A Curmudgeon's Christmas Eve

Embracing Senior Status

You might be getting bored of the sexagenarian musings presented in my recent blogs. Well, this is about my own experience and how I am settling into this new age.

I wrote about getting the Senior Railcard yesterday, which offers a 33% discount on train fares in the UK. My plan was to find out the real-life experience of showing my ticket to a train conductor and being asked to produce the railcard that gave me the entitlement.

A Lazy Christmas Eve

However, Christmas Eve started as a rather lazy day. By the time I finally got out of bed and boarded a train to Liverpool, it was well into the afternoon. My Senior Railcard secured me a 34.29% discount on the day return ticket.

There was no ticket inspection on either my outward or return journey, though I spent about 90 minutes in Liverpool, walking through the Christmas markets to the Central Library, where I did a bit of study until the building closed early at 4:30 PM.

On the Christmas markets, like the one in Manchester, they are a poor imitation of the German ones: full of tat and gaudy overpriced goods. Whilst they might afford summery activities on a helter-skelter, a roller coaster, and a Ferris wheel, they might attract crowds, giving winter days a sense of liveliness, but they are at best eyesores. Frankly, one is not impressed.

Rail Service Disappointments

I did find that some long train journeys were cancelled, with the reason given that there was a lack of train crew. It makes you wonder who is in charge of personnel rotas and scheduling. The train conductors might already have bonked off, earning themselves a five-day Christmas weekend.

Public transport facilities will be closed for Christmas and Boxing Day in the UK. I might get on a train before the year ends, just for the pleasure of being officially recognised as a senior citizen. It feels strange, but that's the truth.

I make no apology

Angry about contractors?

Attending a broader departmental meeting yesterday morning, someone anonymously posted a message in the Q&A section of the presentation with the following premise. That the agency had hired contractors at highly inflated salaries who worked less and had no responsibilities thereby leaving the agency hamstrung on recruiting actual staff.

Many were in agreement with the comment, but it was one viewpoint that could not be left to slide. I have been contracting since 1995, in fact, I was persuaded to go contracting my then CIO who felt that there would never be full utilisation of my wealth of knowledge, and I would easily be frustrated in a permanent role.

For the season, for a reason

In all the years of my being a contractor, I have felt no less equal to the task along with feeling an integral member of the teams I worked in. To address the comment, I wrote, “Contractors are actual staff, albeit temporary, they have been engaged by the agency to help fulfil the goals being discussed the in the conference and that it was quite unhelpful to create an us-and-them situation where we should be banding together.” Soon, I had more agreeing with me than those who did with the original posting.

Contractors get a bad rap, usually through no fault of their own apart from the few rouge ones. We are paid competitively negotiated market rates which might seem high, but we fundamentally cost less in administration, overheads, and management, whilst bringing in skill, expertise, and other perspectives.

We do not have the employment benefits of permanent staff along with burdening the employers with fiduciary requirements by law and other statutes. The arrangements are neat, allowing for clean breaks by mutual and individual arrangement. The establishment so easily terminates the contract as they can renew or recall after a break of working there.

No apologies, none at all

As per my own experience, I am there to contribute and regardless of the tendency to differentiate staff status, many industries need all kinds of staff and everything is down to need, skill, experience, demand, negotiation, and the ability to get involved with the people you work with.

Now, if anyone thinks contractors are paid too much, in a free enterprise world they can also decide to become contractors rather than chafe at the choices of others on the one hand and the market requirements that create the need for such personnel on the other hand. What I will not brook is the denigration of contractors, nor would I apologise for being a contractor. So there!

And another recruitment agent called

What you can do with knowledge

I can imagine that not many recruitment consultants would have the time to go through my curriculum vitae (CV) in a professional quest to know their candidate, it makes me wonder if they devote any time to knowing their client too. Maybe, it would take time for the recruitment industry to adopt the due diligence activities of the financial institutions to ‘know your customer’ (KYC) as part of anti-money laundering (AML) requirements and regulations.

Now, I raise this because, if the recruitment consultant that called me this morning had bothered to KYC by reading my CV and before that, KYC by fully appreciating what their customer requirements along with details of the opportunity being offered, we might have had a different conversation along with my offering some grudging respect to a professional cohort that rarely works hard enough to earn it.

Know the location

It transpired that this recruitment called me about a job in Marburg in Germany, I asked there exactly Marburg was, she didn’t know (KYC) and eventually found it was near Frankfurt, between Bonn and Frankfurt, she said, but it has no relation to the former.

