Reaching Compromise | Dairy of a Patriotic Corper

I decided that I wouldn't resume work until two weeks later. I wasn't mentally ready to put the weight of work on my shoulders yet, so I took the time to gather myself together. Teaching a ton of students physics isn't something I am used to.

In the middle of my class, which happened to be the first of the day for my students, I was informed about a staff meeting to be held at 10:20 AM. As the liaison officer for my colleagues, I wondered why I was just receiving such information just an hour before and how it would seem to my colleagues to learn about some impromptu meeting.

I relayed the information anyway and waited after my class in one of the staff rooms. 10:20 AM, and the meeting wasn't even going to start soon. Many of the staff members weren't in the meeting room yet, even the school authorities. No, I wasn't surprised, but I was appalled by what was happening.

A few of my fellow Corpers turned, surprisingly, and then many of the staff members finally settled in. The meeting eventually kicked off around 11:15 a.m. Had I not been holding such an office, I may have vanished a long time ago. But then again, they were my employers, so I just had to maintain balance.

After spending over 20 minutes going over the minutes of the last two minutes, the meeting finally started—meeting one, actually—and it touched on general matters of the school. Meeting two, which was their actual order of the day, was for us, the Corpers. And in a very few words, I'll say the second meeting was to berate us.

Other than addressing some of our dressing conduct, they were more concerned about getting us to do more than we actually were doing.

They wanted us to put in so much more effort and give way more of our time. For example, they wanted us to be on the school premises every day from 7:30 a.m. until 2 p.m. when the school closed. And they were angrily criticising us for performing unsatisfactorily.

After four people berated us one after the other for well over an hour, and they had probably exhausted their points, they asked us for "any reactions." They all looked at me, expecting a response, considering that I was the liaison officer. I said nothing, however.

They had just bombarded us with a thousand and one complaints, and they expected me to immediately have something to say. I hadn't even processed them all yet and determined the right way to respond.

In those few seconds of silence as I said nothing, a fellow Corper began to "respond." He talked about how we often have side hustles that we also pay attention to. The staff members responded by countering what he had to say. I expected that because I had been there, and it didn't work for me either.

I eventually collected my thoughts together and spoke. Pin-drop silence—that's what I heard, as though they had been waiting for ages for what I had to say. I was infuriated, but I had to keep my cool for what I needed to achieve.

I knew I had to placate them first to hammer home what I really had to say. So, I started with the cliche "standing on already existing protocols," as it seemed like something sweet to the ears of some people. Then I proceeded to apologise on behalf of us all. Afterwards, my speech followed.

Progressively, I moved from apology to acknowledgement of our responsibilities and our shortcomings, and then over to discuss the rules from NYSC that they were throwing at our faces, some of which state that NYSC is a top priority and should be taken very seriously.

Part of the rule states that students are entitled to certain incentives and provisions from the school. Somehow, this part was invisible to them, so I went there.

I had to make them understand that our behaviours that they didn't like were only natural responses to how we were being treated and that the human response to demanding work without adequate reward is to avoid it.

"You would understand, sirs and ma, that it really is normal that we don't show up as much as we should because we're being asked to work way more than we were paid for, which was really zero payment. And the same rules you point out require that you give us some incentives."

"But of course, we're all in this Nigeria together, and so we understand that the school isn't catered to enough by the government to be able to incentivize us adequately. And so, you'd understand why we have to hustle outside to take care of ourselves."

I continue that way for about twenty minutes, touching important areas such as the same school, not even checking in on their teachers and their well-being with the 200+ students that some of us have to handle. What they are rather interested in is having us sit in the staff common room for hours, where we'd likely do nothing.

Eventually, I finished. And then they responded. Even when they finished, however, it just seemed as though they really didn't listen to me. Why? Well, they were downsizing some of our grievances, sidelining the incentive discussion, and then proceeding to criticise for another hour.

I care less at that point anymore. I had said what I needed to say—things that made us really uncomfortable—and hopefully spoke to the minds of my colleagues. If there's no improvement from their end, I really wouldn't be any different from "doing things within my capacity."

And then the meeting finally ended at 2:30 PM. My entire day, planned for something else, went sideways, just like that.

I intended to be as diplomatic as possible, even polite and respectful, in hopes of having them understand us, but I am not really sure how well that went.

And that's how today went. What do you think you would have done if you were in our shoes?