It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a man in possession of money that needs change has a great chance of doing so at the nearest petrol station.
If that first sentence sounds familiar to you, then you must have read Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice.” But today I’m not talking literature. I’m rather going to tell you about an experience I had that got me thinking. I’ve had different experiences of the same nature before, but this is perhaps the first time I have had to write about.
I was a man in possession of money that needed change a few days ago. And so I made my way to the nearest petrol station. The pump attendant must not have heard me well (at least that is what he claimed) when I approached him with a 5.000frs note in my hand and said “pourrais-je avoir la monnaie de 5 mille francs s’il vous plait?”
He was pumping petrol into a car and my good education told me to wait till he finished before I handed him the note or at least wait till he counted the change out of the wad of notes from his pocket and hand it over to me before I gave him my money.
Surprisingly, after he finished pumping fuel, he leaned on the column beside the gas pump and started talking to another attendant behind me. I was a little taken aback by this. And then I asked him, rather politely if he had not heard that I needed change to which he replied, “je ne vous ai pas entendu quand vous aviez demande ca. D’ailleurs, je n’ai pas de monnaies.
Needless this irked me. Let’s assume that he never heard me. In all fairness, a nearby bar was playing music rather loudly. But I STOOD there for almost a minute while he pumped petrol into that car with a 5K note in my hand and there is no way he could not have known that I needed change.
I retorted rather angrily, saying that he could have spared me the pain of waiting for him to finish pumping fuel and told me then that he did not have change. I added, quite bitterly, that “le simple fait que vous ayez de la monnaie et que j’en demande ne devrais pas dire que vous me traitez de le sorte. »
Now before any of you jizzes in your Anglophone pants because you saw that the interaction was in French, I have another story for you from my University of Buea days. One of those “secretaries” (as we called them) at the faculty of SMS, a dark gentleman with a rather conspicuous depression on his forehead tried to hold me back from entering the exam hall because I was late. True, I was. But I also knew that the University allowed students to be late for up to 3 0 mins into an exam. I reminded the gentleman that I was late but well within my rights to sit for the exams. “Late is late,” he said “and I have said you will not enter the hall.”
I breezed past him and entered the hall telling him to call the Vice Chancellor to come and unseat me.
This is what I like to call the neo-feudal system of Cameroon. People whom when put in the smallest situation of power start thinking of themselves as Overlords and “trample on their subjects for the slightest of reasons.” It’s everywhere around us; from the day watchman to the police man to accounts payable clerk at the treasury. Many of us have sinned and have fallen short of that particular glory.
We complain so much about Biya but inherently are really not much different because when we are given the smallest opportunity to effect change in our environment we turned out to be little tyrants, basking in the sun of our entitlement. We carve out these little fiefdoms for ourselves which, coupled with our inflated self-importance, we tend to rule over according to our moods. Which is often accompanied with an excess of zeal.
I really don’t know how to continue this article from hereon. Today is one of those days when my brain is on reset mode and my fingers cannot quite follow my scattered thoughts. I only just know that I had to write this now or else I would never do. Maybe Tino would add a few lines after reading. But I think at the end of the day, I have made my point and those of you who can make some inference have done so already.
- Wandji Wilfred.
P.S
Oh! Don't I know this all too well?
I think I have it worse because I don’t know how it happens but even when I try to mask my 'accent,' the typical Cameroonian is able to tell I have spent a couple of days out of this country or I must be coming from an ‘ajebutter’ home so they feel the need to be extra hard on me just to show me they are not fazed.
Where do you want me to start?
From trying to sort out an issue with my ENEO bill in Yaoundé and the lady prefers to sit with her colleague and chat about non-work related matters for a good thirty minutes before even acknowledging my presence in her office?
Or when l wanted to get an equivalent for my foreign degree and one lady won't accept my file because the first time I brought it in, it was incomplete because of a poor translation that had led me to omit a document that I actually had?
When she pulled out the French version of the requirements specifications to show me what I was missing, I pointed out to her that there was a mistake in a translation and meanwhile I am going to go include the document, it would be nice if she alerted the concerned department of the false translation so that the correction can be made. To which she asked me to go and tell the people who gave me the English version (the information desk of the same ministry.)
I mean I just thought, knowing how Cameroon works, if someone from within the ministry pointed out the mistake, it will expedite the correction as opposed to me complaining and I told her that. She reprimanded me for trying to challenge her on a job she has been doing for more than 10 years (In my mind I was saying, no doubt you never got a promotion.) So when I finally came with my file, she looked at it and refused to accept it, this time asking for an original of a document where the requirements stated a certified photocopy is acceptable. When I tried to point that out to her, she dropped my file, and left her table to go chit chat with her colleague in the next room as in she doesn’t have time to debate with me about how to do her job.
Fortunately for me, another gentleman on the desk next to her called me over and processed my file sans complexe.
I mean.
You don’t need to be donkey just because it’s the only chance you might get to have control over a piece of somebody’s life or day. If you don’t like your job, quit. If you don’t think you will find something better to do, just be nice. If not for anything else, just be nice for karma’s sake.
- Tino Foy