I know a bit of German geography and places, it is indeed near Frankfurt am Main to be differentiated from Frankfurt an der Oder on the Polish border, for there are many same name towns in Germany that need to be qualified by their regions, else you might end up hundreds of kilometres away from your intended destination.

One must make that point; if you are a recruitment consultant seeking to place a candidate abroad, do the research, find out about the place, the history, the cost of living, the interesting things. Sell the place as you sell the opportunity. Don’t appear stupid, it is annoying.

A chilling discovery

The offer was not exciting though, you don’t take me from an exciting English city and plonk me in the middle of a provincial German town for a pittance, though it does have centuries of interesting history and recent notoriety. It did not occur to me in these Coronavirus times until I checked that Marburg is an eponym for the Marburg virus which was first described in 1967 when German workers were exposed to tissues of infected grivet monkeys. The Marburg virus is in the class of the Ebola virus, they are both haemorrhagic fever viruses.

Obviously, I found myself going down this rabbit hole, in search of why grivet monkeys that are native to a region of East Africa were leaving infected tissue in provincial Germany. Then for the grace of absolution, the entry for the hapless grivet monkey does not cross-reference to the virus. They must have edited their Wikipedia entry to remove the stigma.

Going from my reaction, I began to understand why for posterity reasons, the new Coronavirus, first identified in Wuhan, China, ended up with the name COVID-19 rather than the Wuhan virus, for a sudden irrational thought somewhere in the future, might unwittingly taint any desire to be anywhere near Wuhan for anything. Much as we somewhat identify many other diseases that are eponymously named. [List of eponymously named diseases – Wikipedia][Science Magazine – WHO rules for Naming Diseases]

Don’t waste my time

Then, back to the crux of this blog, I wrote two blogs yesterday, one about recruitment agents and the other about the Coronavirus, there are links to my blogs from within my CV if it looks interesting enough to the reader.

In the case of the recruitment agent who had not done her homework and was completely out of her depth matching my profile to the requirements, if she understood either, a little more attention to detail rather than shuffling papers and manning a phonebank to earn commission might have achieved more for her, probably not with me, but with someone who might have seen the Marburg role as an opportunity.

Finally, if you are recruiting for an architect, don’t suggest the remuneration of a technician, it is a waste of time for both parties. It is not arrogance, just a bit of self-respect, many candidates are not hungry dogs jumping at any bone tossed at them and recruitment agents need to begin to earn their commissions by really putting in the work.

Through the prism of landing a new role

A market of bits

We are a churning marketplace that shifts through bit parts of being customer, seller, or product, we could even be a shop or shop window.

Like in a bazaar, we are flipped like fresh fish, then poked, and prodded to determine if we are of the quality to be served for dinner at home or in a restaurant. Nowhere is this of particular import than where you are on the job market seeking an opportunity for which you are first qualified and able to deploy your expertise and experience whilst at the same time you try to discern whether that prospect sets you up for the new when the project ends.

Don’t recruit like a brute

The engagement with recruitment agencies is at times a battle of wits, some of whom have just passed your profile through an ineffective and crude mangler without paying any attention to the detail therein.

There are times I have suggested I am a technical prostitute on the market for punters and patrons that take my fancy as much as they might be interested. Yet, it is not for anyone who comes or anything that goes. Discernment and discrimination are paramount, for there must be a good fit with the recruiter than engages you to represent your interests for which they will earn a fee if you accept the opportunity as even as they work to meet the requirements of their client.

Work for your keep

What irks me most is those who don’t do their homework at all, getting the basics of what we are about before calling and setting out to useful detail what the prospect portends. For instance, if you bring me an opportunity on mainland Europe, have answers for the concerns about Brexit and if relocation issues might be constrained for all sorts of reason. Then, already do an analysis on comparative cost of living to remuneration for taking someone out of their comfort zone abroad.

It is an insult to call me to match or offer than the same rate I am on in the UK where I have my comforts, accommodation, life, and friends as if you are doing me a favour. Much as I like adventure, I will not be fulfilling a role at a cost to myself just because you are persuasive or enthusiastic. I have been dealing with recruitment agents for decades, you are probably new to this game.

The market trumps all

I guess the funniest question I have had to answer is whether I have other offers I am considering. Let this be understood without any equivocation, I am on the market until contracts and agreements have been signed and delivered. Unless you are paying to keep me off the market, I have no obligation or allegiance. There are times I have gullibly trusted the word of a stranger and lost time and opportunity when the supposed arrangement fell through.

As a free agent, the decision for what I will do and where I will go is ultimately mine to make, if your sales patter does not sell, it would not be bought. It is not for me to become sentimental for what I have not obtained a binding and legally enforceable contract for.

