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Saturday 1 November 2014

How Frustrating?

I've been thinking about this but although it has been long it happened, I still think it good to post it. This is a rather longish write-up based on a personal experience. On the 18th of March, I came across an invite for a scholarship program organized by NNPC(the country's petroleum management body). The scholarship was only for University undergraduates. The requirements stated involved a signed Statement of result from the applicant's department in his/her University of Study. The signed Result statement was to be submitted before the 30th of same month. I therefore mentally added it to the topmost of my to-do-list. For the next two days, I was very busy attending lectures at least till 4pm which was exactly the time my department closes for the day.
On Friday, I had ample opportunities because I had no lectire that day. I rushed to my department and submitted a letter on the requirement from NNPC and how urgent it was. Luckily for me, the Head of Department was in her office at the time I submitted so the letter with some other correspondence were forwarded to her immediately. I was asked to return the following week to check for a reply. I happily went home with hope that I would meet the deadline.
Monday to Wednesday of the following week were filled with activities(mainly lectures) that didn't give me the opportunity to go to the department. On Thursday, I went to the department and true to their promise, I received the statement of Result I had requested. I went through it but my eye caught a very grevious mistake which I had corrected the previous month. That mistake was on my Biology result which was recorded as 'F' instead of my actual grade 'B'. So, I gave them back the Result statement for correction. I was asked to return the next day. In my department, we had about 4 workers with the exception of the H.O.D but I will restrict my story to only two of them. I will refer to them as Mr. A and Mrs. B.
The Next day being Friday, I went to the department around 9:10am. I was asked to wait because the person who compiled the result was yet to come to her office for the day. I will term her Mrs. X. By 11:13am, my wait ended as the awaited finally came. I rushed to meet her in her office but before I could reach there about 9 persons were already there to see her too. So my second wait began. It lasted for about 45 minutes before it reached my turn. I went in, introduced myself and also notified her of the mistake in my result statement. She apologised and told me that she needs another result statement sheet to re-write all those grades. Note that a single mistake in a result statement sheet makes it unacceptable(condemned). She then asked me to go upstairs the departmental office and ask Mr. A to print out a fresh copy. She informed me that she would leave office anytime as she had a meeting to attend. When I reached there, I was told that Mr. A left about 7 minutes earlier. I asked for Mr. A's phone number and Mrs. B gave it to me. I called Mr. A. He told me that he was coming but he would take time. I went down to Mrs. X's office and informed her. She told me she can't do anything till she gets that sheet from Mr. A. She however gave me her phone number to call her when I get the result statement sheet.
So the wait for Mr. A continued. Looking at my timepiece, the time was 1:10pm. The next one hour caught me still waiting as patient as a Lamb. Thirty minutes later, I called Mr. A. He didn't pick the call until I had called for the third time. When he picked it, in a harsh voice, he told me to stop disturbing him; that he was on official duty - invigilating an on-going exam. He finally told me to exercise some more patience. I didn't call him again although I was highly tempted to do so. The frustrating thing was that for the next on hour, he didn't show up. By now, I had become very impatient to the extent that I audibly and verbally started expressing my anger not minding Mrs. B's presence Few minutes later, he showed up. I was still angered although I didn't say a word or act rashly. I was expecting an apology but I got none. Instead he went directly to the computer and printed out the result statement sheet. I called Mrs. X to know if she was still in school but she told me that she had gone home. Mr. A called Mrs. X to affirm that she truly sent me to collect the result statement sheet. Through the call, Mrs. X informed him to sign on the result statement on her behalf since she had gone home. But the problem was not yet over. The H.O.D was yet to sign.
The authenticity of the result statement sheet included the stamp of the Department and the signature of the Head of Department. Mr. A, after signing on behalf of Mrs. X, gave me the H.O.D's number suggesting that I call her and arrange a meet for her to sign. I called the H.O.D later and arranged the meet to hold on Sunday which unfortunately was the deadline by the organizer of the scholarship to submit the required documents. Meanwhile that day was Friday.
Sunday came, I hastened to meet the H.O.D. By 9:45am, I had met with the H.O.D and she had signed as we agreed. The next task was how to get the Result statement sheet stamped. Since Mr. A was the only person in possession of the stamp, I set out to meet with him. Note that on the previous day, Mr. A had given me the directions to his residence albeit imprecisely. I had to get more information on the direction to where I was to go. Mr. A's residential address from my inquiries was located in a village I had never before visited. Glancing at my watch, the time was 11:45pm. I called Mr. A to inform him I had to meet with the H.O.D, therefore I was on my way to his address at that time. At first, he started rebuking me with the question "Young man, You are not serious. Is this the time we agreed on yesterday?" I was very surprised at his reprisal because I when I called him the previous day, I had asked him if we could meet at 10am, but he had answered me with the question "Do you go to church at all?" In other words, either he meant that his church service duration lasted beyond 10am OR he meant that his church service ended much earlier before 10am. I chose the former, because I thought he was a protestant (Many protestant churches hold their church service way beyond 10am). I didn't oppose him since I didn't want him to be more annoyed although I knew I wasn't at fault. 
I boarded a bus which stopped at the first bus stop. Then boarded a second bus which stopped at another bus stop but since it was also headed towards the village I wanted to alight at, I paid an extra fee for that. When I reached the village, I had to take a bike to Mr. A's residence. After few inquiries from the neighbors, I got to Mr. A's residence and knocked. The time was 2:28pm. After 25 minutes of standing in the sun knocking at Mr. A's gate, and calling his phone number, Mr. A finally came out. Without saying a word, he brought out the stamp, I pointed to the required position for stamping on the result statement. He then stamped it. He turned and went back into the house locking the gate. No Apology for keeping me waiting under the sun!
I took a bike from there and began my journey home. Mr. FRUSTRATION must have whispered inaudibly to me "Hey you must be thinking it's over but sorry for the disappointment". When I reached home, it was 3: 35pm. I spent the afternoon till 6pm awaiting and receiving my parents who had come for a visit. I cooked my dinner. After which I had approximately 3 hours left of the Scholarship application deadline. In the course of finishing my meal, there was power blackout. Luckily, I had scanned in document to a soft copy(file on the computer). Since my laptop battery was having fault, I borrowed a friend's laptop. By the time, I was able to resize the image to the required size(as stated on the NNPC website), and upload it, I had 10 minutes left of the deadline(Note that the network signal was poor that night in my residential area). I spent 5 minutes going through all my uploaded details. Then I discovered that they had requested all documents to be uploaded in .pdf format(documents like pictures have various formats). It hit me that I had uploaded the result statement sheet in .jpg format instead of the required .pdf format. I decided to leave it in that format since it was already late; the time then was 11:58pm. I clicked on the "Next" button so as to be able to print out my details which will enable me to gain entrance into the the exam hall if I am lucky to be among the shorlisted students for the exam. At that moment the clock chimed 12am, the "Next" button disappeared and on the page was written "NO SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAMME AVAILABLE".

How would you feel if you were in my shoes?

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