So imagine you just barely finished attending to a troublesome email before your boss calls for you. You grab pen, paper and diary (you never know which will come in handy) and you rush in and say ‘good evening Sir,’ only for your greeting to be answered with a statement like: ‘you look tired and harassed.’ How do you handle this?

Do you retort, ‘But of course! I’ve been working for the past 8 hours part of which hours were spent under the hot sun,’ or do you smile shyly and pretend it was a rhetorical statement, or perhaps you smile and stumbling over your words, you chant, ‘Of course not Sir, I don’t look tired, this is my normal look.’

Whichever way you choose to handle the above or any other similar situation, you should bear in mind that while a quick-wit is sometimes equated with a smart mouth, they are not necessarily the same because while a quick wit can give you a safe landing, a smart mouth may likely land you in trouble and may not be much different from a dimwit after all.

So be guided accordingly.

How many times have you said to yourself, ‘I would never be caught dead doing/saying that!’ and barely have you walked away in defiant triumph only for the opposite of those same words to happen to you. Deja vu! you say?

In my little experience, I have discovered that a playout of something akin to the above scenario sometimes happens just after you have convinced yourself that you are immune to it…and sadly it almost seems that one is helpless to resist the seemingly magnetic pull to act or speak contrary to the previously spoken high-sounding words.

One definite way of not dealing with the above situation in one’s view, is feeling cocky that such a situation can never apply to you. In such an instance, you should remember the age long cliche that pride goeth before a fall. A more realistic way of addressing the situation could be by recognising it as what it is- a temptation- which should harden the resolve the more, not to fall into it.

So next time, you perceive that your words wanna bite you, you should be quick enough to recognise it for what it is and say to that situation, ‘O no! you ain’t got me this time,’ while holding your head high and walking away from it.

Listening to a colleague narrating an unpleasant experience on social media that almost managed to creep into his career, makes one realise how wide the ears of walls have gotten, what with camera phones, internet facilities and what have you? If you doubt me and are in Naija, just think back to how the ‘salt-water bath cure for Ebola virus’ started and ditto!

Anyway, if you work in an organisation that has your name and possibly face or contact details on its website, you might want to consider what and how you post certain comments on social media (except of course you post as ‘anonymous’, and even then, internet geeks, have their ways of putting a name to your anonymity) because those comments may just come back to attempt to bite you. 

So, my conclusion is that we should always be careful about the comments and whatnots we post, and generally, what we say because the walls indeed have ears. After all, that was how I got something to post about! *cheeky grin*

With bated breath, I listen as the radio commentator exclaims, “Is this another goal!…” And with adrenaline pumping through my veins at top speed, I hear, “O! What a brilliant save by the goalkeeper!” Barely have I released my breath, before I hear another exclamation, “O no! The goalkeeper’s defender just made a tactical error and scored an own-goal! *sad face.*

That was the scenario that flashed across my mind as I and my team mates tried to beat the odds of traffic around 2:30 pm to meet up with a 3:45 pm flight, for which check in time was to be no later than 40 minutes before departure. Of course, we didn’t plan to leave by that time but you see, some things came up, as they often inevitably do when you act in concert with a team.

So on our way, I muse about this thing called team work and how it can make or mar personal efforts. Constantly distracted by glancing at my watch every few minutes (like that would magically make the cab move faster) and varied chants of ‘Oga, abeg move faster!’ from my team mates, I thought to myself that this team work of a thing can sometimes be a burden.

Irrespective of my fleeting thoughts on the subject, one thing that still holds true is that, ability to work in and with a team is perhaps one of the greatest indicators of a well-rounded personality, after all, a single tree can never make a forest.

Needless to say, we managed to meet up with our flight and as I strap myself in for the ride home from the airport, I can only conclude that team work is inevitable.

Ok! So here are two perspectives…

A chic’s walking all daintily in her killer-heels thinking in her mind, ‘can this event end so I can climb down from these things.’ Another looks on in envy and thinks aloud, ‘see this hot chic.’

My point, one chic is enduring the moment while the other not knowing where her heels pinch, looks on in envy.

Now the application…

In life, no matter how dainty any one person’s life looks, there’s almost always a story to tell and fact is even if the story now has a happy ending, there almost always would have been bumps and twists along the way.

For me, life is really about how you pick yourself up and carry yourself daintily no matter what you have been through because at the end, that is what really makes you the success you are.

In conclusion…

Before you go about beefing that chic (or guy) who seems to have it better than you, take a breather and really ask yourself, ‘am I ready to walk her (or his) walk?’

As part of the female gender, it had always been somewhere at the back of my mind that my daddy’s surname won’t stay mine forever; but reflecting on the reality of it has brought some questions to mind.

You see, in law, the understanding is that when a company for instance changes its name, it can no longer carry on business with the former name without doing another formal change of name.

So here’s the thing. After the fun and fanfare of a wedding ceremony, the wife gets to formally change her surname to her husband’s surname (in most cases), and even takes out a newspaper publication in that regard, to serve as notice to all and sundry.

Granted, all documents that had been issued in her father’s surname before the change of name, remain valid. But the question is, what if this woman after that change of surname, decides to use her father’s surname (maiden name) to say, purchase a property. Will that action be valid, given that she has changed that name? Is one to apply the company name change scenario cited above to this?

So, as I drink (or is it eat) hot pepper soup on this cold, rainy evening, these are some of the questions that come to mind.

Watagoan!

Ok, so I decided to do this to capture random thoughts and largely assert in a fun way that sanity can indeed be maintained even in the midst of all the craziness. I like music, reading, gisting and writing (in no particular order) and I’m always happy to receive constructive comments.

That being said, let’s do this!

Cheers…