In the end, I also must believe in myself, my reticence to apply for certain roles where I am well qualified and can grow to fill the opportunity is a battle of self-assurance and growing self-esteem. In my doubts, I hope a little voice of faith just urges me to do step out, step up, like someone I love would say, step on it. I will rise to the occasion.

Decade Blogs - Babatunde Rosanwo - The Market‏

The Decade Blogs

This is the first of blogs written to celebrate my 10 years of blogging, my friend, Babatunde Rosanwo has honoured me with a piece about the market and life as a market place of many interactions of decision, determination, discrimination and discernment.

Blog - To Celebrate My Decade of Blogging

In this, I find a story, one I had never written before, for when we lived in Kaduna, my mother too did have a market stall.

@Rosanwo is his Twitter handle or you can read his blogs here.

This is Babatunde’s story, please read on.

There are many routes leading to the market
Depending on your mission to the market
I dreaded going to Oja Oba (King’s Market) with my mother
It was a confluence of all manners of men and women
From the rich who bought the produce in bulk
To the average ones who came for their daily supplements
Those who came for the leftovers stretched across the market
Yet the was a constant buzz and noise across the market

I wondered why my mother spent such considerable time at the market stalls
Greeting the sellers and exchanging banter
I thought we should buy from the first stalls and leave
I would often look away to catch the expressions of the market
Intrigued by the alabarus (market porters) who labored to make a meaning out of life
My mother would insist that I accord everyone with greetings and courtesy
I wondered why it was so difficult for her to make up her mind
Why do we have to move from stall to stall, from bargain to bargain?

I would wonder where my father was at that moment
The one who worked all day was saved from the theatre of this market
The contrast between his alakowe (academic) office and the market
The contrast between our modest home on Ring Road and Oja Oba
I wondered what my father would make of this market
Would his job afford him the daily encounters of engaging so many people?

My mother said the market had many reflections
That one day I would understand that life itself is a market
People come and go but the market remains
I would have to bargain to get the best of the market one day
The bargains would determine how far I go
Some spend the whole day at the market without a bargain
Some spend just few minutes at the market with the best bargain

Again, I asked, why have your stalls inside the market?
Why not at the entrance to catch the customers as they arrive
My mother laughed at me, she held me in her arms
She said one day I would start my own journey in the market of life
I would never be satisfied with the first things that come my way
Neither would my first love end up as my wife
There would be days I would love to curse the market
And there would be days I would love to bless the market
In all, the market remains part of me

Now I reflect upon those days with my mother and our sojourn to the market
I look at the journey I have embarked on in life
I am no longer satisfied with the first bargains I have made
Sometimes I am confused
Sometimes I have cried
Sometimes I danced away my sorrows
Sometimes I have made poor bargains based on my poor judgment
It has dawned on me that life is a market
That my father had his own version of the market in his alakowe way

I don’t know if I am lost in the market
I don’t know if I am making the best bargains
I don’t know if the tinned tomatoes are better than fresh tomatoes
I don’t know if cooking with olive oil is better than my mother’s palm oil soup
I don’t know which route is best to leave the market
I don’t know if the market even knows I am here

The only thing I know is the market is still open
I am still looking for the best bargain
One day I will exit the market
I shall be gone but the market shall remain

In form for more forms

Back to form of forms

Gathered strangers of situation and circumstances from all walks of life seeking new relevance in the world of work.

Under the tutelage of some who for reason and opportunity find a calling in what they do as opposed to what they could do if they cared little.

Yet, they are all caught in the maelstrom and spectrum of ability that ranges from the talentless in other departments to the talented in company, the impartations sometimes useful or sometimes useless.

Tumbled by slumber

Forms ruled the day as time fillers and occupational activity, but one whose slumber interrupted his ability to keep pace was sent to his bed with much agitation, his bad luck, a result of his not being able to keep his eyes open.

Maybe he should have declared Human African trypanosomiasis as a condition, but he did not look African, probably he was a somnambulist and the course leader might have been a bit lenient, but the class being held back meant progress was too slow to retain any patience.

There is no shame is saying you have sleeping disorder, there are therapies and help available to those who recognise their frailties, but that is by the by.

Interesting insights

The discussions, lively, funny and humorous, the time passed with periods of boredom helped along with engagement and banter, sometimes skirting the risqué but never offensive – friendships can grow from this.

Why do you want this job?

What skills do you possess that makes you the right person for this job?

Apparently, those two questions are essentially the same question phrased differently and can be asked at different ends of the interview with the interviewer expecting similar rather than different answers.

