UNDERGRADUATE KAYA

 Hi.

My name is Kunle Omope, let me tell you a story.

Long before my advertising career I once worked in a Warehouse around Aswani Market in Lagos.

I was a Warehouse Officer and my job was to count, record and supervise the loading and offloading of bags of rice,.

A trailer of rice coming into the warehouse carried 600 bags. These bags are offloaded and neatly stacked in 20mins or less by a gang of five labourers.

Their strategy is having one labourer(loader) standing on top of the stacks of rice in the trailer. He helps 3 labourers(runners) carry and place a bag on their heads as they run back and forth from the loader to the stacker. The stacker is the 5th labourer who recieves and stacks the bags on the warehouse floor.

Back then, they were paid six thousand naira to offload a trailer of 600 bags of rice. Their contractor/Oga who himself is a veteran labourer gets a cut from the 6k, while the labourers share what is left equally.

One day, an undergraduate(let's call him Omo School) came into the warehouse to look for work. He pled with the Oga to allow him work with the labourers, assuring him of his strength. He needed to complete his school fees in the university.

Out of sympathy, Oga attached him to one of the gangs.

Now, the head of the gang was not pleased with Oga's decision, but he had no choice but to agree because Oga was god!

Next, they tested Omo School by slapping and grabbing his lower back to ascertain whether he could withstand the pressure of their kind of brutal work. The look on the face of the gang leader showed that Omo School's hours were numbered in the warehouse.

Omo school is added to the runners and work starts.

At first , he showed initial gra gra and ran with bags on his head. But after going back and forth like 7 times between the loader and stacker, Omo School began to slow down; his legs started to shake and his eyes bulged under each 50kg bag of rice.

To make matters worse, his fellow runners were not having it and smacked him in the back everytime they raced past his gradually-tiring body. Each smack to the back was followed by a mocking voice "Sucking Blood".

Sucking Blood was a name given to time-wasting labourers who were not putting in the work. They were seen as "Blood Suckers" who were feeding off the blood and energy of their colleagues.

The trailer had not been offloaded half way when Omo School's head could not bear the weight any longer, so he switched to bearing the load on his face and neck. In this posture, after only one back and forth, Omo School crashed on the floor of the warehouse and wept with exhaustion.

His tears drew laughter from the gang of labourers, but pity from Oga.

Oga pulled him aside and poured some cold water over his head. He then offered him a bottle of half drunk Coca Cola. Omo School gulped the Coke hungrily, his Adam's Apple bobbing up and down in a desperate attempt to cure his dehydration.

When Omo School finally stopped crying, Oga gave him a one thousand naira note and said,

"Omo School, I know say you no fit do this our work, but I just say make I give you chance to try. Oya, go look for office work, good luck.

From where I stood counting and recording, I watched Omo School walking slowly out of the premises. He was drenched in sweat. His shirt hung over his shoulder. He was too tired and sore to put it on.

The end.