This happened

My farewell message to my (ex)-colleagues as I move on in my career as an advertising executive.

Role Models is a funny movie. It is, and everyone who has seen it will agree, that it can pass for a brilliant comedy invention. It didn't force itself to be funny like those Nigerian sitcoms that I torture my eyes to view only at some joints where I need to grab something cold to drink. And that happens very often.


Some of the scenes, however, are boring. They make you just want to hit the pause button with your fist and reach for the 15-day old meat pie in your refrigerator. Just when you’re still at that thought, you realize that the refrigerator is a distance closer to the sun. What do you do? You just keep the faith, and hope that the God of Seth MacFarlane will control the next drag. Yes, you’re lucky. After a few minutes, there is a sudden flush of happiness on your face, the two major characters are goofing, and you can’t but laugh. The throw-pillow that was your comforting mate during the boring scenes suddenly turned to a fart-suppressing device, because no one, not even your neighbours, will believe that a movie is causing the uncontrollable discharges. Damn it, it’s your ribs having a good crack of their life.


But one scene has stood stubbornly with me. I have equated the whole of the movie to that scene. It’s the scene where Wheeler grabs the microphone at a surprise birthday party that his colleagues had organized for one of them – Danny.

Danny and Wheeler are closer to themselves than they are to other colleagues. Despite that, Danny doesn’t consider Wheeler close enough to him to merit how Wheeler defined their relationship. He cuts in to correct Wheeler when he takes to the centre to refer to Danny as “my best friend”. Wheeler replies, “No, we just work together. Not best friends”

Gbosa!

If not for Wheeler’s bubbly nature, he would have spent the rest of the party sulking like a teenager experiencing her first love break-up. That’s not what you expect when you choose to affiliate yourself to a supposed close friend, albeit public. But let’s face it; it’s the way of the world.

What’s the lesson for me?

Notwithstanding the length of time, some people at your place of work will become your friends, some will not merit that title, some will play Danny and use their words to hit you like a “cudgel” (Sorry Boss, lol), some are so damn nice they’re almost taking the place of your siblings, etc. In this agency, I have been endowed with too many of the latter. And that’s where the fun has been. After all, life, in the words of Forrest Gump, is like a box of chocolate, “you never know what you're gonna get”

My time here has been a great experience. What I have now are memories. I couldn’t ask for more. It’s fun working with people who know how to work, and who do it with a lot of passion.

Yes, this happened.

I wish the agency the best of the years ahead.

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