So it happens that some days before today, we were toasted on having a graduation ceremony. As a group of 20, the first batch of trainees. We held our group meetings. At a meeting, I was assigned the role of reading the speech. I came up with something. A story. A day to the supposed graduation day, nothing was said about the graduation. Here's a story I would have read or will still read.
Good morning/afternoon Ladies and gentlemen, all protocols duly observed. My name is Kunle Anjorin.
On the 8th of October last year, I stepped into Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC) for the first time. I was welcomed by a group of young men and ladies, most of whom I'll be graduating with today. We all sat expectantly in a room. I could say no one had an inkling of what awaited us within the next 12 months.
I, for instance, didn't expect to enumerate customers. Walking around the streets, tagging transformers, poles, taking customer details and the rest. Not that It wasn't fun, it was. I just didn't expect it. Every task we were given brought our creative juices to bear. We defined territories, created processes thanks to Lookman, Chuks and the whole crew. Google map became very useful, enabling us to know each area. I still remember the streets of GRA at the palm of my hands.
I didn't expect to have to deal with protesters. Customers who had a way of bringing their complaints through a different channel apart from the ones we made available. A blaring sound of human voices on a beautiful day at the Head Office will tell you that the channel has been opened. And you just had to respond.
I didn't expect to have classes with the Managing Director, and even if I did, I wasn't expecting her to subtract marks from the first day. 30 Seconds late and that was (-5). She had started grading. From then on, every little thing I didn't regard seemed to be a (-5) or a (-2). You just had to take proactive measures when you are around her.
One thing I did expect was a training. But not a physical one attached to it. Even if I had to do that, not by soldiers who had gone through drills all their life in the army. A boot camp training. It was stretching the first time. Couldn't walk well for a week but at the other two times, I adapted. Once, I wasn't feeling too well. I tried capitalising on it, saying ‘I can’t do it’. Guess what I was told, ‘It’s your mind. You can do it’. I went on to do it. The fever ran away only to return two days later and was treated. I should not forget to mention that our camp senior, Tosin Ayoko who I knew to be a good indexing officer had good leadership traits waiting to be discovered. He just had this way of relating to each person accordingly.
Our classroom training exposed us to various learnings, technical and non-technical. It didn't matter if that was our background or not. Engineers got to do finance and accounting. We read cash flow statements, profit and loss statements and the rest, thanks to our accounting buddies who also had to grapple with our technical jargon, though the technical crew did a great job breaking it down for them. We even witnessed an accountant outsmarting the engineers in a test and mechanical engineers doing better than electrical engineers at some time. Each class was wow! Though getting to learning that BEDC had a high ATC&C loss wasn't a good story.
In a book called Outliers: The story of success written by Malcolm Gladwell, he says, and I agree with him that People don't rise from nothing. They do owe something to parentage and patronage. That the people who stand before kings may look like they did it all by themselves. But in fact they are invariably beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities that allowed them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot.
I do not say we have achieved success but I point you to the fact that we have all been given an opportunity. An opportunity on which we can choose to learn and work hard to make a success of our world in ways other might not be able to. An opportunity to learn and understand our business, adding value to the various arms that make it. An opportunity to work within an environment presumably with the most hostile customers. An opportunity to work within a company with a high Aggregate Technical Commercial & Collection loss. What more could we ask for? It's just perfect. Isn't it?
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