necessary to clearly state that in emails sent to strangers first impressions could be deterministic – here I was receiving an email from a university prospect which was already too familiar, poorly punctuated and not properly closed.

The more I read the email the more I felt it was necessary to first constructively criticise the man for his poor presentation and in my usual acerbic state I tried to reinforce that need by adding the threat of publishing that email as a sign of sloppiness that would not serve well in seeking admission to a university.

Context and presentation

If the said person had read my blog and most especially the one I wrote the about Facebook and communication [*] the day before, he would have noticed that I am a stickler for the proper use of language even if it comes from a phone.

The email in its presentation had every semblance of a “419 letter” by its informality, context and content; the subject heading was “Assistance needed!” which I would normally never give any attention but I gave it the benefit of doubt and responded anyhow.

Not smart by half

For my troubles, I received an email soon afterwards; grudging thanks, arrogance, defiance and excuses, with a lecture as to how I should behave to other Nigerians and a reprimand to practice what I preach.

I would say this man appears to be smart, but not really smart enough – whilst I did assume the position of being unable to facilitate his admission I did say, “if your intentions and purposes are without prejudice, you have every chance of fulfilling your dream if your qualifications are sufficiently exciting and your ambition shows the promise of an interesting mind and career.”

The Nigerian burden or naivety

I was suspicious of Nigerians; I am Nigerian by heritage and I have been met by people in my 20 years of living in Europe who question our motives and intentions – it would be remiss of me not to use the same filter to ensure that what we legitimate residents abroad do to in small ways give Nigeria a good name is not affected by new entrants with ulterior motives.

No Nigerian anywhere in the world should miss that fact and it would be naïve to expect a different attitude in that respect, as far back as two decades ago, I went through that filter at the British Embassy in Nigeria because seemingly honest applicants turned out to have ulterior motives.

Please don’t tempt me at all

What that man thinks he deserves or not should have been introspective rather than blurted out in the response he sent to me – I would hope he has the chameleon tendencies to be better presented in his application to that university because I honestly think if he or any person from anywhere in the world exhibits that kind of attitude, a future of great frustration is imminent – strangers can both be helpful and deleterious; rarely indifferent.

Like Nigerians would say, “A word is enough for the wise.” Do not unnecessarily incur my wrath. I do wish the man every success in his endeavours, if only he was just a tad less froward.

Our communication, unedited apart from the particular elements of personal information which have been redacted appears below certain comments might appear within brackets, those who know me know what to expect, those who do not should please see the masthead of my blog again.

His initial email

Hi Akin,i am Fesobi by name.i live in lagos.i came about your email through your blog.i need some vital info from as per accommodation,cost of living and scholarship and grant available in Netherlands for african students-precisely Nigerians- that want to study.i am seeking admission in utrecht university.i humbly await your swift response.THANKS and God bless you.

My response

Dear Fesobi,
Unfortunately, I have never studied in the Netherlands but I have tried to obtain some information from the University of Utrecht website regarding the matters on which you enquire.

I do not from your email see much information about what course you are applying for and level of study your application is prospecting for, you have not said if your application has been formally made or you have gotten as far as being offered a place for which you need to find the means.

This is the Students Desk [URL link was provided] usually for prospective students with the attendant email addresses to contact.

This covers Scholarships & Grants [URL link was provided] available to students depending on what you are studying for.

And here you can find matters concerning accommodation [URL link was provided]

The fact is this is information you could have easily obtained by visiting the University of Utrecht site or performing a search using Google, usually the best place to get information from is the university, they have been running admissions and students' services for decades, they probably have the best insights and ideas for how to manage students than any rumour you might have heard anywhere else.

Like I said earlier, I have never studied in this country so I would not be in any position to facilitate your application process or help your entry into this country - if your intentions and purposes are without prejudice, you have every chance of fulfilling your dream if your qualifications are sufficiently exciting and your ambition shows the promise of an interesting mind and career.

I wish you the very best in your pursuits - If I might offer some constructive criticism, it goes without saying that your punctuation and context in an email to a stranger does leave much to be desired - too familiar, proper nouns in lower case, bad punctuation and inappropriate closing - I am sure if you had read my blog you would have had an idea of what I would expect in any communication you send to me.

