₦airaland Forum

Bossman:
Regarding the accident, you got it totally wrong! FrankNetter hit the guy from the rear, so he (FrankNetter) is at fault. Not the Mexican guy. FrankNetter is actually very lucky the guy (who may be illegal) decided not to get the police involved. Otherwise, Ffanknetter's insurance would have been fully liable for the guys repairs and any medical expenses. Had they chosen to file medical claims. I put it this way...FrankNetter hit the right person. LOL!

Yup.

The second guy.

Did i tell you guys I saw people hawking stuff in traffic at Chicago?

Long story short, the man dey teach me programming and coding. Apparently, he thinks I would make so much money by coming up against nigerian scammers; "companies would pay big bucks for that", he said.

Each day, we do 30mins to 1hr of the stuff after I've done my mandatory chores which include helping him exercise, emptying the dish washer (dem no dey use hand wash plate), vacuuming (them no dey sweep) and other little household chores.

The man get both Ps4, Xbox1 and Xbox360.

Bottomline is, this job doesn't feel like a job no more.
I'm basically having fun


----------------------------------------------------

Back to the predestination question.

Did I have to get into that accident? So I would meet the mechanic who would then nudge me to search for better jobs? and in the end come in contact with Mr J?

Only time will tell.

**Im off to "work" guys, later

Updates coming...

Gotta run to work.

Considering the fact that the client's house is in Chicago, and I would have to drive quite a distance, I almost rejected the client, but something (or someone?) told me to chill. so I accepted the client and was told to come the next day for training (here we go again?).

I was there by 9:00am the next day for the training, judging by the fact that I had done these not too long ago, the training wasn't intensive. In about 2hrs, I was done.
I was told to being work immediately (9:00am the next day)

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The next day as I was driving to the client's house with the aid of the map on my phone) I realized this is/was still very new to me, so I braced myself for the worst, I wasn't expecting much though. It's just another job, I thought. I drove for about 45minutes (or thereabouts) and arrived at my destination.

On getting there, the client (let's call him Mr. J) was sitting on his front porch waiting for me. I unhooked the latch which was holding the gate to the fence and strolled in.

The format is: when you arrive, you "clock in" using the client's phone (which I did). My first day at the new job was somewhat awkward to me. Like I said earlier, I wasn't used to the whole scenario.

Mr J is an army veteran cum computer engineer/scientist. I won't go into details about him.

We got to exchange some information about ourselves and try to get to know each other, Mr J made a lot of effort to make me feel at ease.


The hours flew by, and my shift for the day ended.


The next day when I came in, I guess Mr J had done some research about Nigeria, so he was brimming with knowledge and questions. I had barely walked in when he started bombarding me with questions about my home country Nigeria. Most of his questions were centered around what he had read on the internet. He didn't see "a lot of good stuff" he said. I mentally rolled my eyes, "here we go again", I thought,


****brb

In the days and weeks that followed, I paid visits to various mechanics (mostly white though). They kept telling me it wasn't worth it, that we should junk the car, as it was old and almost "gone'. Based on say na me dey at fault, I no gree sha, so I told my younger bro to ask his african friends at school if they know any good mechanic. Luckily, a guy had an african mechanic, so I gave him a call, to find out whats up. He picked a date to come over to the house to take a look at the car.
The day he came over, we talked at length, turns out we have/had a lot in common.
Over the next days and weeks, we talked over the phone quite a few times, on one occassion, he offered to help me get a better job considering the fact that I wasn't getting enough hours at my present jobs and that "I wouldn't grow at those jobs". He said he knew quite a few care-giving/homemaker firms. I filled out applications and waited. Meanwhile, the decision had been made to sell the car off.

I received a call some days later to come for an interview based on the applications I put in, I did not want to indicate I was a CNA (the job gets really messy at times). Interview was successful, showed them my little credentials, coupled with my rudimentary knowledge of medically inclined stuff, I was put on their waiting list.

I forgot to mention earlier,; to work as a health care practitioner (Dr, RN, CNA, etc etc) you have to have your fingerprints taken by an authorized firm to crosscheck the police database to ascertain that you have a clean record. That was the case here, I picked up the form from them, booked an appointment with one of such firms and went there. Ended up paying a fee of $38.00 for this. I was given a form to submit to the facility that requested for my finer print.

Some days passed and I kept procrastinating, finally finally, the day I decided to go and submit the form, I was told I have a client already.

OluDare01:
Sorry about the crash.
But, you had a crash and you left the scene

Yup, the vehicle I had a crash with was being driven by some mexicans, they didn't even want to come down and look at what happened.

