Diary of an Honest Naturalista: Week 104

So much has been happening at work, and so many changes and developments in the hair department, or should I say just one change. But that change was major, that I have to term it ‘many’.

My friendly colleague in this edition – the one who looked normal but really was hiding his dreadlocks under his normal-looking wig finally had a break through.

Apparently, he got tired of cutting his hair and maintaining really short dreadlocks, that he went to his line manager and confided in him. The line manager in turn took his case to the HR manager who put her foot down, and said dreadlocks on men doesn’t look professional in the office setting.

His manager argued that he was working with the locs in the states, and it was never a problem. The HR manager said this is Nigeria, and clients and partners would not take is serious if they see men in the office wearing dreadlocks. The manager argued that the dreadlocks were short, and not long packable ones. He also said the dreadlocks would not affect his productivity, and he was indeed one of the highest-performing staff in his unit. Of course, that wasn’t surprising to anyone, seeing that he was employed all the way from the states. And so the argument went on and on, but none of the arguing parties refused to back down in their reasoning. The gist was given to us by the HR manager’s PA who just sat through the whole back and forth looking like this.

Source

The twist is that the line manager of the guy on dreadlocks is second line to the MD. So the guy told his staff that he can carry his dreadlocks since there is nowhere in the HR policy that said dreadlocks is prohibited.

And so, this is how my colleague started wearing his dreadlocks. The first day, everyone was surprised. It looked very neat and a bit longer than when he revealed it to me. I was drooling over the guy, honestly. The sides were well-shaped, and framed his face really well.

The HR manager didn’t find it funny, but there was really nothing she could do since her judgment was subjective. The irony is that the clients and business partners she seemed so worried about did not even mind the new look of the guy.

And that is the summary of the dreadlocks breakthrough in my office.

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