In closing

However, one should hope that interviewers are not rigidly schooled in particular expectations without the flexibility to assess the total person beyond the rote of function and conformity.

A few more hand-outs, the polishing up of the marketing literature and the mandated requirement was completed to satisfaction with a certificate to boot.

Here is to better luck, favour and good fortune in the next endeavour.

Sent on a fool's errand to possible frustration

Like a fool’s errand

At a government mandated training course this morning where the disconnect between all related departments became so apparent that it was laughable, the dead hand of government protocols landed with a thud before us.

The question was whether any of the participants knew why they had to attend the course on advice and instruction of their advisors, for literally all the answers given, none was close.

Persuade to dissuade

The referral office was just ticking boxes without knowledge of the reasons to tick boxes, as each answer ranged from helping to write CVs, finding work for long-term unemployed, interviewing technique tips and useful preparations for work.

Surreptitiously, part of the purpose of sending people for this course is to frustrate them off the welfare roll and at least one of the attendees disappeared the moment the group broke up for the first break session.

To the market with the marketable

However, in the midst of the mundane and rudimentary, there are nuggets of wisdom, clues as to how people can alter their outlook and mind-set, leading to gainful employment.

Fundamentally, a CV is marketing literature; it is the means of selling yourself to the market. A market seeking talent and expertise you may possess.

The CV should create enough curiosity to excite interest, but it should never be overloaded such that there are no discussion points to give depth and detail to the ability and personality of the person.

The demeanour to project

We rise to challenges thrown our way in everyday walks of life but that boldness and confidence with which we effortlessly tackle problems seems to be lost at interview.

It is important to act naturally, being oneself rather than trying to impress thereby giving rise to nervousness, one of the factors indicative of poor interview technique.

Blessed at the font of the double page

The advice whilst useful could be quite prescriptive as preferred fonts being Garamond or Verdana, set headings providing uninspiring structure, page setups with set margins or that a CV must never exceed two pages with the employment history restricted to five years except for security or artistic roles.

For information technology roles, the suggestion is to use LinkedIn to document the other roles or have a webpage containing that detail.

Some things

Avoid clichés like ‘hard-working’ or ‘customer service skills’ in the profile because people are expected to be hard-working regardless, and customer service skills are innately functions of a person’s respect for others, acting courteously, politely and with a friendly disposition – you either have it or not.

Besides all this, forms, yes, many forms filled to the point of distraction but with the challenges, opinions, reviews, assessments and the ideas, it really was not a wasted day. Another day of observation and participation is set for the morrow.

Nigeria: Introducing the Nigerian Scores Exchange

The thriving market

There is a very vibrant market in Nigeria that seems to have an exclusive set of players whose stock is of traded value higher than what obtains in conventional stock markets even though people think there gains to be had in the latter.

They do not deal in shares but share the largesse of Nigeria’s great fortune brokering in eye-watering sums of currency that will suffocate the naïve.

What this market has in common with the stock market is insider knowledge but of a more malevolent kind, the secrets of cashing and market-making are based on timing with an amazing facility of self-moderation and self-regulation that defies the more regulated markets.

Values and virtues

Reputation and integrity have no context on the trading floor; rather it is information, vulgarity, cacophony, calumny, slander and revenge that work the best on this strangely floating bedrock of corruption and subterfuge – the stakes are really high.

The traders keep score and settle scores, by themselves or through proxies that could be attack dogs or organs of state that have lost their independence to the powers that be.

Things get done quite swiftly or through a slow injection of invective and vituperation that just beggars belief.

Amazing potential

There are no Chinese walls between the systems that operate in this market but the biggest trades are made through influence peddling by reason of a number of means starting from closeness to the those in power, to being able to command unaudited but humongous sums of cash or being able to gum of the litigation process with a troop of senior lawyers called Senior Advocates of Nigeria who intimidate judges into giving bizarre judgements.

Nigeria is awash with scores, bought, sold or held onto until times when their maturity brings the biggest dividend. Others can be co-opted into this market unawares to have a score kept which can be merged with an event to upturn the credibility of a process – it is not a game for tyros.

Workings of the market

Amongst the political classes, threats and exposés can be settled by doling out payments to those who appear to have a semblance of rectitude. They are usually successfully exploited that their entry-level is quite high on the score index. When traded the market simply suffers a shattering earthquake to contain the shock and then resets itself for the trade.

The case in point here is that of the corruption of Farouk Lawan who having gained a reputation for his handling of the Fuel Subsidy probe was found to have been implicated in a bribery scandal when Femi Otedola traded in his score to rubbish our confidence in the Fuel Subsidy report.

