Navigating The Power Dynamic

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. - Lord Acton

These days, they say it’s not about what you know, it’s about who you know. When people say the system is rigged, believe me when I tell you they’re not saying it for saying sake. It’s either the system fucked them up when it shouldn’t have or they are the system itself.

I’m sure we have all noticed how people in power always manage to someway somehow get what they want while the average people have to strive so hard for the basic things we deserve. In Ghana,there are some programs in the university that only rich peoples kids can get into, for example, law. Even before admissions are opened for the academic year, the rich men and women would have bought all the slots for their kids leaving the poor man’s child who deserves it with no option than to look elsewhere. This is just a small portion of how rigged the system is.

Well, being who I am, I wouldn’t say I’m a rich man’s child but we aren’t poor either. I’m not going to lie but my dad has connections. But you know how there’s connection and there’s connection.😂 There are actually levels to this connection thing. The part that I find funny is that fact that even though in some situations my dad would pull some strings for me, in other situations he wouldn’t . I know he can just place a call and it would be sorted out but the I feel sometimes he wants me to learn the way of life. Myself, I don’t even want things to be handed to me on a silver platter. There’s no fulfillment in it for me at the end of the day.

This actually happened to me a few years ago while I was still fresh in the university. When I got admitted into the university, I was very happy because I actually got the course I wanted to pursue. But then, with time, I realized that my school didn’t really have all the facilities needed in terms of practical knowledge. It was mostly books and a few practical sessions which I believe was also due to the time factor. So, I decided to take matters into my own hands and obtain some practical knowledge in my field of study. After all, it was university. No one was going to spoon feed me all the time.

With the help of a friend, I managed to secure a slot in this huge institution as an intern. I was so happy and my supervisor even asked if I would be available to start the next Monday which I said yes. I started working under my supervisor with this friend of mine being my junior supervisor. At the time I joined the team, they were working on a couple of projects which I needed to catch up on. Within a week, I was good to go. For a start, I would usually just watch all that is happening when work is to be done because most of these samples were hard to come by. Sometimes, I was also be supervised by my friend to do some work.

After some weeks , I could finally work on my own with no supervision. But then, I came to realize that this supervisor of mine was a bit bias. Most at times, it was my junior supervisor and other workers who would actually assign work to me to do. But then, my supervisor never for once allowed any of us females to do anything. Anytime he came in to work, we would all gather around to observe and even when he wanted someone to try their hands on it, he would give it to a guy, never a girl.

It took me a while to observe this and so I thought maybe we the ladies we not doing things right. I studied myself and the other ladies and there was nothing wrong with us. For a minute, I just thought that he might feel he’s stressing us and all of that but then we were there to learn, so who cares if he stresses us out. It’s not like we were complaining. This actually went on for so long until I had to go back to school.

Some months later, they needed me to come back and help with a project but I rejected nicely because I knew the kind of person I was going to work with. I can’t waste money and time to go somewhere I can’t put my skills to use. Now, I am working under someone who includes me in literally everything that takes place at work. Even when I first started this job, I was included in all activities which made the learning process easier for me. This has actually taught me that it’s not about me not having the knowledge on a particular thing, it’s about how the one above you with the power treats you. If they want your growth, you would know.

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all images belong to me.

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