,

I went to a vigil last night.

What's funny is that I largely did not participate in the vigil,

And yet I still ended up feeling that headache that normally disturbs me during the day whenever I don't get enough sleep at night.

And as if that is not enough,

I have been very sloppy since morning.

Work that should have been marked since, I left it and was lazing about.

The result is that I am here by past 7 typing my mail to send to you. 

Sigh!

Anyway.

A few days ago, a lady brought a phone to me to check,

And she told me something that someone told her about me. 

It pained me, but I wasn't surprised that the person said that thing. 

I actually understood why she said it, 

And in a bit, I will tell you what she said about me, 

But let me tell you a little back story to help you understand it very well. 

So this woman (let's call her Mummy F) brought her Gionee smartphone to me. 

It had just fallen on the ground and had a broken glass. 

She asked me of the cost to fix it and I told her. 

She gave me the money to fix it and I went to the market to get the needed part and fix it. 

The process went well and I delivered the phone back to her in good condition. 

But she brought it back for me to do something on it again... 

I can't really remember what it was sha. 

But it was something that would require me to loose the phone open again. 

No big deal! 

Or so I thought. 

I fixed the problem and started to put the screws of the phone back in,

And that was when I noticed it.

A very small patch of ink has come out onto the screen while I was driving the screws back in place. 

Apparently, I had applied too much force and it affected the screen,

And if your phone has ever had anything like a small patch of ink on the screen, then you know that it takes very little time for it to spread to the rest of the screen. 

I was dumbstruck. 

"Yeh!"

"I don buy new screen!" 

"What do I do now?"

I searched my brain frantically for a solution, but I couldn't come up with any. 

To top it all off, this woman lived in my street, very close to my house,

In fact she knew me when I was still very small (early secondary school days). 

Let this ground just open up and swallow me sef. 

Because which kain wahala be this? 

Finally, I decided to go and give her the phone like that and pretend like I didn't know that anything had happened. 

In my mind, I was praying that she wouldn't notice. 

Lolz. 

It is with deep regret that I announce to you that... 

She didn't NOT notice it. 

In fact, the speed at which she noticed it scared me even more. 

I was speechless. 

Words failed me that night. 

She talked, complained, nagged, bickered, 

Basically she poured out her frustration on me.. 

And other people were there. 

Barring a few other situations I have experienced in my short life, 

I have never been more embarrassed than that before in my life. 

I tried defending myself, but it was no use. 

I even tried offering to assist with the money to repair the phones screen, 

But she said I should forget about it. 

N15,000 worth of phone (that she was managing btw) gone just like that,

All because of me. 

That case still haunts me till date. 

And anytime I pass by my street and see her, I am reminded that I am the reason why she doesn't have a smartphone anymore. 

So I was not surprised when the woman that came to me a few days ago told me what she said. 

She said the woman told her not to give her phone to me so that I wouldn't spoil it the way I did hers. 

Again, I don't blame her. 

I did destroy her phone's screen after all. 

But then, there's nothing I can do about it... 

Not anymore at least. 

So I have decided to just move on with my life. 

Again, there are a number of lessons you can pick from this, 

But here are just a few of them. 

1. Always try as much as you can to deliver an excellent job for your clients. 

Whether you are a designer, content writer, copywriter, landing page builder, whatever. 

Your work will speak for you in your absence,

And it will either speak good or bad of you. 

So strive to have and maintain a good reputation for your brand or business. 

It will help you a lot. 

2. Don't let your client bully you into redoing a huge chunk or all of your work. 

Some clients can be funny. 

After writing a copy for them for example, some of them will start critiquing and removing some parts and adding some parts. 

By the time they are done, the whole copy would have been overhauled. 

And when they put it out there and it backfires (flops), you will take the blame because you are the copywriter. 

Although I can't remember what it was that made me open up that phone again, 

But if I had stood my ground and not done that, 

Maybe the story will be different today. 

Point is, if you are good at what you do and you're confident that you have done a good job, don't always give in to pressure from your client to redo your entire work. 

I hope this helps you. 

Have yourself a nice evening ahead. 

To your digital success, 

King Danisan™.