“This is so unfair” Gloria replied bursting into tears, “Life is not fair” Madam Monica replied, “you are taking jobs of people who legally reside here. A job that you’re not entitled to so you’re not being fair either my dear” Madam Monica said hanging up.
***
Sugar had landed in Canada and was now staying with her friend Yetunde who lived in Calgary, Alberta. Her plan was to stay with her friend for sometime while looking for an apartment of her own to rent. She had started applying for jobs from Nigeria and had done a couple of interviews and was now waiting to get feedback from the hiring managers. She was trying really hard to break into the tech space but kept facing the problem of “lack of Canadian experience,” every big employer seemed to be looking for employees with Canadian experience. The Canadian experience they were referring to was previous work experience in Canada.
It was so frustrating, Sugar could not comprehend why it was such a big deal to have previous work experience in Canada, she faced a lot of rejections from employers till her friend advised her to tweak her resume by claiming some years of Canadian work experience from a Canadian company where she knew someone who could give her a reference when she needed it. It was after she did as Yetunde had advised that she started to get calls from employers for interviews.
She had just returned from grocery shopping with Yetunde when she received an email from one of the companies that she had applied to requesting for her to provide references with a job offer attached.
“I got the job” Sugar screamed, hugging her friend, “they are offering me $100,000 per annum” Sugar screamed, “I can’t believe it, finally! After so many rejections, I made it!” She screamed. “You’re lucky you know” Yetunde said, “not everyone gets this kind of job within a month of landing in Canada. As a matter of fact, I know people who have been here for years that are still working minimum wage jobs” Yetunde said, “you should be grateful to God” she added smiling. “I am” Sugar replied, “I am also grateful to you for your advice and support, I couldn’t have done this without you” she said.
Few weeks later, Sugar moved out of Yetunde’s house and rented a condo in a nice area of town not too far from where she worked. She was so busy picking the pieces of her life and putting them together beautifully that she had totally forgotten about Michael.
She had eased into her new job and was doing great. Her job was 3 days onsite and 2 days remote.The company where she worked was located in a huge skyscraper building that had other companies located there. Working in Canada was a little different from working back home. In Canada, people were more laidback in their dressing to work, they also addressed each other on first name basis irrespective of their ranks and there were no groups of people that seemed to be treated as superiors the way that there was the “oga at the top” complex back home. For those who don’t know, “oga at the top” complex is simply when top ranking bosses in an organisation are worshipped by virtue of their rank and position in the organisation.
Unlike back home where real friendships or bonds were formed at work, in Canada, everyone was mostly cordial and hardly visited or spoke to each other outside of work.
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For Sugar, everything seemed perfect at work except for the fact that one of her co-workers always seemed to deliberately pick on her. Her name was Fatemeh and she was from the middle east. Everytime Sugar made a contribution or suggestion at work, Fatemeh would always shut it down or find a way to belittle her efforts, she would always try to be on the opposing end of whatever opinions that Sugar shared. Sugar couldn’t tell whether she was being racist or just simply jealous. She made up her mind to avoid her at all costs, at least for the duration of her probation period at work.
One day, Sugar was having a really bad day, everything seemed like it wasn’t going her way, Fatemah was getting on her nerves as usual and to make matters worse she was having very painful menstrual cramps. The medical term for painful menstrual cramps is dysmenorrhea. Women experience dysmenorrhea when the womb squeezes during menstruation to get rid of its inner lining. The pain usually begins just before menstruation and subsides after a few days. It is not unusual for women to experience dysmenorrhea, however, it can sometimes be due to medical conditions such as fibroids, endometriosis and pelvic inflammatory disease. Period cramps that occur due to these types of medical conditions usually last longer, are more painful and sometimes interfere with daily activities. Dysmenorrhea can be managed using pain relievers, hormonal medication or hot water bottles.
Sugar was relieved to finally be able to go home after such a horrible day at work. On her way back home, she drove by the grocery store to get some groceries. When she was using the self-checkout machine, she spotted a really handsome man also checking out his groceries but immediately took her eyes off him and focused on her groceries.
Ever since Michael jilted her, she harboured hostile feelings in her heart towards men and wasn’t ready to give dating again another thought. She hadn’t even given any man a second glance and so couldn’t understand why she felt a sudden attraction to this mystery shopper. No doubt he was definitely her type, tall, chocolate-skinned, nice body build with sideburns.
She hurriedly tapped her card on the card machine to pay for her groceries, printed her receipt and left.
The weather was pretty cold. After dropping her groceries in her trunk, she was in a hurry to get into her car and mistakenly locked her car keys in her trunk along with the groceries. “What did I just do?” She panicked, staring helplessly at her car, “how am I going to get home now? My mobile phone and house keys are in my car” she thought, trying all the doors of her car to see if by some miracle they would open but of course they remained locked leaving her stuck outside in the cold.
She spotted the handsome guy at the self checkout walking towards her direction and somehow, she found her heart racing faster, “focus, Sugar, focus” she scolded herself as she immediately turned her attention back to trying to figure out a way to solve her problem.
The handsome stranger finally came closer and stopped by the Mercedes SUV parked beside her and began offloading his groceries into the vehicle.
Suddenly an idea came to her, she thought of asking him to use his phone so she could call Yetunde to pick her up. “Uhm excuse me” she said clearing her throat as she walked up to him, “Hi” he said, turning to face her as be dropped the last bag of groceries in his trunk, “Uhm, I know this sounds crazy but I need your help” Sugar began, “oh-kayy” he replied looking confused, “yes I was kind of expecting that reaction” Sugar replied nodding her head, “I accidentally locked my car keys in the trunk” she explained, “I need to call my friend to come and get me.” She said, “And after she gets you, you abandon your car and groceries here?” He laughed, “Well, my priority is getting out of this cold, I’ll figure out what to do after that” Sugar replied, looking slightly embarrassed. The handsome stranger was even more handsome up close and he had a sexy baritone voice. “You don’t need your friend to get you. What you need is a locksmith to unlock your car” he explained laughing, “stop laughing, it’s not funny” Sugar replied shivering.
“Why don’t you hop into my car, I’ll turn on the engine to get the heater running before you turn into ice” he laughed as Sugar stood shivering, hesitant to get into his car, “hey, you can stand out here and freeze while I call a locksmith or wait in my car till the locksmith arrives, the choice is yours” he said opening the door to get into his car. Sugar stood outside, shivering and contemplating whether or not to accept his offer, somewhere deep down, she knew that accepting his offer would mean much more.
Find out what happens next in episode 22 #checkwithdoctoro