The sad part about helping people

So, I’ll start with something that happened to me a while back. My company was recruiting front desk officers, and one of my colleagues had been told by the ladies in our HR department to aid in the search, and he came directly to me. Didn’t really waste much time finding candidates who were interested and I passed across their details to him.

Normally, that should have been the end of it, but it just wasn’t . For starters, they needed someone that was serving at the time, and two of the candidates were, though one was about rounding up. Candidate 1 was jittery throughout the process, especially after I had told her what she was likely going to be paid. She would call me everyday, to find out how the process was going, and if she was likely going to get the job, but sadly, I wasn’t really tight with the ladies in HR, so I couldn’t keep her posted. She eventually didn’t get the job, since HR likely found someone that fit in with whatever personality criteria they had.

Again, normally, that should have been the end of it, but alas, it was just getting started. I have this penchant for not saving numbers that call me as contacts on my phone immediately, since I can normally match number patterns with a name when I see an incoming call, so I didn’t save Candidate 1’s number on my primary phone. So, here I was one day, on my own, when a Whatsapp message comes in, and has a very accusing tone from the get go. Turns out that my DP at the time was one that I took at my orientation camp, and she felt I was one of the many job scammers out there because of what my HR department put her through (she was never asked to pay a dime though). All attempts to explain stuff to her didn’t work, so I decided peacefully to never refer anybody to my company again. Couldn’t stand the idea of them tainting my personal image with their processes, which I’ll avoid talking about.

That out of the way, I really love helping people, and doing it for no rewards. Its really fulfilling, and I try my best to do so when I can. Let’s move to story number 2. I work Saturdays in an incubation hub around my office, and there was this girl that had a problem with her laptop that she’d been battling with for months. She had met different guys, each trying their best, and none really achieving much. She’d been told of the most probable solution to her problem, but she didn’t want to follow it. The other solution meant that she would have to spend a lot of money, but as per the normal Nigerian mentality, she’d rather find a cost — free solution. She eventually comes across me, and one way, I eventually solve her problem. She still ends up spending money, but hey, the laptop is back to normal.

You’d really think that’s where it ended, but sadly, it just didn’t. There I was, again, on my own, in a really depressed state, when a text message comes in. Apparently, the laptop’s battery had reached that point, where batteries become useless and can no longer hold a charge, and you have to change it. She’d been using the laptop for quite a while, like a long while, but it’s like she wasn’t aware that batteries eventually kick the bucket after some time. According to her, the battery began it’s path to retirement only after ‘I handled it’. Then, as with Candidate 1, she threatened me. In the depressed state I was in, I really couldn’t care less. Trying to explain how batteries work would have been a total waste of time. Its easy to tell when someone won’t listen. I was pretty sure she wouldn’t.

I’m pretty sure these are not the only times that I’ve offered help to someone, only to have it blow up in my face. But these two are the most recent, and have made me question if I would want to continue helping people. Don’t just know how I’ll deal with these kind of crappy baggage when they eventually come up. Maybe I’ll just go completely solo, and watch people try to fix their problems on their own, even when I know I’m probably the only person that can fix it. Just feel that it would be better that way.