The Power of Random Knowledge

Random knowledge does not have a definition. Anything you know and you find it difficult to see a need for it immediately could be random knowledge.

Some years back, I had just finished my NYSC and was applying to places. I had no laptop but owned a smartphone. I thought of what I could do to fortify my knowledge domain and I decided to save a page of countries and capital on my phone. I learnt one (country and capital) each day for four months and learnt the remaining later randomly after I got my first job.

As I was doing this, I never knew this will happen:

I was in the office today and convened a project status meeting. This meeting actually involved mid-level managers and consultants from 3 companies – My firm, an audit firm and an IT firm. As we await my MD to come declare the meeting open as the sponsor of the project, there was a discussion on issues with American embassy and rejection of Visas.

Prior before this meeting,  please note that I had already been told at a sitting with HR that it’s like I am actually enclosed within the cubicle of my day-day job activities and not really interested in other areas of life such as social media, world affairs and sports ( I am actually not a football fan which they all know). I smiled and was like me? I am so good at the first two and was actually good on the last one as a staunch Arsenal fan until 2007 when I lost track of sporting events.  Well that was it, it was noted as failed in my employee record.

Back to the meeting, as the issue of visas rejection was discussed, they later got to a stage where a guy said actually there are other countries in the world that Nigerians can go to instead of USA to enjoy. Everyone was like where again apart, then the guy mentioned Lima, they were like where is that? I chipped in Peru. The guy said even Caracas, I added “in Venezuela”, the guy then said or Helsinki for scholarships, I looked up and found everyone waiting for me to state the country and I said Finland. The team lead of one of the firms instantly stood up and handed me his business card and as I was almost doing same my boss walked in and was like “this man you want poach my boy?”. He said no and explained all what happened, that he hardly see full time employees getting to know general stuffs. 

The meeting was declared open by my boss. 45mins later, meeting was over. Ten minutes later, I went for lunch, met the HR boss in the canteen and he told me to see him after lunch to review my file as there is a urgent need to take a decision before COB today.

As I entered his office, he engaged me in more world affairs, I surpassed his expectations. He handed me a letter of recommendations and a new prestigious responsibility (Not promotion o). He said the essence of the earlier review meeting was to assess me and confirm to every one of the management who raised doubts if I am fit to be in this position for the task assigned.

 This is one of a few life-saving moments for me as far as random knowledge is concerned. Pick up some weird stuffs and learn.