If I'd Asked You To Dance
Maria jumped from the bed at the blaring alarm. She was booked for an interview on the island by 7:00 am. Every other day she had woken up by 5:30 am, took her bath, and caught up with the staff bus by 6:30 am. Working as the secretary to the operations manager is quite demanding and she is not ready to begin life with such a tough job.
As she tried checking online for any better job opening in any of the new generation banks, she got one and the interview for prospective workers was scheduled for Wednesday morning.
Since she was used to the banking sector, she knew that punctuality was one of the requisite to be measured before anyone can clinch rhe job.
Straight to the bathroom she went, just for a shower. She had just thirty minutes to be in the island.
By 6:45am, she was completely dressed in her black suit and well ironed check shirt. Maria loves to put on quality shoes. This time, she wore her black J.P Clarks flat underlayer and ran out of her room to catch the next available bus at the Park.
Luckily, she got a bus and the zoomed off through the third mainland bridge. Everything seemed like a miracle. By 6:55 am, she was in the island. This journey should have taking nothing less than two hours but the driver was quite fast and accurate. It was miracle that there was no traffic jam in strategic part of the route to Adeola Odeku on Victoria Island where she was to attend the interview.
What can we do for you?
The guards at the office complex of the bank asked Maria.
I am here for the interview.
Maria replied to the guards who started mumbling to one another
Na God saves this one. (Meaning: she ought to have been disqualified had she come in late)
Straight, she walked into the reception and registered her presence. The guards locked the gate against every other applicant that could not meet the target.
In all, there were about twelve present applicants at the interview. They were all launched to the board room where the interview started.
After the written interview, the best five were selected and the rest asked to go until they would be contacted. Maria was one of the best five and they had to go through another rigorous selection process.
It first appeared like one of the two guys who was among the five qualified five was topping during the oral interview but at the count of the judges, two among the five were screened out and Maria was lucky to be part of them.
After much scrutiny, the interviewers had exhausted all that was on paper. These last three may have to go to the bunkers to prove their worth. They had to bring in an expert who would give practical question to solve the hurdle as only one position is opened for the job. And the best will be given the space.
O'Jay came in to the board room. He is Maria's direct boss. The operations manager at the bank where Maria served as the secretary. She did not seek permission to be off work that day.
As he appeared, Maria bowed in regret that she has lost this opportunity. She regretted that she didn't take an excuse from work.
O'Jay did not bother to act like he knew her someone. He made everything official. They moved on to the work of the day. The puzzle was to knot a tie in ten different ways. And they all have ten minutes to prove their knowledge.
This is the most difficult aspect of the interview for the guys but it was a cheap one for Maria. She had to pull through five hundred applicant to clinch on the secretary job.
Suddenly, she got tired at the competition, the unhealthy competition at her first place of work and wanted to leave. To her, it is not coming as clean as she ought to and to make matters worse, O'Jay has gotten a wink of all her moves.
To knot the tie here is her best option and she did it with zeal. Under ten minutes she was done knotting the tie and she got to job on that platter.
After the interview, Maria walked up to O'Jay to tell him that she is sorry for not informing him of his absence at work and to thank him for the support she received from him.
O'Jay, with an opened arms embraced her and told her he understood but that she should not repeat such a mistake in this new place.
Maria was so elated that she couldn't believe how favoured she is to have O'Jay as a boss.
She is lucky to have a boss like Ojay.