ARTISANS AND THEIR ANTICS

Apart from salary earners, the business savvy or moguls, apparently, artisans are those who complete the world populace. Though needed for maintenances in our daily activities, their ability to be unscrupulous totally annoys me.

Funnily enough, they clearly cheat the same way, with seeming uniform antics, which is why I am of the opinion that they learn the illicit act, even from their days as a trainee.

On the antics of artisans in Nigeria;

·        A Goldsmith was to mend my broken necklace, and up until

now, her mastery of theft, which I considered swift, wowed me. Despite the fact that I stood right there, staring at her all the while the mending lasted, she succeeded in chopping off a few inches off my necklace to herself. I actually noticed a reduced length soon after anyways, but I discarded the thought and even blamed myself for being too sensitive. Only to measure it a few weeks later, and alas; my gold chain had drastically reduced in grams. That jolted me to the fact that she must have intentionally engaged me, in that ‘deep but now seeming irrelevant conversation’, probably to get my attention diverted. Funny antic.

·        Motor Mechanics are the most dramatic. An average auto mechanic in Nigeria wants to tamper with your car’s battery, in his bid to change your fuel tank, so that you would have a cause to come back to engage him soon for another repair. Some of them even claim to be vast in the repairs of all vehicle models, how funny. They could however end up sending you back to a dealer for a new purchase, after they must have been done mutilating your car, in a professional way though. A meme even has it that motor mechanics can deduce the fault of a vehicle merely by listening to its sound. They ask the owner to ignite, and once the engine gives a funny sound; you hear them say;

“Oga your engine don knock” (Your engine is knocked).They are another menace.

·        It’s difficult for Hairdressers to play tricks, but they have antics too. A wacky one would never confess she (in most cases) would not be able to make the styles you chose. Their heads never stop to nod in approval of the hairstyle you requested for; you just look into the mirror after a while that she has been turning your head back and forth, only to find an entirely funny hairstyle.

·        Fashion designers are the reason why ‘ready-made’ wears seem preferable in recent times.  Growing up in an African family, yards of clothes were what we sew into uniforms for members of the same family during yuletides especially. Most designers not only ‘steal’ yards of clothes from customers, but derive pleasure in not respecting agreed terms of delivery. Unapologetically, A Nigerian designer could be so callous as to disappoint you even on your own wedding. This happened just recently.

A would-be bride had purchased her own fabric, chose a style, and paid for workmanship to a renowned designer, who though made the reception dress to the former’s taste, that she even sent her videos of a finished wear, only to sell it to a popular actress who stopped by her shop for purchase. Dear designer had to tell a lie to the bride that the dress got lost through error in dispatch, offering her a lesser fabric instead in solidarity. On the other hand, the actress, innocently though, wore the supposed lovely dress for her birthday photo shoot, and even went as far as tagging the designer for credits. Poor bride compared the video of the dress sent to her to what the actress was wearing, the same designer still, and that was it, drama ensued on the social media for a while the exchange of words lasted.

Then, does anybody remember the era when patched-clothes reigned? Someone mocked it was invented by tailors who stole back few yards of fabrics from various customers. I couldn’t agree less.

·        So also, my church’s sound engineer. He literarily changed the entire component of the engine from the genuine parts that came with it to outright counterfeit, and ceaselessly we always had a reason to call on him for repairs. Not until we took the poor device (which had suffered from incessant dismantling and re coupling so much that it was beginning to give way) to the engineer that sold it to us in the first instance for a better attention, which paid off in the end.

·        The electrical job of the house where I now live was initially contracted to a seeming professional, who assured us of his expertise. Halfway into the conduit wiring, the electrician became terribly ill that he couldn’t help but discontinued. Weeks ran into months, and when it became quite obvious he might not get well soon, we called on another electrician and just because we didn’t really trust the new person, we gave him a monitoring that I knew was too much for comfort. Seeming unperturbed, the new guy went ahead with his job unbothered. He crosschecked the wirings the former person had done only to scream from up in the ceiling; bringing down a patched tiny wire which was old and pre-used in the process. The raw material that the former had used. Needless to say we were heavily billed for raw materials. Imagine such an avoided catastrophe.

That is how evil artisans could be.

          It is clearly the same thing with other artisans, just that space constraints seem the limitation to more instances. From carpenters, to bricklayers, painters, furniture makers, plumbers, etc.

 Well, out of sheer curiosity, I sought to know the opinion of a few artisans. They clearly gave similar reasons for being ‘smart’ as they both disagreed with the word ‘unscrupulous’.

“You know we cannot compare ourselves to a salary earner like you”, a furniture maker working on a friend’s sofa confessed, “you guys have a steady income, and are paid on a monthly basis, unlike those of us artisans. Our income isn’t just unstable, but threatened once our services are not constantly needed. We really have to be diplomatic with our works, else, we could go as long as several months without having anything to do, under the guise of being a hundred percent faithful, and we have families to feed too.” He concluded

“ The fact that people do not always want to pay a deserving amount ,for services rendered to them, is the major reason why quality job is not availed them most of the time” A Motor Mechanic I spoke with started out, “Women like you especially are the major culprits”,  he continued, “I hardly convince adamant customers who is hell bent on paying less for services I am about to render. I simply do something wacky, hoping to see you in my workshop soon for another round of repairs” He concluded while his entire apprentice laughed like an accustomed conspiracy against their customers of sort.

So when I say artisans are full of annoying antics, I am definitely not mistaken afteral.