From a Loss-Making Branch to a New Life
By Seun Sylvester | Strategy | January 10, 2026
Life is rarely a straight line. Career growth is even less so.
Before the titles, before the degrees, before migration became a possibility, I was a young banker riding the high of my first promotion.
After joining Union Bank, I was privileged to work on a bad debt recovery that earned me an early promotion. The pay increase came with confidence — maybe too much confidence.
I began to dream aggressively about career progression. In banking, growth is simple in theory: hit deposit targets, manage risk, climb the ladder.
Like many young professionals, I believed momentum was everything.
I thought I had the client — the relationship that would accelerate everything. When an opportunity came to move to Skye Bank (now Polaris Bank), I followed the promise of faster growth and higher earnings. It felt strategic. It felt bold.
What I didn’t know was that the Skye Bank was already struggling internally.
Management assured us everything was under control — until it wasn’t.
One morning, Nigeria woke up to the news that the Central Bank had dissolved the board of Skye Bank. Panic followed. Depositors grew uneasy. There was a quiet but intense flight to safety.
I was just about to meet my confirmation target when my key client called. I assumed — albeit foolishly — that he was calling to complete the deposit.
Instead, he said:
“I’m not putting more money into a bank that might not exist tomorrow.”
In one moment, my goal shifted from “please add more funds” to “please don’t remove what you already have.”
He moved the funds.
He never returned.
A few months later, I received a transfer letter.
From a city branch to a rural outpost.
One week to clear my desk.
What used to be a 30-minute commute became over an hour each way. For the next four years, banking became survival. The manager there ruled with fear. You were constantly reminded that your job existed at her mercy.
At the same time, I was deep into my doctorate program.
Long commutes. A hostile work environment. A demanding PhD.
There were mornings I woke up already tired — not from work, but from the thought of who I would meet at work.
I explored part-time lecturing. I taught on weekends. The income was small, but it kept hope alive for what could be in the future.
Still, I endured.
Four months before I turned 30, I wrote my six-hour doctoral comprehensive exam.
Three months before my birthday, I defended my dissertation.
Against all odds, I had made it.
I celebrated — even brought snacks and drinks to the office. When my manager congratulated me, her words cut deeper than any insult:
“So when are you resigning?”
Less than a month later, on a morning I was preparing for another long commute to the office, something nudged me to check my email.
A transfer notice — sent after close of work the previous day.
I was to resume immediately at a loss-making branch back in the city that morning.
No notice. No handover period. Immediately.
When I arrived, unsettled and without a workstation, I received an email from my former manager demanding a handover note before noon.
I was angry — really angry and fed up.
Instead of writing a handover note, I left the office and drove straight to the Nigerian Immigration Service.
That day, I got my first — and only — international passport.
I didn’t know it then, but that moment of frustration became the beginning of my journey to Canada.
From anger…
to a passport…
to a new country.
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Six Months Later — Perspective Changed Everything
Six months after settling in Canada — with a good job at TD Bank and my wife working with the Canada Revenue Agency — I summoned the courage to call that same manager.
Calling her was not easy. Fear had trained us to see her as unapproachable.
I called to say thank you.
I told her that the day she orchestrated my transfer was the day I left work in anger and got my international passport — a decision that had now settled my family in Canada.
She paused, then said something unexpected:
“I did all that to push you to your potential.”
That conversation changed how I see adversity.
Some people stretch you gently. Others apply pressure.
Both may be instruments — even when they don’t realize it.
Lessons from This Journey
1. Life is not linear — setbacks often carry hidden exits.
2. Adversity builds capacity — pain toughens, refines, and matures.
3. Some managers are lessons, not leaders — but lessons still have value.
4. Anger can destroy — or redirect — depending on how you channel it.
5. Preparation is often born from pressure, not comfort.
6. Faith does not remove hardship; it redeems it.
7. Perspective often comes after distance — not during the pain.
If you’re in a hard season right now, don’t rush to interpret it. You may only understand it later — when the fruit has formed.
