My NYSC Story Part 2... by D

Finally, here's the next part of D's story. He's currently serving with 2012 Batch C in Lagos. In the first part of his story, he had just received his posting letter to his Place of Primary Assignment - a school 5 minutes away from his house, so this should be easy, right? WRONG!

This is where things get interesting. They say camp is the best part of NYSC and even though I wasn’t in camp, I still called bullshit. So I showed up to my place of primary assignment and had a chat with the school’s principal. My alarm bells should have been going off when she said that Saturday would be a workday but I wasn’t thinking straight. My dumb ass went ahead and registered with at the school, thinking that I’d be able to work something out with her.

A few days later, I went back and leveled with her; told her my life story and everything I have going on and long story short, we agreed that I’d “work” 3 days a week and have the other two days off.

I’ve been with her for about a month and a half now and that arrangement is soooooooo NOT working out. First of all, I go in three times a week to do what? Please tell me why she had me hanging off the 5^th floor of a UNILAG building putting up Christmas decorations…or how I’m so skilled in the art of making chin-chin…or even better, how I’ve put all the analytical skills I acquired from the prestigious North Carolina State University to organize every single catholic sermon she has since 1988. Some of those sermons are older than me! So yeah basically, a waste of fucking time!

So anyways I got an offer from another school with a much better arrangement (working 1 day very week) and I talked to my current boss about it and she said “Okay, if that’s what you want to do, you can go; if it was my son....blah, blah.” For me to leave, I have to get a termination letter from her. I’ve been trying to get that letter for the past month. At first she claimed she needed to inform NYSC to make sure she got a replacement but now the story is that her NYSC contact says that there aren’t any replacements at all. So basically she’s refusing to let me go until she’s assured she can get a replacement with the next batch IN APRIL!

My contact at NYSC walked me through the process of getting reposted:

1.      Get a termination letter from the place you want to leave,

2.      Get a new offer letter from your new primary assignment,

3.      Get your original posting letter and

4.      A letter from you stating the reason why you need to be reposted.

I have everything else except this woman’s termination letter!!!

I have to say it again… I think NYSC is a waste of time.

I’m not a teacher; I’ve never wanted to be a teacher and the stuff that I’m good at that I can teach are not on any curriculums here. People actually go to school for years to learn how to teach so this idea of posting everyone to teach is the dumbest thing! I know Nigerian schools could use some help but this is doing more harm than good. I’ll probably ruin some kid’s life trying to teach him math or something. Hell, I studied journalism and I have a good grasp of the English language (TRICOL Spelling Bee 04-05 what up!) but again I don’t have the slightest idea how to teach English.

And then, the problem of pedophilia is real. For those that don’t know what pedophiles are, there are some people out there whose sexual preference is children. I’m sure in the number of corpers serving, there are a few pedophiles sprinkled in here and there and NYSC now sends those people into schools? Talk about aiding and abetting.

So yeah NYSC: a colossal waste of time. I’ve been advising everyone I know to avoid it if they can.  I think it’s also pretty ridiculous that NYSC is on this thing now about being a entrepreneur, and yet during NYSC, you’re not supposed to be earning any supplementary income. I’m sorry but I’m not about to give up the business I spent the last six years building, for N19,800 a month. I don’t mean to brag but I make 20 times that in a few hours of work…

One fun thing I actually like about NYSC though: my Community Development Service.

I’ll keep y’all posted on how things work out.

P.S. - BUAHAHAHAHAHA @ making chin-chin as your primary assignment! Btw, I got an update from D a few days ago. I really feel bad for him cos the woman's being soooooooo mean! He'll watch how things go in the next couple of weeks and I'll share with you.