The mail came first, the way these things did, a short official message from HR with the subject line already giving away more than the body needed to. I read it standing beside my desk, then read it again, because I could not make sense of it the first time.
On most afternoons, Ado-Ekiti office was a quiet area in which you might hear the buzzing of a fan that was far away from you. Staff in the office remained in their seats, working calmly without any excitement. However, it did not create the impression of an abandoned place, since every now and then jollof rice could be smelt in the air, laughter could be heard coming from the copier zone, as well as Yoruba greetings uttered by two individuals while bowing and clasping their hands together.
It was during such a meeting, namely, one of our quarterly reviews, that the promotion was
formally announced, even if by then the news had already made its way around the office once or twice. Our colleague – the same one who had perfect numbers, who appeared most mornings before the security guard – sat at the end of the table and did not say anything when the manager announced the name of the person promoted. Meanwhile, other people exchanged
glances that lasted a little longer than was needed to be considered normal.
As for the name of the promoted person, this name was now well-known by everybody. This person greeted the manager first each morning and did it correctly, using the longest Yoruba greeting possible, which was used by younger people when greeting elderly people or people whose influence they wanted to gain – a slight bow and "E kaaro, sir," in a friendly manner, while the rest of us just said "Good morning" in English, nothing more. He was a person who, at times, would leave the office not toward the main gate but toward the manager's car, and continue receiving invitations to social events that remained unknown to the rest of us, with the exception of very occasionally learning about them the next day, along with some kind of gift involved (a hundred-kilo bag of rice during Christmas time, transport money for the trip home, and so on), which seemed to be neither a bribe nor a gift.
Finally, our colleague reacted to his problems earlier than I initially expected him to react to them. One day while passing by the printer, I noticed him holding a piece of paper in his hands; he was reading it very carefully before folding it and putting it into an envelope addressed to the management. He did not reveal the content of this piece of paper to anyone, as it was clear what he intended to do next. What happened after that was not a culmination, but a chain of random actions that started taking place. A task that the colleague had previously performed was kindly given to someone else. A request for a leave that would have been approv3d within a day was lying unattended on a desk for a week. Two co-workers who used to visit him at his desk on their way home stopped visiting him altogether.
He left within the year, for a place, he told me, where he hoped his effort would actually be seen for what it was rather than filtered through who greeted whom in the mornings and who was
invited into whose car in the evenings.
I greeted the manager just as I always did — politely, with respect, as dictated by standards of professionalism, even though I understood things now differently. The next time he convened a meeting in order to explain a decision taken, I sat in my usual place by the window and looked at him as if for the first time, not regarding his words much but rather the pause before he started using them, and the ease with which he made a transition from one justification to another. I did not make any notes. I asked no questions. Still, somehow I did the math quietly, just like you check your receipt that already seems to be incorrect.
The office did not change after he left, the noise of a fan corroborating this fact. Someone's lunch smelled from the vicinity of the printer from time to time. Traditional Yoruba greetings were said just like before, that is, in the same warm and exact manner, carrying a greater meaning than a bunch of numbers in a productivity report for some.