It was in 2017, a top management level officer at the Tony Elemelu Foundation reached out to me via LinkedIn.

She saw that I’m a writer and would like that I come in for a chat in consideration of a job offer. I literally considered the word chat as an “informal” meeting.

An{“type”:”block”,”srcIndex”:0,”srcClientId”:”bd11bc93-cdeb-4797-a0f7-e8c7ecbccf3c”,”srcRootClientId”:””}d on the agreed date, I was dressed in a white long sleeve shirt tucked in and my sleeves are rolled but not up to my elbow.

I got to the office and after exchanging greetings with my host, her questions was “where’s your suit jacket.”

Well, is it obvious that I didn’t come with one. We walked into her office and started talking about my experiences and her experience with the foundation.

She looked impressed about my experience.

The First blow was that it’s going to be a full time job and I haven’t worked any full time job since 2012, 5 years ago as of then.

Within those five year, I was freelancing: writing and graphics designing.

The freedom and peace that comes with freelance is not here but then there’s the ‘no break’ part except you don’t have a project you are working on at a particular point in time. But then, there’s the worry for me when I don’t have any project I’m working on.

Back to my interview story. I asked if work from home was an option and got a negative response. That was the first gbas.

To the gbos part, I will have to be wearing suit 5 days a week. I think my host said that’s the company’s culture or something. Okay o.

A couple of minutes later, I was in a meeting with the human resources manager already but then I wasn’t so excited anymore.

I also asked the HR manager if work from home was on the table. I got the same response, then I pointed out the fact that I was told the dress code is “corporate corporate”.

‘Well, I don’t think I belong here’ was my thought throughout the meeting with the HR.

She told me that she would get back to me and in my mind, “I hope you don’t.”

She never got back and I wasn’t bothered. I only reached to my host once after that I think.

I look good in suit by the way but my concern is losing the freedom that comes with just wearing a t-shirt and jean or even shorts to work. You know what I mean.

Till tomorrow 😉.