Every man for himself

_{photo by Khashayar Kouchpeydeh}

The world as we know it has changed a lot. Many things are no longer the way they used to be back in the day due to various reasons. Some of these things can be good, while some of them can be very bad.

I feel this is one of the many reasons why my old man would always warn us about always being kind to people. He will always tell us about back in his days when he was a boy and how his family or any other family around were more than happy to welcome a stranger into their home, give them some water and a meal before sending them off on their way, but how all of that has changed in this modern day because of human wickedness and how our kindness can be used against us as a weakness.

According to him, the world has gotten too wicked for you to be carelessly kind to just anybody and trust me when I say that he is one hundred percent correct.

Earlier today, I had visited a friend at his home to spend some time with him when he began to tell me the story of something that had recently occurred at his place of work.

This friend of mine works for the Nigerian Bottling Company (NBC) who are in charge of producing the famous coca cola soda (amongst many other drinks) in the country, so it's definitely not a place that one could easily get a job.. There's a lot of process that goes into it.

Anyways, this friend of mine had told me of how a colleague of his recently got fired some few days ago, after following an instruction that his boss had given to him. According to my friend, that guy's boss had asked him to fill in some form that enabled him to collect a particular amount of money from the company, money that could only be offered to him if something had indeed gone wrong in the company.

But in this case, the boss had set it in a way where the guy under him had filled all of the form, making it seem like he was acting on his own order and not on that of his boss. And when people at the headquarters found out about it, his boss had denied the whole thing, while the young man working under him gotten fired immediately because it was his name and signature on the paperwork.

The boss didn't get off easy though, he was suspended but it was nothing compared to what the young man got. The whole thing was a sad experience but one that just reminded me of that warning, that gone are the days where you have to be foolishly kind. No one is saying that you should help others, just make sure you're not putting yourself in danger or in trouble.