I
share an office with a warm lady whose ‘close proximity to the ground’ prevents
her from reaching the files which sit on an Italian wood cabinet high over our
heads. Incidentally, her role requires that the files be brought down
frequently, in which cases my almost 6 feet height come in handy. I have also
noticed, however, the convention that whoever brings her a document that
requires filing ‘automatically’ fetches the needed file from the cabinet.
The
role of another female colleague in a different department in the company
requires that she frequents our office many times in a day, almost always with
documents that require filing. And on most of her visits, my head is either
glued to the giant-screened monitor which sits on my desk preparing a report or
buried deep into a bulky document I’m reviewing. I look up when I hear her
voice in order to say “Mmbarima mba”,
the slogan of her alma mater, Koforidua Secondary Technical School, to which
she proudly responds “Arise and Shine”.
Now on this particular day, I looked up to engage in that verbal exercise and
saw her big beautiful eyes staring at me ‘some
way bi’, freezing me in my tracks. Being a certified smile giver, the set
of teeth I flashed at her did not elicit her usual wider smile – not that day.
In its stead, there was a smirk and a gentle shaking of the head which sits on
a beautifully folded neck. I feigned unconcern and pretended to go back to work,
but looked up again after about 30 seconds and the gaze had not left me
direction. It got queer. I found her in the hallway shortly after she exited
our office and I enquired the reason for the ‘scene’ that left me discomfited.
The
questions were harmless at first, which I answered with dazzling smiles. Then
she finally asked with a condescending sneer: "so how come you are not a
gentleman?” Now, I have been described as a ‘gentleman’ especially by members
of the opposite sex, and rightly so – because it is true (naysayers – please,
get thee behind me, before I add 'satan'!). So you can imagine the bewildered
look I cast at her when she bluntly asked that. I was shocked not at her
‘verdict’ per se, but her reason for reaching that conclusion. “You have a very
strong sense of fashion…you speak well…and also a very good smile/laughter
giver. I have heard some people in the company pay glowing tributes about your
chivalry”, she reminded me. My sheepish smile was short-lived. “However, I
think otherwise….yours’, I’m afraid, is dead!” she ‘boomed’ like she studied
under the feet of ex-president Jerry John Rawlings. I felt my face looking
funny.
Her
reason? Although I’m always seated in the office when she comes and even engage
her in conversations, never had I bothered to help her get the files from the
cabinet even when I see her sometimes using the sole of her stilettos to bring a
file down. With eggs on my face, I turned my now heavy self towards my office,
but she continued: “a true gentleman, in my opinion, is not the one
who only dresses smart, wears a good perfume or talks smoothly like you do…he
is the fellow who goes out of his way to do even the mundane things for women,
when they least expect it. It is on the inside, not on the outside.” This is a
direct transliteration of what she told me in vernacular interlaced with
English (and she’s not even Fante...lol).
Even though that did [does] not describe me, I offered no rebuttals. I watched
her walk away until she rounded the corner. As my senior, Jeremiah Buabeng usually says in his motivational posts on social
media, “I observed and took instruction”.
Dear
reader, although I knew, it was forcefully reechoed to me that what we do on
the outside is only an outward manifestation of what happens on the inside.
Some people are successful in its suppression early on, but it eventually comes
out – like pregnancy. People will be watching when it finally does come out,
usually at moments when we might be oblivious about its occurrence.
A
good name, the Good Book says, is better than riches. It is able to open doors
for you in your lifetime and many more for your descendants long after your
grinders cease. Although on almost all instances the lady had come to my
office, I was genuinely oblivious of goings-on with regards to her work after
the ‘school fans’ are done, I am
still expected to bring down the files as a ‘true’ gentleman will. Now, I do
not know what she says when she hears another speak favourably about my
chivalry in my absence, but what I do know is that some repairable damage has
been done to my reputation in her books. To successfully correct that erroneous
notion, I need to work harder. I reckon it isn't entirely true that we never
get a second chance to make a first impression. We do, except that it is to
correct the first impression. And it takes real effort to do that, I kid you
not. Now, I eavesdrop on another’s conversation with my office partner just to
know whether a file needs to be fetched from up the cabinet.
And
note sadly that we are unable to afford an opportunity not to care about the
opinions others have about us. We live in a world where many lives have been
shattered and sometimes lost just because others held erroneous impressions of
victims.
So
will the true gentleman please step forward?
More Vim…Let’s Go…
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