carla.ornelas@gmail.com
Waking up this morning, the first thing I did was remind myself that today I’d be tricked, fooled, manipulated and lied to blatantly. The difference between today and all other days is that today it is socially accepted, one could even regard today as one of the most honest of days considering that eventually the trick or lie is unveiled.
My boss was the first to catch me out by calmly asking me what is was that I had on my shirt. I practically bent over backwards before I realized that I’d just been fooled. It occurred to me that in fact it was a wise prank… it’s with the little lies that we’re easily fooled.
I myself caught out a few of my clients by telling them that I had resigned and that one of my colleagues would take over my work. I was surprised to find that most of them immediately caught me out by saying that there was no way that it could true and those that did believe me got extremely upset and said that they were going to phone my boss to revert the situation. At that point it humbled and humoured me to play that particular prank; I now realize that I should’ve picked something else to play with…
Have you ever gotten one of those April Fool’s jokes that wasn’t an April Fool’s joke? At first you laugh and chide the person for trying to pull that particular prank on you and then your spine goes cold as you feel the truth fall on you like a bucket of cold water. Just as I was switching my computer off to go home, I finally got that call…
Vodacom chose a pretty shitty date to tell me that my resume had been accepted! I listened carefully as the woman on the other side told me that they had been impressed with my curriculum and that they were interested in positioning me in their Sandton branch as a call centre team leader. I started laughing and told the lady that it had been the best April Fool’s joke that had been played on me all day. After insisting twice that it was no joke, I had to check to my phone to make sure that the call was being made from a South African indicative. It was when she asked me about my availability to begin at my new position that I realized that it was no joke.
“And you’re sure this isn’t an April Fool’s joke?”
The woman laughed and we traded contacts arranging to speak next week after I had settled my real resignation with my current company. I stared at my colleagues that were leaving in absolute disbelieve. Should I tell them that I was leaving? What was the use, they probably weren’t going to believe me anyway, especially since I’d been fooling around with that same joke all day!
The joke turned against the joker…
As I went home on the bus, I remembered a good friend’s wise words: “Be careful what you wish for, one day it might just come true”. I also recalled wanting to live in one of the most popular cities in South Africa and for the last year I’d been hoping that a company would finally give the chance to prove my worth… I get this all on the day it’s supposed to all be a lie.
I’m contemplating on how I’m going to break the news to my dad, my family and my friends. No matter how much I rephrase the words in my head, I just can’t find the best way to tell the people I love. Deciding to get my resignation letter over and done with, seeing as I should hand it in first thing Monday morning, I realize that there is simply no easy way to put it. Swearing with frustration, I rewrite the letter for the sixth time… it occurs to me, that there are some things that simply cannot be well expressed in words.
April Fool’s day will end in a few hours and tomorrow my news will weigh far more than it weighs today. At this point I have no concrete conclusions excepting that next year, I’m going to be more careful with the jokes I pull…
No comments:
Post a Comment