NB: Do not tempt me to display your email as an example of people who should not be offered admissions in any foreign university, I had part of my education in Nigeria and I really would have considered this utterly sloppy, in the end, if I do use it in a blog, it would have a pseudonym not your name.

With the kindest regards.

Akin

His response

Thanks for your prompt response Akin,I appreciate.I also appreciate your constructive criticism of my use of tenses,this I think its due to the reason that I typed from a phone.You will also noticed that my mail was not paragraphed-I use a nokia s40 phone which I know you know doesn t completely works like a computer. However,I think you missed it towards the end of your response.You sounded like I was seeking your help to facilitate my entrance into the country.If you go through my mail,I only asked you for information pertaining to accommodation,cost of living and scholarship and this I asked knowing that you are a Nigerian living in the country and probably might be of help-help indeed!.More also,I dont think I deserved to be threatened the way threatened me-just for asking for information? Sometimes I wonder why people who preach and teach never follow what they preach and teach.I also wonder why we Nigerians treat ourselves the you just treated me.I
went through your blog and read some of your articles about our leaders.Akin,we all are complaining about leaders,what about the way we individually treat ourselve?Well I am awaiting the university s decision by May ending,I pray its positive-I need to fulfil a dream and you can t stop me by the use of your blog.Still typing from my phone so pardon my errors in any form. Regard

Closing Comment

Apparently, the man is aggrieved that I have treated him badly and I have been hypocritical rather than constructively critical – well, I was honest, forthright and basically objective in my view, regardless of nationality the response I gave would not have been any different apart from the specific reference to how I felt standards of education and common courtesy had fallen in Nigeria.

The man deserves only the courtesy of being given this URL as a response to his email, if he deserves more, time will tell, but I do hope he has as much sense as an old cow – eat the hay and leave the bailing wire – read and digest the useful parts of it all.

Don't piss me off

Between Early and Late

I could be utterly irrational at times because it takes just that little thing to piss me off - BIG TIME!.

Whilst I might be up around 7:30 or earlier in the morning, I just find it ever so convenient to get to work somewhere between 10:00 and 11:00. I do strive to make it closer to 10:00 but I do not run the public transportation systems.

Besides, leaving early means I probably would not get a seat on the Metro for the first 20 minutes as able and fit university students travel like old people needing support and occupying more space then necessary.

Now, getting to work early is really moot in my case except when I really have to attend meetings, my work is not in anyway operational, it is project and strategy driven, so what is important is that I put in my 8 hours per day, regardless of what end of the clock the 8 hours sits in.

A few weeks ago, the project manager I work with brought up this issue of arriving earlier; I strove to accommodate this “inconvenience” till I relapsed to type. I had hardly walked in this morning when an email arrived about this “so-called” agreement – that quite set me off.

Two days to the end

We have been vacillating on the terms and conditions of a contract tenure and status towards a renewal to start in July without much progress and as it stands, I really do not have a contract after the 30^th of June 2007.

So, I told him, since I only really have two days to run of my contract, I would endeavour to see that agreement through for those two days.

Frankly, I hate being micro-managed by petty tyrants exercising undue influence, it is really not necessary for me to be in before 10:00AM, but it is essential for me to fulfil 8 hours of work each day.

This whole thing then set the stage for a meeting with the director of my team who is trying to persuade me to take a permanent contract – Fat Chance! If I have to endure this kind of organisational annoyance and managerial aggro.

Punctuality and attendance are two different things for different types of people in a workforce; my situation is more about attendance than punctuality.

I have a month to make up my mind about this whole thing after meeting the director; having clearly highlighted my non-negotiable terms – I will not work in an operations team even though I am providing them solutions; I would not report to anyone below VP or the contract is off; I would not take on financial privation for the benefit of the company; basically, HR would have the runs because of the distinct things I would require in my contract.

I might yet again disappoint him if someone else does not take time to learn to walk on eggshells, I think I need a long holiday and the lack of rest is making me a tad irritable – must be that time of the year. Do I need to get sun-burnt? You bet, I do.