A clear view of the sky in life

A house burnt down

“You know what happens when your house burns down? You get a clear view of the sky.” Olivia Benson on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Swimming with the sharks (Season 21, Episode 15) [IMDB: Quotes].

I was about to go to bed when the twist in this episode of Law & Order: SVU was so compelling, that I had to see it to the end, and this was after I had put everything I needed in the bedroom and made to turn off the lights in the living room.

The quote above came in the closing stage of the episode after the issues had been resolved and the conspirators agreed to a deal. The protagonist on whom the storyline was based said, “I could've been a better friend. I've been thinking about it. When you arrested me. I thought it was karma. I burned a lot of bridges in my time. Hell, I burned my whole house down.”

I could be better

There is so much to unpack in that statement, and I could relate to everything she said, for it got me thinking about how I could be a better person, a better lover, a better friend, a better son, a better brother, a better parent, a better colleague, a better anything that is good, wholesome and redounds to the goodness of our humanity.

Moving on, I think about the things I probably should have done or paid more attention to, from the personal to the communal and where commission or omission has found me wanting. There is time for a lot of introspection, for there is not lost in continuous improvement, it would be nowhere near perfect, but getting better is always worthwhile. Knowing you can put the effort into it to do better is always a consideration to entertain and act on.

On bridges, even when I am tempted, I have tried as much as I can, not to burn my bridges. I learnt almost 5 years ago that bridges are not only for your use but for the use of others too. They may need that same bridge you have crossed and long-abandoned to cross the ravine over to you, that is their prerogative, but never burn those bridges, make allowances even if those allowances are taxing on your exploited magnanimity.

Life burnt down

“Hell, I burned my whole house down.” I have probably done that too many times, but what have I done with the ashes? More significantly, when I allowed HIV to ravage my body, it became full-blown AIDS presenting with life-threatening Kaposi’s sarcoma skin cancer that if the therapies did not work I was given a prognosis of 5 weeks, the long tail of cancer that wagged me to exhaustion was I lost everything.

Indeed, I lost my house among many things, and things I had acquired over decades, but rather than look around the ruins that tried to define my existence, I got a clear view of the sky, it was blue, sunny, and beautiful. My view of the sky in the context of my life was hope, I had a resolution that reverberated through my whole being, this too shall pass, and we would get to write a better story; that was the spring of possibility and life that was welling up from within me.

Prospect and possibility

In Yoruba, there is a similar saying that asks us not to despair but to be encouraged with hope and new possibilities, “Ilé ọba t'ójó ẹ̀wà ló bù si.” Using a translation of contextual equivalence rather than an exact interpretation, “You have the prospect of building something more beautiful after the royal palace burnt down.”

I guess you need to acquire the disposition not to dwell on the misfortune, no matter how catastrophic, and we have seen many that would make some hearts fail and extinguish any semblance of hope. For me, that I was alive and living meant I was ready for things ahead, a future, a world of possibilities, the need to walk through this valley of the shadow of death to new still waters and green pastures.

The comfort of knowing that trials are part of the human story, they are milestones we can do without, but if they come, we must pass them and continue on that journey that makes a better story of our experiences. Always seek and find a clear view of the sky, regardless of where you are, let the spirit of hope and encouragement take you to the place where looking back you marvel at the fact that you did not know your own strength.

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.

Thought Picnic: Reading Steve Jobs on living, life, cancer, hope and death

As stories begin

It was well past midnight before I went to sleep last night first in elation of my nephew having won the MOBO Award for Best Gospel Act for which I penned a short update before I retired and retiring is not what it seems.

Over a year ago, I read of a house fire that broke out by reason of an overheated laptop on a bed, the occupier of the house lost his life. The next day after hearing that news, I went shopping for a laptop stand, something that lifts the warmish to hot parts off surfaces that might be prone to catching fire and so my almost 3-year old Toshiba NB 100 netbook with an unsupported 2GB memory module has retained its pride of place beside my strewn pillows.

I keep something inspirational playing through the night from bible readings to messages from my virtual church; in the midst of many of my life’s troubles, I need all the encouragement I can get that I can still make the best of the days I have ahead.

The death of an iconic man

Most of my activity appears to take place on Twitter and I caught a glimpse of breaking news from New York Post that the legendary and iconic Steve Jobs had passed on.

Only 8 weeks ago, he stepped down as CEO of Apple and I suspected he needed to slow down a bit, maybe undergo some treatment and avail himself of the need to recuperate.

