A Morning with the Uncivil Servants

For the sake of privacy, I’ll leave out some things [especially names] in this piece.

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As I approached the building, I could here them clapping, I could hear the clatter, the sounds coming from the musical instruments. From what I could make out, they didn’t have much. The ‘rhythm’ was kinda scanty. They probably just had about three things, and decided to knock ‘em together, to produce what could well pass for shabby sound. Well, the Nigerian ears should be used to that by now.

They were having their morning devotion, time for ‘praise and worship’, by these fellows. I knew, because that was not my first time there. I had been there several other times. The same issue that brought me at those times, had brought me back. It was somewhere I disliked going to, but for my own welfare I had to, more often than I should, considering my loathe for the environment. The toxicity there, could choke the faint-hearted.

It was quite early. I usually met them performing their morning ritual, because I was always early, too early in fact. I usually liked to leave home early, accomplish what I set out to do, and off I often went, attending to the things that mattered more to me. Through the years, I had come to realize that the less contact I had with people, the more peace and happiness I attained. Quite frankly, I’d like to keep things that way. Digressing a bit, right?

It was an old, dingy, two-story building, and the Institution’s administration was doing what it could, to change its face. More like pouring gravel around an already submerged and sinking house, or going for more plastic surgeries to fix a botched one, all, in the bid to salvage unsalvageable things, things that were already ruined. Such solutions never lasted, they were always temporary, and always worsened things, especially in the long run. In my country, the burden of worrying about that, was usually passed on to the administration[s] after. The building had become so dilapidated that it garnered the fleeting attention it was currently getting.

My destination that morning was the top floor. I counted my steps as I walked up the stairs. I did that sometimes. Why exactly, I had no idea, I just liked doing it. As I got nearer to the office complex, the sounds became clearer. I wished I wouldn’t have to wait long for them to be through this time around. For such a place, full of people with questionable characters, they really took their time, thanking God, the all merciful One, and asking for His blessings for the day. To do what exactly? To carry out the duties for which they’re paid right? Yeah right! 

The Nigerian system, where most public servants begin their day with ‘praise and worship’ to God, and spend the rest of the day perpetrating evil. I bet God usually receives those with a pinch of salt. Replace pinch with table spoon, please. 

One's priority as a civil or public servant should be to represent the interests of citizens.

'Fifty-three, fifty-four, fifty-five, fifty….' There was the door. I looked straight on, and saw the face that in as much as I disliked to say, had become quite familiar. In fact, most of the staff there, could recognize me by just a glance. I had been there severally, after all. I had to keep coming back, because they kept failing at making things right, at resolving the issue. I just had to, maka n’ife na-ebe kana ebe, the issue persisted. Sometimes, I had to leave everything I was doing, just to go there, to babysit whoever it was that was supposed to be handling my case. This time, I was there because there had been a replacement. The person working on my case, no longer worked there. Maybe she was transferred or fired or…, I didn’t really care to know. She was of no good to me, plain and simple. She took what was a simple issue, that required simple steps for fixing, and turned it into an issue, so complicated, that taking classes on coding would be easier to accede to, than entertaining or drawing out solutions to the ripple effect, that was now my case.  I was there to give the new person a heads up, concerning my case.

I entered the office, and headed towards the clerk whose face had become quite familiar. From her composure, I could tell she was just arriving for the day. That must have been at about 9:00 am.
‘Good Morning ma’, I greeted.
She responded promptly and cheerfully. I was surprised. I mean, I didn’t expect the opposite, but I didn’t expect that either.
‘Please ma, I am here to see the new person that works for….’
“They’re praying now”, she replied with a slight frown.
‘Okay, I’ll wait outside.’

I briskly moved out. I wasn't even going to stay there to listen clearly to the staccato sounds or see those faces, ‘praising and worshipping,’ if I was begged and paid to do so. To be there, it had to be that I was working to resolve the issue I had come for. That couldn’t be done at the moment, so I had to wait outside. It was a better option than taking a seat at that dungeon. Sitting through that would be considered one-less step from torture.

The office was somewhat larger than regular. It had what looked like an aisle, dividing it into two parts, left and right.  Each staff had a cubicle. The office of the head of that unit was at the extreme end of the left side. Opposite it, was the store room. Towards, the entrance, at the other end, was the file room. For a place with that number of staff, it was quite small. Maybe that contributed to the venom-spitting exercises that had become normalized there. Giving reasons for them, huh?  Whatever it was, is not enough reason to pawn off to people, what they know nothing about.

About ten seconds later, she approached the door, the clerk, and called out a name, that of the person I was there to see. The day’s second surprise was dropped.
‘Thank you ma’, I said, and off she went, to join the others, praising and worshipping.
From the name I got, it was clear I was there to see a Mister. He was the replacement for the Madam that was there before, handling my issue. A part of me hoped that the difference in gender between them, would make things better.

About five minutes after the clerk left, the shabby music stopped. For a second there, I thought they were through, ‘lucky me’. I had already braced myself to enter, when I heard it, they were singing. Ha! Well, I had no problem standing. It was something I had become used to. It was going to be a long wait. I came to terms with that. They sang for quite a while, ten minutes maybe, before I stopped making out the sounds. They must have started praying.

Whilst I was standing out there, more staff were coming in for the day. I had to see them all, as they passed. I also had to greet them all, because you never know, the one you miss, might be the one you came to see, and in that environment, they hungered for greetings. 
‘Good Morning ma’, ‘Good Morning sir’, was on repeat throughout my standing session. I just had to look at someone, determine the gender, press play, and the three magical words came flying out. Some of them answered cheerfully, some gloomily. I paid no mind. Well, one of them went as far as asking me how I was doing. Yeah, he already knew me from my many visits there. I had also talked with him on a few occasions. Seeing him that morning, meant that he wasn’t one of those replaced. His asking after my well-being didn’t surprise me, anyway. He was just being the guy I knew him to be: jovial, free-spirited, unaffected by his work environment, and untainted by the toxicity, in the way the others were. He was simply, a jolly good fellow. Out of all the people I had talked to there, there was just one more like him. Both of them usually respected people, no matter what. In that kind of environment, it’s safe to consider such behaviour strange, an anomaly. It makes one wonder what those two were doing there.

