Gibbous Moon Over Lagos by Pamela Watson

Author:Pamela Watson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hardie Grant Publishing
Published: 2019-12-01T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Never a Dull Day

However long the night, the dawn will break.

– African proverb

‘M

y people will talk to your people,’ said the irate man, his voice raging through my office telephone. I half-expected the handset to glow red – I think my ear did. Certainly, I was flushed with the way this conversation had progressed.

A half-hour earlier, I had been congratulating myself on my new Strategyworks team. I had carved out time over the past month to train Sophie, my new consultant. Although relatively inexperienced, she seemed switched on and able to work well with John, who now had four months under his belt. Inevitably, during the first months, the burden was on my time to train and coach new recruits, but both were quick learners. I still felt the loss of Zainab but at least I had the makings of a team who could add more value than they took away – if they stayed long enough.

That morning I had briefed John and analyst Kunle on Haresh’s new assignment and their roles, and Sophie and I were preparing materials for the hotel management team workshop due to run later that week.

I had interviewed some candidates for the GM role at Ekologika Papers but no one suitable had emerged. In the meantime, anxious to capitalise on the interest shown in our notebooks, I had encouraged the team to develop some sample notebooks we could use in a marketing campaign that would target wedding and other event organisers and professional service firms. These groups had shown the most interest in high-quality, custom-made products. Over the weekend I had written a letter of introduction to prospective clients and, following our Monday morning meeting, Kola had started distributing them. As always, he was positive this would be a terrific sales success.

Then came the call.

‘There is an angry man, a Mr Olumide, on the phone for you, Madam,’ Gloria announced.

‘Who is Mr Olumide?’ I asked. His name meant nothing to me, but my PA was already gone.

‘You have used a photo of my wife and I,’ Mr Olumide boomed down the line. ‘She is very distressed.’ I didn’t need to ask many questions as his accusations erupted. Apparently, last year his wife had ordered some Ekologika Papers notebooks to celebrate their wedding, but this morning she had seen a letter and notebook – our marketing campaign – arrive at her company with her own photo on the cover. He shouted about unauthorised use, that he would sue me, that we had no right and that his wife was weeping at our insolence. I made shocked apologies, but this did not satisfy him. Honour for his wife, it seemed, would only be served if his lawyer talked to my lawyer about a claim for damages.

I was shaking when I got off the phone and composed myself before going into the conversion team office to establish the facts on our side.

There were now two women in the conversion team – Yinka, the talented young graphic designer who had joined late last year, and Molly, a versatile young business graduate with creative flair.

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