Alum success story- Adewunmi Baruwa #waveacademies

Adewunmi Baruwa
Supervisor
Shawarma & co

Adewunmi was an e-commerce agent with one of the online retail stores but quit because it was a part-time job. He joined WAVE because he wanted a monthly paid job and to also acquire basic soft skills training required in getting and staying on a job. He heard about the programme from a friend who is also an alumnus and applied. When asked the most surprising part of the programme Adewunmi said that it was the quality of the facilitators. They were intellectual, updated and well informed. Above all,the academy is of great organisational standard with a well defined structure in which they operate. Adewunmi said that he struggled with health issues during the course of the training but had to hang in because he did not want to comeback . After the training, Adewunmi did his job shadow at The Orchid Bistro where he worked as a waiter and kitchen assistant. When asked about what he learned from the job shadow experience, Adewunmi said, the course of my job shadow exposed me to the hospitality world. It taught me how to understand the importance of managing customers' expectation and building my emotional intelligence in relating with customers and my colleagues.

Adewunmi got a job three days after his graduation from the programme with Shawarma and Co. as a supervisor. Three and a half months into the job, Adewunmi said that the most challenging part of the job is having to work for more than eleven (11) hours straight as well as multitasking. But with every challenging job comes the exciting part and Adewunmi admitted this, saying that the job has helped him improve his networking skills and provided a platform to meet with great personalities and celebrities. It is important to interact with them to create a friendly environment. My job has also helped me improve my problem solving skills, which has to do with the ability to solve problems that arise as a result of dealing with irate customers and unforeseen blunders. Office politics which is a collection of games within a mustering caucus. If you want to be accepted by your colleagues then you must know how to play your game. Communication skills- verbal and non-verbal - are essential. You cannot get the job done if you do not have any of those and if you did by chance, you would not stay on it for long. Time management is very important as well; your ability to attend to customers at a high pace. Nobody likes being delayed on a queue.

Adewunmi thanked WAVE for the core values and mentioned how it has become a part of him beyond the workplace- honesty, loyalty, integrity and paradigm changing and putting people first have become a part of my lifestyle and I am grateful to WAVE for that.

My advice to the next set of WAVERS is to build and equip themselves with knowledge as much as they can. Knowledge is power!