The Owner of the Office knows best.

Earlier this evening I decided to cook for the family. I wanted to prepare a local delicacy popular with the Enugu people of Eastern Nigeria. It is called Okpa. It is a pudding made from the flour of bambara nuts with palm oil, pepper and a little salt. You can add pepper to taste. My son is particularly fond of it.

Well, my wife is the manager of the kitchen and the store. She went to church for clean up, leaving me and my boy at home. I decided to give her a helping hand. It was she who organized the store and it was she who really knew where what was kept. I invaded her office with good intentions. But you know how that saying goes that good intentions are not enough. I had never prepared Okpa myself but I have watched her do it several times. I can learn by observation so I knew what to do.

I entered into the store and got the flour I used, combining it with the other ingredients and seasoning it to taste. It was going to be delicious and I felt proud of myself. I put it on the fire to cook but after cooking I noticed it refused to set as it ought to.

It was she who served it. When I tasted it I noticed something was off. It was good, don't get me wrong, but it was good in a corn pudding kind of way and not in an Okpa kind of way. It was also too soft for Okpa and the color was slightly off. I wondered where I missed it. Everything seemed right but something was amiss. My wife too noticed it and after a brief period of thinking, she asked me which container I took the flour I used from. When I told her the one I took the flour from, she started laughing at me. She said that was wheat I used not flour from bambara nut which is what I was supposed to use. See me, see embarrassment!

Assumptions can be costly. They can belie your good intentions. Here was my assumption: I saw both containers but the one with wheat was low in content and the other was full. I thought both contained the same thing (their color was the same though the containers were different). I felt she had opened the first and given that she had made Okpa the week before, I supposed she got her flour from there. I went for it without asking. In the end I learnt that the owner of the Office knows where everything is and that I can mess things up if I work in that office without asking questions.

Often in life, we get into things without asking the right questions. Students take on examinations without asking those who have gone before them what they did to pass it. People enter into relationships and marriage without a proper understanding of what is involved. Employees take up new positions assuming they understand the job description. However, it is good to seek counsel. He who asks questions never misses the way. I would have successfully made Okpa if I asked which container held the flour I needed.

A lot of pain and struggle in different areas of life, a lot of painful disappointments and animosity and a lot of losses and tears can be avoided by asking questions. Experience has its relevance. It can never be replaced by skill and the absence of it or negligence of it, due to assumption, can make skill useless. I hope you found my little experience instructive. See you at the top.

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