In other works of life, your score index is heightened by first courting controversy and then by secretly being ensnared in a scandal, like religious leaders dipping into the treasuries of their temples to live lives of debauchery or being caught pants down with persons they should not be in bed with. Blackmail probably has the highest traded value in this market.

The Nigerian Scores Market

We in fact have a scores glut in Nigeria that there is need to set forth a formal market with indices of traders, scores and parties implicated. The circuit-breakers for these markets are usually under the thumb of the Executive that can decide to cut out the effect of scores settled or keep score on those they want to toe the line.

However, I am now convinced that a bill needs to be sponsored in the Nigerian legislature establishing the Nigerian Scores Exchange for the business of handling, keeping and settling scores. It is hoped that there will be price controls, better transparency and a widened participatory market so that the masses can also trade in the scores market.

The fundamentals of this exchange will include the ability to buy time, sell souls or hold grudges, the more sophisticated will be able to do that in one tranche and decide market sentiment with betrayals and sell-outs, switching allegiances without compunction. They as the brood of vipers and the spawn of the Devil are at the top of their game.

The Nigerian flavour

Most importantly, with the establishment of the NSE, the murderous instinct that compels certain traders to take extreme measures to obliterate the scorecards others might hold will probably be contained as the secrecy instruments will be better shared amongst those with related interests, pursuits and ulterior motives.

The Nigeria Scores Market is really an amazing growth potential product whose value will radically change the face of doing business in Nigeria with astronomical returns.

We need to sensitise ourselves to this opportunity, building capacity to regularise the system so that the thermostat on the polity can be monitored to prevent opportunistic heating up along partisan, tribal or religious divides – subtlety is the purposeful key 

Known unto God

Unknown to man but known to God

The grave stone read “A soldier in the 1939-1944 war” at the top, some had the rank, others did not and at the bottom was written “Known unto God”.

Of the 1680 graves of men who perished in Operation Market Garden [1] over a period of 6 days between the 19^th of September 1994 and the 25^th of September 1944, some 245 carried the epithet of the Unknown Soldier – buried with honour for their service but unknown for all sorts of reasons.

On one tombstone, the inscription started with “Believed to be” it made you wonder when doubt should be removed and the truth be known, but should the truth be known or the situation be left for believers to believe as they will?

Believing might well have been difficult too because one tombstone marked the grave of the chaplain; on such an evil day, where would man have found comfort and succour in their last minutes on earth? With whom would they have left the “Kismet” [2] messages to dearly loved ones back at home?

The root of goodness

We were there - Arnhem Oosterbeek War Cemetery [3] - to visit the grave of someone we never knew but from whom came friends, families and good fortune. The people who lived through the wars of old never talked about how it affected them but we saw the scars as they stoically went about their business without grumble or discontentment.

The lady married to this gallant soldier already had a son by him and her daughter was born the day her father was declared missing, her grandson is my dear friend and for the first time, I finally found opportunity to pay my respects and see why she visited Arnhem every year from 1969 during the memorials up 2005 after which she was too indisposed to visit again.

As we approached the cemetery, it was so unexpected, my friend just burst into tears, I was taken aback, but cemeteries bring a quiet contemplation of serenity and mortality, memories of things past along with things not known the palpable sense of pilgrimage that accompanies knowing that someone from whom you came is rested in a perpetual memorial in a foreign land.

The dear lady died last year and her ashes are scattered where her husband is laid, the only love she knew and it is with poignancy that one recognises that she never remarried but brought up two children on her own.

We must not forget

However, one must not forget that the ravages of war has taken away young men, many not even in their 30s, the register of graves showed the name of the soldier, who the soldier was a son of and if the soldier was married, to whom he was married. Nothing was said of the offspring of the fallen.

In 1951, the British Government signed an undertaking with the government of the Netherlands and therein was established a number of Commonwealth graves as a memorial to our fallen men.

The grounds are well tended and clean, the memorials stand as beacons of great men who gave their lives for king, country and the freedom of mankind in a very dark hour of tyranny and humanity.

As the memorial to the fallen stands, one remembers Laurence Binyon’s For the Fallen [4], for therein we find the lines

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old

Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

And so we would, we who are left to mourn and pay respects will remember them.

Sources

[1] Operation Market Garden - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[2] Kiss me Hardy or Kismet Hardy

[3] Commonwealth War Graves Commission – Arnhem Oosterbeek War Cemetery

[4] First World War.com - Prose & Poetry - Laurence Binyon: