Rough Ride
It no secret how my last two weeks of my industrial training has gone if you've been following my articles, it's been one problem or another evert single day, but I never envisaged how the week ended, it was a real shock. Let me give you the gist.
On Thursday, as usual we were ready as early as 5:00AM and waited for the driver to come pick us up, but he didn't show. By 7:00AM that morning, we had to csll our supervisor that we couldn't make it as a result of the driver not showing up, but she would have none of it. She insisted and gave us an ultimatum to get there in an hour or else; this is a journey that takes two and a half hour on a normal day without traffic jam or anything, not to mention the fact that we did have heavy traffic congestion along the route and fuel scarcity leading to long queues in all the filling station along the route, spilling into the road, hence compounding an already bad traffic situation.
Seeing as she wasn't listening to us, one of my group members thought it wise to inform our coordinator in school to help us plead with her to understand our predicament, he said he was going to do but didn't, but when another one of my group members called to inform him that we weren't getting the requisite practical knowledge we came to learn, he went and pissed off our industry-based supervisor. So, she decided to get her pound of flesh by giving us hell with the little time she had with us.
So, when we got there on Friday, she refused to organise classes for us, she didn't even let us see her and she switched off her phones, that meant she was really mad. Seeing as that was to be our last day there, she was supposed to mark our log books and grade us on what we have learned, but she wouldn't show. We had to go to her house to plead with her, before she came, not that she had forgiven us.
Summary of the whole matter is, she did everything in our power to frustrate our efforts and makes us pay for what she considered our 'unforgivable sin'. What was supposed to be a quick and easy task of assessing us became a complex and excruciating task that we are yet to even finish even though we should be over there.
I can understand why she's angry to a certain extent, but she's really taking it too far. Sometimes I don't get people at all. I know she's a high ranking officer, but that doesn't mean we should upend our lives at her beck and call. All we really needed and asked from her was a little understanding of our circumstances on her part, but she never listens, her will must be done.
Conclusion
I know her anger mostly stems from the accusation that they aren't teaching us any practical knowledge, which is why we came in the first place, but it was actually the truth of the matter. The fact that she doesn't want her institute to be brought to disrepute doesn't make it less true. I agree there are better ways we might have gone about it, but she ought to understand our frustration for not getting enough after factoring the cost of coming here to learn, and when i say cost, i don't just mean money alone, the time, the opportunity to earn given up, our health etc have all been sacrificed in the quest to get this knowledge that we are not been given. Our struggle is and was quite legitimate, but power they say intoxicate, and that's one of her biggest problems. I really don't understand why it's so hard for some people to be understanding really because I know it doesn't really take much to try and see thing from another person's perspective, but I guess I'm wrong on that.
Note: This article was meant to be published yesterday, but I slept off...
Hopefully everything will be okay mate.