It is amazing the power of ones intellect, brain and mind to want to keep going just as the body is failing to keep up by reason of the disease and most especially cancer, it is a fight for life and survival like you can never understand until you find yourself in the middle of that battle.

Then each small victory like a day, a week, a month, a year or even more leaves you with the drive first to return to what you once did, probably to do it better and with the time one has left, maybe to leave a legacy, a memory, a mark that your footsteps did also trod the sands of time.

Knowing what cancer is

I know that much because Steve Jobs died exactly two years after I took my first session of chemotherapy out of what stretched to 7 sessions and that was just 5 days after the specialists had conclusively diagnosed the cancer I had and basically planned a course of treatment to go after it and deal with it.

The cancer lesions with their amazing pain to which I cannot find adequate expression began to heal, necrotised skin being taken off for fresh new skin to grow in its place; these were tended to almost every day for 8 weeks and when they were fully healed my nurse marvelled at the speed of healing, he said he had tended lesions for upwards of 6 months – I had a miracle, not necessarily instant but laudable all the same.

The cancer and chemotherapy began to write their histories in my life, the stark realities of living began to loom large, the bills, the threats, the angst, the helplessness, the vulnerability and no one was giving medals for having come through such an ordeal.

A beginning so unsure

Life just seems to go on and you either hope on the bandwagon or you get left behind, the respite of finding work was a great change but it offered nothing near what one once did – it is possible the most important thing my colleagues learnt about me was I was a pleasure to work with and I could rise to the challenges set before me as I half-recuperated and worked just 7 weeks from my last chemotherapy session – they were sympathetically accommodating.

The journey back to the life one once had is still long and arduous, you almost thing you are living on borrowed time as you watch and I have seen 5 friends and relations taken away by cancer since I first had my diagnosis, but we cannot dwell on those apart from the fond memories of those people who touched our lives for the better.

What I owe Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs did many things and whilst I was not particularly an Apple buff my early years in Information Technology Computing started with programming BASIC, ForTRAN and Pascal on the Apple IIc and Apple IIe, I never really used Apple products professionally but a company in which I own 30% was named NeXTStep in tribute to what Steve Jobs was doing at NeXT, it was just fascinatingly mind-blowing to read of the NeXT Cube and what a different it might have been if these system got more widely adopted.

I never really jumped on the iProduct frenzy, when I did high-level legal desktop publishing in the late 80s, the Mac could not offer the kind of consistency we needed, with Xerox Ventura Publisher on the PC whilst we were no print shop the Mac was playing catch-up at the time but there was always some admiration for the products from afar.

Fate, fortune, faith and future

The passing of Steve Jobs for all the well-deserved tributes that will make his passing almost as moving as that of John Lennon reveals to me another reality of which one must learn never to be fearful of, it is our mortality and death, somewhere out there in the future, either for a long time hence or shorter, who knows – I lost a friend just after two weeks of defending his PhD, one of the winners of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 2011 died on the Friday before the Monday when the prize was announced.

What fates and what calls for faith and mining of the depths of hope that one be more prepared and as well as being available to win whilst having planned one’s exit such that it is not all so sudden.

A beginner again

For those of us who have survived and hope to thrive and live life until the last breath is drawn, I take this message from Steve Jobs, it is meaningful to me enough to help me face a future that may at times be uncertain but is there to be lived in and seized with the fervour of a person full of life and zest.

“The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything.” Indeed, after a life of the many things one has done, that is one prospect one faces after cancer and one does hope one has the opportunity to just begin again.

Thought Picnic: Prospects to a company

Exploring a prospect

The difference between mentors and protégé could not be starker as they were corporation men and he, a man in some corporation and many at that.

The regularity of the pay-check as the politics of the firm determined stagnation, promotion, ejection or resignation, the hope for a boss that did not set your blood pressure off to the wrong readings at the risk of shortening your life.

The irregularity of great rewards of risk as your great utility at onset diminishes in significance as problems fall to solutions you proffer and the absence of panic suddenly points you out as too luxurious – a wave of austere angst is the tide that sweeps you back onto the street which becomes the treadmill again.

The talk

Before the last sunset there was a talk, a discussion, a possibility and opportunity, maybe a change to the unusual with the prospect of the interesting.

A deposition like an interview, exchanges that speak of you and who you are, whether the change is good or not, one cannot tell but until explored that land remains undiscovered.

After another sunset one would know if the path is to corporation man or one remains a fireman good for emergencies but never in the garden.