Ezekiel Dube: from driver to depot manager
"It all started with a dream," this is how Ezekiel Dube describes his rise in a company he has been working at for the past 14 years.
POLOKWANE – He grew up in a village called Mamutla where he and his six siblings attended primary school. Ezekiel completed his high school education in Johannesburg and enrolled to study electrical engineering after matric. Unfortunately he couldn’t complete his degree due to financial constraints.
He moved around for a while before joining his current employer as a driver.
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“Here I met a company director who started out as a driver many years ago. This inspired me to follow his example and not allow my current situation and position to dampen my aspirations. I was going to work and work until I also became one of the ‘big’ guys in the company,” he told BONUS.
After setting clear goals for himself, he put all his effort into working as hard as he could and proved himself, soon becoming a service manager where he followed suit for seven years, slowly but surely climbing his way up the ranks to the depot manager at the Polokwane branch of the company.
Starting from the bottom and working yourself up is something Ezekiel believes in and he has done this at all his previous employers.
He takes inspiration from seeing himself and others around him do well and achieve their goals and milestones. “You need to go forward and do better as a team or success means nothing,” he explained.
When he is not at work he spends time with his wife and two sons and on Sundays there is nothing more important to him than attending church.
His advice to anyone with the dream of doing well one day is to believe that when they put their mind to it, nothing is impossible.
“I believe if you have your goals set out and you work hard towards them that you can achieve anything you want,” Ezekiel added.
Staying motivated each day, he added, is easy because he loves what he does and looks forward to going to work and dealing with the challenges he meets there. He strongly feels this is something everyone needs if they want to be successful in the business world.
He manages to overcome the variety of challenges he encounters at work by “being ready for anything”.
The people around him, he added, also play a vital part in making things a lot easier for him as they provide strong support structures to help him do his job to the best of his ability.
Ezekiel describes himself as driven but adds there is a softer side to him which many people do not know about.
“If you believe in yourself and always stay positive, you will see the light at the end of the tunnel and you can even go from being a driver to becoming a depot manager as long as you keep your dream alive.”