Predestination?


Its been approximately six months since I left the shores of Nigeria. I'm still trying to "understand" life here sha. My life has flashed before my eyes on two separate occassions. One time back in Nigeria during my undergraduate days I boarded a bike and narrowly missed an accident. And the more recent one, here in the USA; this time, I wasn't so lucky.

Like I stated in one of my previous posts, I normally take a 45 - 1hr drive to Chicago to play soccer. One sunday, after my shift at BK, I rushed home, picked up my sports gear and dashed out. I was somehow late, the soccer meetup had started some minutes ago and I was basically still 30 minutes away, I decided to "hasten up", so I entered the extreme left lane (which is reserved for those who want to speed). I was clocking 85-90mph and still pushing my jalopy to accelerate and keep up with the pace on the lane. Next thing I knew, one delivery van veered into my lane, I slammed on the brakes as hard as I could but it wasn't enough, I crashed into the vehicle.

Due to the fact that I hit the brakes, the impact was reduced a little, so the damage was not much (or so I thought). I couldn't just park on the freeway to access the damage, so I decided to jejely reach the venue. I drove the rest of the journey at a sane pace. On getting to the soccer pitch, I got to the parking lot, turned off the engine, did the sign of the cross and came down to access the damage. It was bad.

Question for everyone. Do you believe in predestination?

As for the rest of una wey do eye like say una no see this post

FrankNetter:
Morning guys, Happy new month.


I'd like to get feedback. So far, what has caught your interest the most on the thread? Looking forward to your replies

I just dey look una with one eye

cedar3:
It's the simplicity of your stories. Now it's not as if I've not read similar stuff outside here but yours is so real, like very very real. It makes one hunger for what you have. It's like living in and seeing Yankee through your eyes, the everyday activities.
That was before these guys came and spoilt the fun. Pls do send us an update soon, my eyes are itching to read.

Pay no attention to them bro. The story continues

austino677:
daily life hustling and how we in Nigeria can get a chance to migrate... gracia

Okay man, thanks

alfonso36:
your stories, your day to day activities, Like meeting new people and mostly toasting those babes lol

Lol. Fear women o

Morning guys, Happy new month.


I'd like to get feedback. So far, what has caught your interest the most on the thread? Looking forward to your replies

Originalsly:
Hmm.... see your writings now reduced to 2 words!.... guess the hustle is really real... not much time left to gist!...or is it you moved up to flipping burgers?....curious... how well you doing there?...got up to their speed?

I'm thinking of reducing my availability to just weekends. They reduced my hours because "I'm not fast enough"

Una dey vex for here o.

OluDare01:
That car is so good
Which insurance do you use and what's the rate?

State farm, full coverage. Along with my mum's 2015 highlander, around $250/month.

Got a better deal?

OluDare01:
Is this Camry 05?

yeah bro

I know this girl from Praire State college. My siblings pointed her out one time I went to pick them up from school. Small world

Amosjaj:
Looking at the name I know the tribe he's from, not mentioning name oo,

Are you always this dense and stvpid? Or is today a special case scenario?

Afam4eva:
@FrankNetter
Do you live in or close to South-side Chicago? How is the crime situation in your side of Chicago?

From the stuff I hear over the radio and conversations at work, gun violence is pretty much out here. They call chicago "chiraq" and while driving around, you'd see where they lay wreaths (at junctions or so) to signify where someome was shot.

I pray never to witness any violence though, abeg, no be wetin carry me come yankee.

This place is owned by a liberian. He was recommended to me by my younger brother's coursemate from school. I recently got into a minor accident and since then, the car has been making some noises. They said it would cost $200 (parts and labor) which for me is a good deal considering the fact that other white-owned shops charge close to $80/hr just for their time.


So, let's wait and see

Toppytek:
how I won take cope for this kain place.. my yeye libido no go allow me... too high!!!

Presently at a mechanic work shop. When I'm done, I'm sure I'd have gist for you based on automobile stuff.

They got novels too men The shop is basically for second hand stuff. Boxes, shoes, blankets, etc etc etc



while strolling through the ladies' section, I saw some trendy chiffon tops and stuff, I didn't want to take photos before the ladies there would start looking at me with one eye. The funny thing be say they all cost small small money o! As a pure igbo man, Business ideas are just popping up in my head

Sometime ago, while driving around Chicago Heights, I came across this "okirika shop". It reminded me of the days I used to go to Oil Mill and Mile 1 park (Port Harcourt people go understand) to shop for clothes. This shop is just the yankee version of benddown select.
While coming over to the USA, I dashed my cousins most of my stuff (including my brogues shoe). I was so happy to see some brogues shoes and vintage shirts in this shop though. This one na first grade Okirika, new bale!

