Wednesday 15 December 2021
Today is Day 11 in Quarantine Hotel after returning from my recent trip to Nigeria. All is well and I tested Negative with 3 PCR tests. I chose to serve all my 14 days here because I didn’t want to inconvenience others. I am writing and sharing this memo to document my experience with the two guards in the hotel and how as people, we treat each other differently based on our preconceived prejudices and biases until we have the opportunity to get to know one another and what we all bring to the table. After a week in quarantine, I expressed the need for my room to be cleaned. This meant that I have to leave the room for a while and as such, I was able to step outside for fresh air at the side of the hotel with one of the guards. While we were outside, me being myself, I interviewed the lady guard called Saigi and found that she had just graduated from the culinary course from Algonquin and was only doing the security job until she is able to get a job in her field. Coincidentally, this hotel is situated in an area where I had done business with the businesses around here in the past. While we were still talking, a gentleman was about to pass us and I said hello to him as he came out of a new Conference Centre nearby. I ask for the Banquet Manager that I had dealt with in the past and he told us that the gentleman had moved on due to the shutdown during the Covid period. The gentleman by the name Jason turned out to be the Executive Chef of the Conference Centre. To cut the story short, I convinced him to offer my guard a job and he agreed. They exchanged cellphone numbers and Jason ask her to see him next week. And here is the real gist of the story, now that this guard knows more about me and what I was able to do easily for her within a short period of 30 minutes, her attitude changed drastically towards me. She now will bring my food, knock on the door politely and hand me my food with a friendly smile. This is unlike the usual way that the other guard still do whereby they will place my food on the floor at the door, knock and step back six feet in their usual PPE full garment. This ordeal, is giving me a window on what Mandela said about the way he was treated by guards during his incarceration days. (I am not comparing the two please) The takeaway here is that when people know your heart is good, they are less afraid of you and warm up to you and treat you like a human being. Even when they are told that you are contagious and should be dehumanized. I hope we can all learn from my experience that we should always be ourselves in any situation that we find ourselves in. Events around us should not change our core values.
King Wale AdeSanya writing from Quarantine.
Wale Adesanya is Chairman of the Nigerian and Canadian Business Network and CEO, ADE Financial Group. He holds an MBA from the University of Ottawa.
The write up shows a typical of human nature, they treat you well when they know who you are and it supposed not to be so.