The day I showed up for an interview looking like I swam to Lagos

Two years ago I was living in my uncle's garage in Ibadan. Not a room. A garage. Car parked outside, I slept on a foam inside. I had just graduated from UNILAG and job applications were going nowhere.

Then I got an email from a Lagos fintech. Interview at 10am on Monday. I was buzzing. My uncle said he would drop me in his car. Sunday night we checked everything. Monday morning 4am, the car refused to start. Not even a cough.

I had ₦1500 to my name. Molue from Ibadan to Lagos was ₦1200. I had ₦300 left for the rest of the day. I got to the park by 5:30am, the bus didn't fill up until 7am. We left Ibadan at 7:30. Lagos traffic welcomed us at Berger like an old enemy. I got to VI at 11:45am.

I walked into that office drenched in sweat. My shirt was sticking to my body. I was panting. The interviewer asked me to write a simple function to reverse a string. I blanked. I mean completely blanked. I sat there staring at the whiteboard like it was written in Sanskrit.

The CEO walked in near the end. He asked me one question: "Why do you want this job?" I told him the truth. I said I needed a chance to prove that UNILAG Computer Science was not a waste of four years. He looked at my sweat-drenched shirt and said, "Come back tomorrow. Clean shirt."

I got the job. Worked there for three years. Built payment systems that processed billions. That CEO, his name is Mr. Adeyemi, taught me that sometimes passion matters more than perfection. I still call him for advice till today.