What if breeze mistakenly blows this dude into nairaland's politics section? and he sees the hateful comments we throw at each other? How we tribally stereotype each other and look for every opportunity to spew hatred? Do you guys realize nairaland is the biggest? nigerian forum? Are we representing ourselves well? What would the world think when they come across the comments on this forum? Shaming ourselves all because of "likes"?

This situation is a perfect example of "you think you are doing me? You are doing yourself" Left for me, I think seun should copy reddit and quora on the upvote thingy, that way, stupid and tribalistic comments would get so many downvotes, it would deter tribalists from even commenting.

One thing we should all bear in mind is that the internet never forgets.

I was wiping down the tops, counters and kitchen stuff, when the dude (who was sweeping) pulled up beside me, he was like "obi, you not from around here, are you?" I replied, "na bro, Im from Africa" (most people here think africa is a country, so its easier for me to say Im from africa to avoid too much talk). Suprisingly, he asked, "what country bro?" I replied "Nigeria".

"You miss home?"

I replied "Yeah man, its a great place with nice weather and lovely people"

He asked what I was doing there before i came over, I told him, next thing he asked was "if you got your life going over there, why come here?"


I replied "things are not so good over there bro". Next thing he said was "How bro, everybody corrupt?"
At that point, I didn't even know what to say, or how to start jumping into this conversation

______________

see eh, you do not know how much buhari's utterances have damaged our image internationally. How do you start defending your country when your president has gone on international television to shame all the citizens of the country. One thing we should all know is that the internet never forgets. Here's someone who has never been to the country before, judging every single person based on what he read on the internet. Over the course of our conversation, he brought up a lot of topics: jollof rice (I later told him about fried rice too), fufu and our food in general.

He said he read about the miracle river and asked me if I've been there before, (I was like: WHaT miracle river?!)
I later remembered the stuff I read over the news sometime about the water flowing from a statue that was healing people. He brought up the fact that we eat dogs, and asked if i eat that too. He said he read about our child soldiers (at this point, Im like WTF!?)

I had to ask him where he read all this stuff from, he said he googled up "Nigerian culture" and clicked on some random links and read through.

At this point, we delved into the culture discussion. We both brainstormed on the fact that the black americans have no culture whatsoever, they have no rules or guidelines. the mexicans, the italians, the indians, the caucasians and native americans have some sort of cultural backbone, some sort of values that govern their lives in a way. But the blacks in america have no culture. Its basically: born throway sort of mentality. A scenario where ratchetness, drugs, guns, gangs and violence are seen as a way of life. Later on, when I was all by myself, it dawned on me, maybe, just maybe, if we had fine-tuned our cultural values from the days of old and somehow blended it with the western education we got, nigeria would not be in the situation it is right now. Back then, baby-mamas and having kids out of wedlock were seen as a taboo, but look at us now. Are we slowly losing it? are we throwing our cultural values to the wind? will we end up like the akatas? (ask anybody for yankee the meaning)

I would be looking forward to the next time we work together, the conversation we had on that day was really refreshing.

Gist

So, at my Burger king work place, there's this really quiet black dude. Sticks to his business, does his job and leaves. Some days back, I had the opportunity to work with him, and he surprisingly struck up a conversation. Turns out the brother is/was quite read and does a lot of personal research. Word had filtered around that "oh-bi" wasn't from around here, that he's from Nigeria. So he did some digging up into "nigerian culture". While speaking with him, the first word that caught my attention was the number of times he used the word "corrupt"

ToluexCA:
to tell you the truth.. you inspire me!!

Thanks man.

Everest1989:
please which vocational course pays well in the USA?

Bro, you can make a LOT of money by being a mechanic or panel beater here bro. Mexicans have totally dominated that market.

I go knack una gist today. Stay tuned

Hey guys, I'd like to address this issue of anonymity. While I'd honestly love to make new friends and post my pictures on here, we'd all agree that this thread is more enjoyable cos I never did that from the start.

Simply put, nairaland is a really laaaarge forum, and I do not know who would be reading

Plus, my decision to be anonymous gives my audience the power and option of painting a mental image of who franknetter is. Please don't ruin it for us

Abi you want me to dey censor some aspects of what I post here?