I AM A PROFESSIONAL who probably doesn’t look like her name or works

I have seen a number of #iamaprofessional posts and many of them had me smiling with nostalgia. They take my mind right back to the when I first started writing (as a journalist). Let me share one of those stories here.

I like to think of the experience as the first time someone doubted my professionalism because of my size.

It was sometime in 2011, when I was an intern Reporter/Features writer with The Pointer Newspapers, Asaba. My editor had sent me out to cover an event with a certain ministry (name reserved). On getting there, I located where the other ‘Pressmen’ (and women) were seated, and joined them.

In no time, the PRO came out, and greeted the others in a way that suggested familiarity. When she saw me with a Press tag, she asked; “from which media?” and I replied “The pointer newspapers”.

Immediately she heard that, her countenance changed. She spent the next couple of minutes complaining that my editor sent her an intern to cover the event, even though she had specified which reporter she wanted. Her outburst made me a bit self-conscious, because even though I was an intern indeed, I could not decipher how she reached the conclusion without asking me. She brought out her phone to call the editor, and after several attempts she got through to him.

Her discussion with him was more of a continuation of her outburst. I don’t know what he was saying or asking on the other end of the phone, but she kept insisting that she did not want an intern covering the event, and that she was better off writing the story herself and sending it in for publication. Soon after the call ended, my editor called me and asked me to come back to the newsroom. I could sense he was angry at her bias as well.

Much later in the day, she came to the newsroom with her already written story, and raised the issue with the editor again. She said she wanted a Feature report, rather than a regular news story and that was why she had asked the editor to send her “Ruth Okwumbu” to cover the event.

At that point, the editor asked her; “whom do you think I sent to you? Did you even allow the young lady introduce herself?”

So well, it turned out that she had read several of my feature articles before asking the editor to send Ruth Okwumbu to cover the event. But, there was nothing in my write-ups that suggested to her that I was an intern. She thought I was some matured young woman, with years of writing experience up my sleeves. Turns out I had only been writing for about six months, and was still an intern.

“I was expecting someone bigger. Sorry but you don’t look like your name” she said later when she was apologizing to me.

I have been writing for over 10 years now, and I still get the “you don’t look like your name” and “I was expecting someone bigger” remarks and expression. I am yet to understand what my name is supposed to look like. If you have seen me, why are you bothered about what my name is supposed to look like?

I guess I am still that professional that doesn’t look like her name or her works. I have walked into rooms to find people discussing about my articles, and they had no idea I was the one. Much earlier in my career, I would be offended with the comments, but now, I take them as compliments and just smile.

The issue of biases is one we are going to talk about someday and when we do, I will probably talk about that one time a lecturer looked at me after my presentation and told me “you don’t look half as intelligent as you are” or maybe I would recount the time a schoolmate saw my result and told me “your looks belie your intelligence”.

I am still hoping that someone, somewhere, someday would tell me what intelligent looks like, or what the name Ruth Okwumbu suggests I should look like.

#iamaprofessional

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