EVEN - EPISODE 3

Maybe I should have taken my CEO’s words more seriously but then I didn’t really understand what he meant. Although his face looked familiar, I couldn’t figure out where we had met.

Two (2) weeks into the job, I was already frustrated. My boss made life a living hell for me. At the slightest mistake, he would shout at me; even when I did the right thing, he would say it wasn’t good enough. In fact, he found fault in every-thing I did regardless of how much effort I put into it. I left work angry every single day and it became a concern to my mother. I already thought of quitting one (1) month into the job; it was that bad.

However, knowing how difficult it was for me to get the job, I exercised patience. Every night, I would cry at the thought of how terrible my day at work was and how worse it was going to be the next day. At work, I lost focus and it began to reflect in my duties causing my boss to shout at me even more.

One particular day, my boss asked me to serve him coffee early in the morning. Recalling how he always disliked the taste of my coffee, I took my time to prepare the coffee ensuring that the sugar was just enough. After serving the hot coffee, I walked into his office calmly acting like we were best friends. As soon as I approached him, I bent to place the coffee on his table when I tripped and ended up pouring the hot coffee on him and the papers arranged on his table. You should have seen the way he screamed at me like as if I had just killed his mother. I was almost in tears but didn’t want to further embarrass myself and so kept mute while he rained insults and abuses on me. Then to crown it, he landed a slap on my face. The slap was so loud that I’m sure the entire office must have heard it. It took a kind of grace for me not to lift up my hands against him. At this point, the tears began to roll.

The following days became far more horrible than I could imagine. To pass across instructions for me, he screamed at me and hit me at any available instance. Eventually, my boss became a prayer point that I had presented to God. For a while, it felt like my prayers were not leaving the roof of my office or my house. My boss only got worse in his actions towards me.

Two (2) weeks after the slap that I had received from my boss, something unusual happened. He requested that I go and get some files from the next office which took a little while. By the time I returned to him, he was sprouting on the floor.

“Oh my God!” I muttered as I rushed to call a nearby hospital.