I am pissed off. Can you Imagine a friend just ripped me off? He sold a counterfeit product for the price twice the authentic one. I usually buy the product myself. This time around, I got no time to go to the market to identify the authentic one so I asked him to deliver one for me since he is a dealer. The price he called was expensive. Yet I decided to go ahead with the transaction hoping to get a super- original grade. Lo and behold, he delivered a substandard product. What annoyed me most was he had the courage to look me in the eye and lie to me that they were authentic. He felt I was a novice that would easily fall for his deceit.
I recounted this experience to a mutual friend. He did not look surprised .
This is a dog eat dog world .There is no friend in buisness . “Treat your friends the same way you would treat a stranger” is one unwritten law of buisness.
These words hurt me more. As much as I felt angry, I could tell it was true. My attention drifted to the entire economic system.we live in a world that priorities loosing a dear friend to loosing a penny. Competition is favored over cooperation in this masculine led society. To get up, one must step on the toes of others .To win, others must loose . To retain the job of a marketer, one must make a certain number of sales before a given deadline . It does not matter how you do it .- manipulate clients, sleep with them etc The end justifies the mean. The system promote cheating . Those who can break their values climb faster. The compassionate ones loose out.
The society encourages us to value money over our honor. The trader who cheats,misleads and overcharges and then seek to square himself with conscience by saying” lying is absolutely necessary for buisness is worshipped. The man who makes promises he cannot keep to get position is elevated .Many buisness- minded individuals ventured into sanitizer production during this covid 19 period. Some sold adulterated version to increase profit.
The pressure can turn a saint into a crook.Can we have a society where money is not considered as priority. A society that values human virtues of honestly, kindness, fairness, forgiveness? A society where buisness is not done primarily for reward or money. Service is rendered because one enjoys the service first and money is a representative of the economic value of the service rendered. I have seen people advertise and sell goods they do not use. The motivation is to sell anything to make money without concern for the process of production or the effectiveness of product. . It begins with you and I.
THE NAKED NIGERIAN 