While I was standing there, and replaying from my few-worded playlist, a fellow that had nothing remarkable about him, apart from his slightly [understatement] oversized and uniquely-shaped head, was on his way in. It was probably going to be triangular, his head, but the decision to make it rectangular must have been made at the very last second, making it a mass of irregularity. Credit for half his weight, went to his head. As he was passing by, I pressed play. He passed, no reply. I was sure he heard. I looked for a trash bin around, and threw his attitude right in. Next!
The next person passed, and I pressed play. On it went. Finally, after what seemed like hours, but must have been about thirty minutes, the prayer session was brought to an end. It was time for them to go back to their daily, self-assigned duties of trying, in every way they could, to compound issues for people, and make them feel miserable, or more miserable, depending. Come in wearing a smile on your face, leave with tears in your eyes. If one was ‘lucky’ enough, he left with stress or worry folds on the forehead, instead of tears. Good transaction, right?
Another thing they were notorious for, the staff there, was that whenever they saw someone, obviously looking for someone cut from the same cloth as them [a fellow staff], they usually took it upon themselves to ask whom it was that person was looking for, after which they would usually of no help, whatsoever.

They were done. It was time for them to rid themselves of the costumes, which were the sheep's clothing they had put on for their morning ritual. It was also time for me to go in. I walked in on them scampering to their cubicles. Right there and then, the expected question came:
“Who’re you looking for?”
It was coming from one fair Mister.
Well…, I might as well answer, I thought.
I gave him a name. “Look for him around.”, he replied.
No, I wasn’t going to do that, it must have been my intention to breeze in and out of this place without looking for the very person I came to see.

The question came again, this time, from a dark Mister. Just like the first, I gave him a name
“Wait for him to settle down first now”, he said flatly.
‘Okay, let me at least see who it is, and then I’d wait for him to get settled.’
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As we were still talking, the unremarkable fellow, with the slightly oversized and uniquely-shaped head, waltzed towards us. I had never seen a rectangular head before, until that morning. I had always thought it a weak punchline as a kid, when two kids were calling each other out: “You with your triangular face”,  “You with your rectangular head”. It was clear to me now, that those weren’t weak at all.

“What are you looking for?”, the unremarkable fellow could talk!
I was thrown aback. I took a split of a second to rap my head around this shocker and get my acts together, before exercising all the restraint I could garner, and then answering him, politely.
He rambled on and on about the probability of the issue not being what I should ‘disturb' the man for. For a second there, I thought: Are you sure this ain’t the person I came to see? Well, he wasn’t. I am too dear to God for that to happen. He was simply speaking for someone who wasn’t there to speak for himself, and hadn’t even asked to be spoken for.
He went on yapping. I ignored him, I didn’t have the time to entertain his tantrums. He was going to have it all by himself.  Just like I did the first time, I looked around for a trash bin to throw his attitude into. It was a mass of waste that needed to be trashed,

and the nearest trash bin there needed emptying first. That was understandable, as I was inside a dungeon, where such hate-triggered occurrences were normal. The trash bins were filled to the brim with the nasty attitudes thrown in every second. Clearly, the rate at which they were generated was quite fast. Well, seeing no available trash bin, I threw it right back at him, it landed on his head, and made it even bigger. Like I said, I paid him no mind.

The better of both bad, the dark Mister, whom I was talking to, before the creature reared its head, was still there. He had looked around, and found out that the Mister I was there to see, wasn’t on seat at that moment.
Once more, I stepped outside to wait. A breath of fresh air. More people were passing, some I had already seen that morning. I brought out my recorder, and pressed play.
‘Good Morning ma.’ ‘Good Morning sir.’
A few minutes passed, then, a Mister came along. He had passed there at least three times that morning. This time around, he didn’t just pass by, and enter the office, he came over to where I was standing, and started talking to me.
“Who’re you even looking for self?”
Again!, I thought to myself. I gave him a name.
“Why do you want to see him?”
This was getting interesting, in a dreary way. None of the other answer seekers got to that stage of questioning with me.
Well, I explained. What had I to loose? Besides, I was beginning to think this might just be the person I was there to see.
He went further, asking more questions. He had to be, I thought. He kept asking , and I kept explaining myself.
Finally, he stopped for a while, and told me to come along. I followed him in.
That was him, the Mister I was there to see, after all.
As we walked in, I noticed him loose a bit of his composure. He acted like someone who had been caught with his hands in the cookie jar. He seemed triggered and disorganized, in a way, because work had come.
Picture this: It is a very chilly morning. You have your cat [replace with any other furry pet] there with you. Out of the goodness of your heart, you go get a cold glass of water and waah!, you pour it on the breathing pile.
You see there, that reaction from the cat, is what the Mister right there was mirroring. He was practically panting. He seemed not to have clue, what to do. He opted to ask around. Yes, he was new to that line of work, it would be understandable if he asked for help. I get it, except, the adviser he chose was the unremarkable fellow, with the slightly oversized and uniquely-shaped head. In the twinkle of an eye, he flew across. It reared its head, once more.
Again? Dear God! I can’t deal. 
The ramble was about to begin, I wasn't going to entertain any of it. I shut off. But, before that, I looked for a trash bin around. Thank God, one was empty.