A Question for You
Looking back, do you think calling her to say thank you was the right thing to do?
What would you have done differently — or the same?
I’d love to read your thoughts in the comments.
About Seun Sylvester Opaleye – Faith With Strategy | Faith With Strategy
29 responses to “From a Loss-Making Branch to a New Life”
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This is an interesting read. I decided to pursue Canadian immigration after nearly missing my court marriage ceremony in Ikoyi due to road blockades during the 2020 EndSARS protests. It reinforced a simple truth, discomfort and frustration often drive growth.
Also, you are a better person than myself, not calling anyone to say thank you but hey, they will hear from me 😆
Thank you for sharing this – that EndSARs experience you described captures exactly how disruption often becomes the catalyst for clarity. You’re right: discomfort has a way of forcing honest decisions we might otherwise delay.
An about the “thank you” call – I smiled at that part. Growth looks different for everyone, and sometimes closure happens inwardly before it happens outwardly. Either way, the learning counts.
Calling her offered her the opportunity to explain her reasons thereby clearing the misconception earlier perceived, similarity, it offered you the chance to change your perceptions about her, however, your reason for calling and her real intention for doing what she did is a thing of personal judgment like Pareto optimality.
It is a nice piece worth reading. Congrats on your wins
I appreciate the depth of this perspective, esp the point about judgment and perception. You’re right, the call didn’t rewrite history, but it created space for understanding, on both sides.
Leadership decisions and personal interpretation rarely meet at the same point, and navigating that gap with maturity is often the real work. Thank you for engaging this thoughfully.
Some kinds of adversity is the mother of improvements. It awakens out survival instincts. Managers should do this in agreement with those they manage so that misconceptions are not formed. If you didn’t call….. I hope she learned something from that call.
This was a good read. Thank you for sharing
Well said – adversity really does awaken survival instincts that comfort never touches. I also agree that alignment and communication matter deeply in people management.
You’re right, if I hadn’t made that call, my own perspective would likely have remained incomplete. Growth sometimes requires closing loops we didn’t even know were open.
It’s an interesting piece, I think calling her to say thank you is the right thing, because the pressure she put on you is what prepared and pushed you toward your new life.
Thank you! With hindsight, I can see that the pressure I resisted at the time was also preparation in disguise.
Growth rarely feels kind while its happening, but clarity often arrives later. I’m learning to honor the process without romanticizing the pain.
“Adversity builds Capacity” 👏🏼
Exactly!
Capacity is often built in places we didn’t volunteer for – but later become grateful we survived.
This is an interesting piece. Thank you for sharing.
Having both led and been led, in Nigerian banks, I genuinely understand both perspectives.
Leadership is rarely as straightforward as it looks from the outside. In the banking industry in Nigeria, especially, the realities are complex. Managing in a smaller bank with branches concentrated in cities is very different from leading in a larger institution with branches spread across both urban and rural areas. Deployment decisions are not made casually. You weigh marital status, family location, distance, employee capability, and operational needs, often under time pressure. Sometimes decisions must be executed immediately, and the opportunity to fully explain them to the affected person simply does not exist.
There are times you act based on the best information available, only to discover later that not all the facts were on the table. With hindsight, the decision might have been different. There are also moments when you deliberately put yourself in the line of fire to shield your reports, knowing fully well they may never see or understand that sacrifice. Ironically, the one decision that negatively affects them can overshadow years of advocacy, support, and protection.
At the same time, you are managing people’s careers, trying to place them in roles that will stretch them, grow them, and hopefully bring out their best, while still making hard strategic decisions that impact the organization’s financial survival. That balance is not easy.
I have had people reach out years later to thank me for helping shape their careers. I have also received calls from disgruntled former reports who felt my guidance was useless to them. And there are some who no longer speak to me at all, still holding onto resentment over decisions that were never fully within my control.
So yes, I understand his gratitude. But I also understand the manager’s response. Leadership is messy, imperfect, and often misunderstood. It is rarely about comfort, and almost always about responsibility.
