Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards…
-Steve Jobs
Sometime in June, I begun writing this article that I planned to post in the future and reference that I wrote it in the past with faith. In retrospect, I think it was a bit braggadocios because in this article I would talk about how I had seen all the ‘dots’ of the past God used to get me to my then prayer point (A sponsored trip to Korea to pursue my ZoeMedia Startup dream), well that didn’t happen so that article doesn’t exist, at least not anymore.
Isa 55:8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.
A friend that recently found out I just got a job with Paystack, casually asked “Tell me about the genesis of this paystack job”, okay… I know that’s a weird question to ask, but I have weird friends and I’m happy about it.
I intended to write a minimal post of my new job from my ‘office’ on Monday next week, but answering her ‘weird’ question got me thinking. So even though I cannot simply comprehend the detailed dots God connects to make things work for my good, join me as a I fail at it woefully. Let’s begin from December last year.
PS: My other friend Success doesn’t believe in dots connecting to make things happen, he believes anything that wants to happen will happen regardless of a sequential pattern, and I strongly disagree.
December last year, few days to the end of the semester, a project came to me to develop, a lovely girl called Odunayo Hussaini wanted to develop a food delivery website(MobileWaiter). At the time my Angular JS knowledge was very poor and I needed that for the project, also if I took the project I would have to forfeit going for christmas break in port-harcourt because we had to immediately begin a two weeks intensive bootcamp for the project. I told my friend Success that I didn’t want to take it but for some reason I don’t know, I ended up taking it. I stayed in school the whole time, we made a lot of progress and my AngularJS was really good after that.
Fast-forward to this year 2016, at the end of February, I don’t know how I found out about Paystack but I really wanted to give them a shot because they didn’t use OTP for authentication of online payments then, and in CU, students aren’t permitted to use phones so using interswitch(that requires OTP) via voguepay wasn’t really aiding the online payments adoption for MobileWaiter. So because of MobileWaiter, I ported the voguepay payment code we used then to Paystack. During my integration process the Shola(CEO of Paystack) replied one of my support mails and obviously I used it as an avenue to ‘famz’ and we exchanged a couple of Paystack related emails over the next couple of months.
Fast-forward to July 22nd of this year, I also randomly joined Paystack’s slack channel (I only know this date because I checked the slack). Honestly, I don’t remember why I joined the channel, I just did. And on August 1st, I also randomly messaged Shola on slack, to ask him if they intended to bring down the price of their transaction charges in the wake of looming competition. We had this kinda long conversation and he explained a lot to me, stating some of the reasons why their prices are the way they are and how they intend to bring the charges down a bit. That was the end of that conversation.
And while all of this was going on, my ‘supposed’ job with Softcom which began in July had been in some sort of limbo because there had been so much complicated back and forth with a couple of things required for us to start (This drama is not for this post). Basically, I had a job, didn’t know my salary and we hadn’t started officially (Yeah, it’s as ridiculous as it sounds). Honestly, I even liked the whole back and forth, I was so unfazed because I was busy working on other projects.
By last week Friday, the 12th of August, I remember just praying while I laid on my bed when I woke up. As usual, the first thing I do when I wake up is open my laptop. I had received the weekly email newsletter from Devcenter, after reading it (This is like the only newsletter I read, they’re so lit!), at the bottom they had a jobs section, prior to this time, I have never seen that section before and Paystack’s opening was the last on it. While writing this article, I had to fact check for the date and I noticed something interesting, On Wednesday the 9th of August they sent a similar newsletter and they actually had a jobs section on that newsletter too and Paystack was even No.1 on that email but I didn’t realize.
Let me explain the way Devcenter Jobs works; the newest four jobs from their website are the only ones shown on their latest newsletter. So on the newsletter of 9th, Paystack was No.1 and I didn’t notice it, but on the Newsletter of 12th, Paystack was on No.4 on the list. One more new job opening and it would’ve been cut off from the newsletter, I also don’t go to their site to check for latest jobs so I would’ve missed it.
So back to connecting the dots, since I was already on Paystack’s slack channel, I decided to send a message to Shola via their Slack channel indicating my interest in the job. He replied asking if I was in Lagos and I said yes, then he said I should come to the office on Wednesday 17th and in his words “then we can gist about the role and Paystack”. I was forming over serious so I asked if I should come with anything or prepare anything and he replied “no, just come gist with us ?”.
Wednesday came, I went to the office, he basically introduced me to everyone at the office before we even sat down to have a chat and everyone was so nice to me. Him and I had the chat, he offered me the job with a really good salary, I officially start next week Monday and as if that wasn’t enough for my God for one day, considering I don’t live in Lagos and I have been saving up to get an apartment, he offered to give me some money for my rent.
So in my head, that’s the ‘genesis’ of my job with paystack, but we both know God did a whole lot more in-between those lines.
I’m really excited because I get to have my dream job. While I was in school, I always planned to work for company right after I graduated, but it would have to be a company that had a product that was real. Paystack is real, it’s changing the way online payment works for Nigeria and it’s very great. I also get to learn under so many awesome and experienced people while doing so much Great work. THANK GOD!!!
So I guess, somethings all the back and forth from current/previous opportunities is just God holding you down for the right and perfect opportunity to come your way.
Random Thought: So if I get fired(GOD FORBID!), what happens to all these dots I just connected????
