This has been the most challenging year of my life. Iam glad it is coming to an end and iam recovering from identity crisis, a disease that ails many young people and the only treatment lies in self discovery. I learnt a lot from the school of life and surely among my amazing discoveries is that experience breeds wisdom and fate loves the fearless.
I looked all around me and admired the whole lot of great people that I was leaving behind,they had been great classmates,marvellous people for lack of a better word and they helped me a lot in self discovery for the short time that I had been with them.it was an incredible class where people had different personalities and most, if not all mastered the art of accounting.i was leaving the accounting school for the corporate world.what a risk!
I was just 18 years into my lifetime when I joined banking.it was a multibillion company that boasted of huge profits year in year out and I was overjoyed to be part of that great team for that financial year.i knew for that entire time, I was going to grow money,and I set out to do so.after two weeks of thorough training, I was posted at ngong branch as a relationship officer.the title sounds terrifying but its just a polite way of reffering to a bank clerk. I must confess that I was so happy to be a banker then simply because I was a cut above my agemates.
Banking has its own set of challenges but I did not let the challenges take the better of me.for example, each and every coin must be accounted for,any difference must be coupled by reconciliations,explanations or just suffering the liability as a cashier.what did this teach me? Accountability.i learnt to account for everything that I did and there was always no room for excuses.i also realised that excuses and defensiveness kill team spirit.most of the time when I was on the wrong I would simply say,”I assume every responsibility and promise that it will never occur again.”that worked miracles,it slowly cooled the wrath of my supervisor to problem solving mode.my customers too healed from anger at the touch of those words.
I made so many errors as a banker,not because I was not carefull or something,but because monotony was the order of the day.sometimes I could punch keys only to realise later that I had credited the wrong account or even overstated or understated an account.one day I was asked why these errors were so regular, I answered with a note of finality,’I am aboUt to be entrusted with life, and I will have no other chance to make mistakes…….’the manager kept silent and walked away.i am sure he did not expect that.
Life went on with the challenges having their own place in our lives.my colleagues were not spared as well,they had their own fair share of adversity.they were looking up to a dim light somewhere ,a light that appeared at the end of a very long tunnel.only the mantle of hope could keep us moving through that tunnel of banking.we encouraged each other and spoke of the beauty of our dreams and true aspiration,that too kept us alive.
I came to realise that maintaining a positive attitude is a gateway to success in everything that our hands find to do.in the service industry again,what counts is not meeting the company’s target but it is making people happy and being kind to them inspite of how ungrateful some can be.everyone needs to be handled with compassion ,love and kindness.it is a goal of humanity.that has now become part of me and it will never elude me come what may.
My esteemed customers also did a lot in shaping me to become the person I am today.they inspired me by little actions such as enduring long queues to save for the future.they were determined to see themselves through a better future despite the hardships that never left them.long live my clients,meet me at the hospital.
My workmates were people of a kind,always striving to a common goal of success .i loved the way we expressed our feelings in times of achievement like when we hit the one billion mark,it was amazing.we all cheered rejoiced and worked even harder.it was a reason to see above challenges.through my colleagues,I saw the chain of command in action and learnt to deal with issues with the flow of that chain.understanding chain of command is a critical success factor in any place where it applies.
As we come to the close of the year,I am grateful to God for the strength He has given us to fight upto this last bit.as time passes by ,all I can do is to hope for a better tommorow.my love for life,my girlfriend , my family and hot passion for medicine shall keep me going.i do believe that when I stand tall it is because I stand on the shoulders of those who came before me.they too deserve a pat on the back.every year is a good year.
The Doctor On Call 