LEG VALUE

I don’t know how they did it but a month ago we watched a film at work during working hours. Not everyone was invited but most of us tried to get in to watch it.
We got the information not through an internal memo or mail as the Staff did, but through the normal channels aka rumours. Word went round that the Ministry of Labour had organized a motivational film for the workers and that all of us were invited but those who wished to work could continue with their routine. Most of the workers wished to keep their jobs and therefore declined with lots of regrets at missing such an opportunity. The Staff attended en mass.

Being a worker but closer to the Staff, I attended and even got a front row seat by virtue of being asked to carry chairs for the guests and the Staff. I had other work to do but decided to stay just to make sure they were comfortable and got myself a chair in the process, nothing extraordinary about that.

I, unfortunately, did not make it through the entirety of the movie as one of the Staff who had an earlier engagement came in and stood next to me just as the trailers were ending. It was then that I decided that a job in hand is worth more than a seat and decided purely out of courtesy to give him my seat even though I got no thanks for it. Murmurs followed on my standing and it was only natural that I went to the back as I was not transparent, with the staff eyes following my every move and when I got to the back I again decided to find out if there was anyone left outside and as a result left the room albeit on my own terms.

Of course when I met my fellow workers over our boiled maize lunch the next day, I did not forget to mention my film experience much to their dismay and amazement. Someone even bought me an extra cob of boiled maize as a celebratory gesture for my success for getting that close to the Staff. However, I was nearly overshadowed by a guy who had bought a TV and watched a show called “Killmore kals”. He also had friend who could not understand how he’d seen someone die in a Nigerian film in a morning TV film and be alive in an evening TV film. No matter how it was explained to him he stuck to his guns and in acrimony concluded that it must have been the Nigerian juju at work.

Thankfully, he was sidelined by the new topic that was started on “leg value” in the movies. After a great length of many lurid descriptions of the Nigerian women in the films, it was unanimously agreed that most watched it for the leg show.
On getting back to work after a fulfilling lunch, we met the Staff going for another meeting this time with the Big Boss, his receptionist and his Human resource manager. A couple of guards were also in tow. One of the workers said he wished he could attend one of the many meetings the Staff normally had especially in the hot sunny lazy afternoons. He’d give an arm and a leg to go and sleep in the meetings as well.

Most of the Staff had already trooped in one by one when I was kindly requested to help in setting the chairs again. Unlike the first time there was neither a movie nor the Ministry of Labour people or as we called them Suits. It always looked like they were more interested in their suits than in our welfare what with the way they kept brushing away invisible fluff off their suits punctuated by incoherent murmurs urging the respondent to state his case. The worker would then get summarily dismissed in the days to follow.

One by one the Staff were called in to the Big Boss’s office by the all-smiles- receptionist. A few minutes later some came out all smiles while others were escorted, carried or dragged to the gate by the guards and locked out. Apparently some of the Staff were being “let go” and the previous days movie was a motivational movie- to create a softer landing for those “let go” and the Suits had come to be greased in anticipation of any future problems. Now that was a movie with different kind of” leg value”-one leading to “tarmacking.”