Glad you took the positives from the situation and have channeled a path forward.
Thank you for your balanced and honest contribution. You articulated the complexity of leadership.
You’re also right, decisions are often made under constraints others may never see, and leadership frequently involves absorbing impact quietly. That tension between responsibility and perception is real and rarely acknowledged.
This piece was never about simplifying leadership into heroes and villains, but about how perspective matures over time. About what I have learned to do and not to do as a leader. You comments add important depth to that conversation.
In my experience it’s usually difficult to imagine what managing or leadership feels like until you step into their shoes. It’s also worth acknowledging that being led to do something or deciding to go in some “good or opportunistic” direction might just have been divinely orchestrated. Nice piece. Congrats!
True though. Leadership feels entirely difference once you’re responsible for outcomes beyond yourself.
I appreciate the point about divine orchestration – sometimes what looks like choice, pressure or coincidence is simply alignment we only recognize in retrospect. Thank you for reading and reflecting.
Dr seun life is quite instructive and interesting,we were together very close in our ministerial duties as church workers and I must confess you never showed this trying moment ever existed,yes I agree with you faith never stops hardship but redeem it,the future belongs to those who see s possibilities and make a reality of it,am who respected your perspective and stand inspire of the age difference.thanks for sharing this it certainly will be someone’s anchor of hope,and indeed calling your former manager intimating her of your current position is a disposition of good human spirit and equally an adorable lesson to learn from her end.
This means a lot, truly.
Thank you for your honesty and for seeing beyond what was visible at the time.
You’re right, faith doesn’t eliminate hardship, but it redeems it. And if this story becomes an anchor of hope for even one person, then the journey was not wasted.
Calling her was less about position and more about posture – choosing gratitude over resentment. Thank you so much for your reflection on this.
I enjoyed reading this because I can relate.
So my question is: did you actually call your former manager to genuinely thank her or was the thank you sarcastic?
Do you really believe her reason for the pressure and unfairness is tenable? If it didn’t end well for you, would this still be her reason?
Thank you for reading so thoughtfully, and for asking this honestly.
Yes, the call was genuine — not sarcastic. I arrived in Canada in June 2022, and it was about six months later, in December, on a quiet Sunday morning, that I made that call. By then, I had enough distance from the pain to reflect clearly. My family had settled, we were safe, and we were experiencing tangible blessings. That perspective mattered.
The gratitude came from hindsight. At the time, I was angry, frustrated, and felt the pressure was unfair — I don’t deny that. But life has a way of revealing meaning later. That season forced growth, resilience, and preparation I didn’t fully appreciate then. In that sense, everything that followed traced back to that difficult turning point.
Do I believe her reasons are fully tenable? I think leadership is complex and imperfect. Sometimes intentions are mixed, sometimes poorly expressed, sometimes people are just mean – they tell you openly, and sometimes growth happens despite the method, not because it was ideal. If things hadn’t worked out for me, I might have interpreted the experience differently — that’s human. But gratitude, for me, isn’t about justifying every action; it’s about owning what the journey produced in me.
Thank you Seun for sharing this insighhful journey.
How we handle pressure determines what we make out of it. Let us always see everything through the eye of God.
True. Thank you for this. Pressure itself is not the problem; how we interpret and respond to it is what shapes the outcome. Seeing seasons through God’s eyes help us endure what we don’t yet understand, trusting that He is still at work even in the tension. I appreciate you reading and reflecting.
Your piece, which came from experience in the banking industry, is encouraging, especially when you access the end result of what could have been seen as unjust punishment from your boss as it were.
As per the call you put across to her, it shows you are proving a point to her that the push while in the industry has made you a better person than you would have been if not for her. So whether the call was necessary or not is subjective in my own opinion.
Thank you for sharing this with us as we learn every day of our life.
Thank you very much for this thoughtful reflection. I agree with you that whether the call was necessary or not is ultimately subjective. For me, it wasn’t about proving a point, but about closing a chapter from a place of growth and gratitude. Time and distance gave me clarity, and I could finally see the experience beyond the emotion of that season. I appreciate you engaging with the story so deeply — we truly are learning every day of our lives.
