1st Job Switch.. We're going on a Lion Hunt

Before I got my first job, I had sent out multiple applications. One of such applications was to a yahoo email address. It turns out that that email address was that of a senior staff of a university's ICT center.
Apparently, the university had just set up its ICT centre, which would manage the university's online registration portal, and implement/manage all ICT projects in the university.
So I received an email inviting me for an interview on a Saturday at a state university in Lagos, that was my first time of stepping into that University.

The recruitment process was a 1-stage, straight-forward process because the project was directly backed by the vice chancellor and had his express approval. We were given 2 tasks - to write a simple PHP program, and an essay to proffer solutions to Nigeria's problem. Both tasks were a piece of cake and i finished them in good time.
Recall that I had self-taught PHP and was comfortable with it.
This brings out my lesson.
What do you do in a dead-ball situation?. Don't waste your dead-ball situations.. you could score a winning goal with it.
NYSC is considered by many to be a dead-ball period - which lots of graduates regard as faffing time, for wilding out. That - in my opinion - is not a good use of the NYSC year. They could make better use of that time to acquire skills which will come handy post-NYSC. If you wait till you need a skill before you learn the skill, you are already late.

The recruitment test result was out in less than a month. I led in the programming task, and another guy led the networking task. Maybe I was lucky, maybe i didnt compete with better candidates, but I topped the test. I was in my mum's shop that night when the call came in, and it went like "Hello, am I speaking with ..., my name is Professor ..., I'm the chairman, ICT center, ... University".
He asked me if I wasn't driving, and if it was a good time to talk.
I almost laughed out loud!
Heck!, I was a just a poor boy who had just been saved from poverty, and earning 15k per month. Anyways, I replied that we could talk. He spoke so respectfully. He assumed that he was talking to an older person, based on the strength of my performance in the recruitment task, and the matured way I had written on the test. I was all smiles. He was almost begging me not to change my mind about joining them. I felt like a fine girl being courted.
Second lesson: Writing, speaking is a must-have skill!

And so I resumed as a senior staff at the University in September 2007, a month to my 22nd birthday on a starting salary of 56k 😆.
Oh I miss the days when recruitment into public establishments were apolitical, influenced or manipulated.

My parents were really impressed that I could get a job in a public institution without knowing anyone. My dad went with me to the University to see my superiors and say "thank you".  
I enjoyed uncapped internet access, I downloaded tonnes of ebooks, I could use any laptop that I wanted, in short, I was living the tech life. I was given unfettered access to their systems and given high responsibilities. I could change the codebase, and do almost anything on the database. I thoroughly enjoyed on-boarding, and I poured my heart into the work. 

One time I was given a query, the ICT centre chairman told me to call my mum to come see him, so he could report me to her 😂😂.