The first sentence “Life is rarely a straight line” captures the reality of our existence. The up and down of life makes is dynamic and ambitious.
Maturity and the desire to be a great leader made you to reach out to your former boss. Not to show up but with a sense of gratitude.
As humans we see things differently. Her response comes from the point that you are not where you used to be.
These real life experiences of yours will further encourage and inspire others to keep showing up even when the fruits are not ripen yet.
Thank you for all you do. You are a good man Dr.
Thank you for this generous and insightful response. You captured my heart perfectly — the call was never about showing up, but about showing gratitude from a place of maturity and perspective. Life’s ups and downs do shape us, and often it’s only with time that we can properly interpret them. I’m grateful that this story resonates and, as you said, encourages others to keep showing up even when the fruits are not yet ripe. I truly appreciate your kind words.
Truly, anger can either destroy or redirect someone…. There’s so much to learn from your story and at the same time very interesting to read… Thank you for Sharing and I hope to read More n more n more 💯 👏
Thank you so much for this thoughtful comment. You’re absolutely right – anger is powerful, and it can either consume us or become the fuel that redirects our lives toward something better. I’m grateful the story resonated with you, and I truly appreciate your encouragement. More reflections are coming – thank you for reading and for walking this journey with us 🙏
Anger can destroy — or redirect — depending on how you channel it… Very True 👍
Triggers for life-changing decisions vary from person to person. What moves one individual may not move another—but timing, pressure, and perspective often play decisive roles.
I can deeply relate to this banking experience. It is remarkable how a difficult moment, exacerbated by your Manager’s indiscretion —became the very catalyst that ultimately bettered a life. In seasons of pain and stress, we are often most vulnerable to making wrong or rushed decisions. Yet, it is in those same seasons that clarity, courage, and wisdom can emerge—if we pause long enough to see beyond the moment.
What stood out to me was your ability to think outside the box and arrive at a perspective that may not have been obvious to observers at the time. As Joyce Meyer rightly says, “life is lived forward but understood backward”. Hindsight often reveals that what once felt like punishment was actually redirection.
The seven punch lines at the end of the piece were particularly powerful—timeless truth capsules that deserve deeper reflection and exploration for future publications. They remind us that growth often demands humility, restraint, and self-examination.
Reaching out to a former manager under such circumstances could not have been easy. The more “natural” human response might have been to react emotionally and ignore the pain in your life. You know best the reason for reaching out to her. Could it be to let her know that her tough and most inhuman stance towards you did not break you? Like we say in pidgin English cliché —*“pepper-them,”*. Choosing grace, maturity, and growth instead is not ordinary. It reflects a level of character that transcends circumstance.
There is inspiration here for anyone navigating uncertainty: sometimes the most uncomfortable steps become the most transformative ones. This publication, “From a loss making branch to a new life – when career pain becomes divine redirection” will be a good piece for young adults and older teens to review and discuss. Thans for sharing
Thank you Sir for this deeply thoughtful and generous reflection. You captured the tension of those seasons well, the thin line between pressure that pushes us into rash decisions and pressure that, if paused with, births clarity. That distinction is everything.
I love the Joyce Meyer quote you referenced – hindsight truly reframes pain as redirection.
On reaching out afterward, you’re right—it wasn’t the natural response. It wasn’t about “pepper-them,” but about closing a chapter without carrying residue. It was also about thanksgiving. I sat back home that day counting my blessings 6 months after arrival in Canada, and just felt I needed to thank her, what she did, despite the motive, transformed my life. I never thought of Canada. The immediate vision was to move into lecturing in the university and become a professor by 39 or 40. Some doors are best shut with maturity, not bitterness, so the next season can be entered whole.
Thank you for engaging the story so thoughtfully and for highlighting its relevance for young adults and teens. That encouragement means a lot, and it affirms the reason behind my documentation of how the journey has been, for the young ones to learn a thing or two.