My penguin water dispenser in the office

dear loved ones and friends, thanks for all your concerns :) I am ok.

Like I said before, I dont like to dwell in unhappiness. Usually after a while I will be alright. I always like to search for answers for my trials. Answers do not really come to you instantly, it takes time to discover and learn from the adversities that God put us through. I prayed to God at my lowest for Him to put His comforting hand upon me, and He sent wonderful people in the form of my darling and friends. The advice I got and the reflection from the bible study I had yesterday helped me see the answers more clearly.

I had been too comfortable and complacent in my own job. I took God for granted for the job I have. As much as I have been unhappy in my job with regards to management or people, I havent been really performing well since my promotion last year. I have been doing well for 2 years, handling major projects especially when there is a shortage of manpower and thus the promotion. I choose to believe that it is because I have been swamped with so many things to do at work. I did everything here and there, touching upon all the projects but not fully excelling in them in the past year. I did not really call for help, thinking I can handle them all. I relied on my own strength, complaining along the way but not really doing something about it. I have shortchanged my expectations. I did not give in my best just because I felt that it was not worth it for the company and also with the mindset that I am going to leave soon anyway.

That was not quite right and I soon felt guilty about it. From what I learnt, everything we do is for God and we should put in our best in everything we do. We are the ambassadors of our faith in God. If we are seen slacking or doing something not right, people will have a false or bad impression of us Christians. We want to spread God's Word and bring His love to other people especially to non-Christians. However if we are not good examples of our faith, who will want to believe us that our God is all-good and all-mighty? We are constantly in the limelight because of our faith. Once we do something not right, people will say "See la, Christians leh..still do something like that. Call yourself a Christian." I dont think we want to have this image on us.

It is not that I have done something bad but more of I havent done the good that I ought to do. I slacked.

my fishes! strawberry shortcake has fallen to her side, probably sleeping.

My Senior Manager, a woman highly respected in the office and has been in the office for many many years, talked to me. I complained about having to work for a childish and immature boss coupled with bad management. She replied, "You know he is that kind of person, dont take it personally. If you do, you wont be able to be happy. You should just ignore him and concentrate on your priorities. You dont work for him, you should work for yourself." She told me that I must know what kind of pattern he likes, so I should do this or that to conform to his ways.

With all due respect, what she says makes sense to me at that moment and it is a sure guide to survival. However, I do not agree totally to what she says. Let me explain.

Firstly, I work for God. Secondly, if everyone were to work for themselves, to each its own. There will be no teamwork, no committment to the office, no camaraderie nor common goal. Everyone has their own agenda and if the office were to collapsed one day, no one will stand up and say, "I will help out".

Thirdly, the issue about my boss. As much as he is the one with authority, he is not a leader nor a good one at that. He does not inspire, nor motivate nor encourage. All he wants is things done his way and he does not put himself in other people's shoes. He berates and scolds unneccessarily loud, treating us like 3-year-olds. He will put you down as he deems fit. He cares more of the "face" rather than the welfare of his staff. He has totally NO (read: not low) EQ at all. This fact even he himself knows and according to my Senior Manager, he is trying to control his anger already. In fact, she said "Actually he very ke lian la, he dont know how to express himself well and he gets alot of pressure from the top so he tend to take it out on us. Because he doesnt know how to express himself well, what comes out of his mouth can be totally negative but it is different from what he thinks."

To me, excuses made up for someone who has a lousy character.

If someone is bad, do you:

a) let him be, accept the way he is
b) understand why he is bad and feel for him
c) fight for your rights and make sure he has some waking up to do
d) sit there and do nothing coz it is none of your business and frankly you dont give a damn

If I work for myself, I will choose option d. However being the person I am and the conviction I live with. I choose option c.

I seriously think that this person has some BIG waking up do. Slap him left right up down center and make sure he gets it right.

It is not that I havent done anything, I did speak to him in year 2005 about what I feel about the company and the management. That time as a welfare chairperson, he wants me to build up morale and teamwork amongst the staff. However with the management and his ways, it is not difficult to see why the staff has no teamwork nor good morale about this place. And he still wonders about the high turnover rate. I told him "It will also help if you dont scold so much." And his reply was "If you all dont make mistakes, I wont scold." HARLOW!!!!!!!!!!! WAKE UP!! Is scolding the only way to go???!!!

Really the underlying reason why someone is upset with the way things are is because they care. If you dont care about the person or the office, you will just let the person to die and rot in his own mistakes.

So seriously I dont want to conform to his ways and understand that it ok for him to do what he does just because he is under a lot of pressure from the top. I believe that he needs some waking up to do and I may not be in a very good position to do something about that right now but I will. BEFORE I LEAVE THIS PLACE.

And for your information, he is a Christian. What a disgrace. Yet, I want to believe there is still some good in him. Somewhere. Out there.

So with regards to my work performance, God has, in his own ways, provided a path for me to improve and hopefully excel in what I do yet again. I was upset that day because the management has decided to relieved me of my role as a welfare chairperson citing that they need some new blood in the committee. They did not inform me beforehand that they have in mind, someone else to take over my position. To me, that is totally no respect at all. Also to make matters worse, the new chairperson told the management that I requested out of the welfare committee which I NEVER said so. Imagine how upset I was, felt being backstabb and being taken away from something which I enjoyed doing and volunteered for, 2 years ago.

This is not the first time the management has done something like that to someone. Previously they posted the job position of my manager even when he is still here. We saw it in JobsDB, showed it to him and he quit not too long after. He got the hint, felt sore about it but thought it is no use working for the company anymore.

I was lucky that this is only a subcommittee that has been taken away from me, not my job. Like I said, God has provided a way for me. I was overloaded, now I have lesser things at hand. A blessing in disguise. There were some restructuring to the divisions and a change of portfoilios. Now I have a smaller jobscope and also lesser bigger responsibilities. Because of my pregnancy, my Deputy Director of my division has relieved me of the major projects like Homecoming for this year and now I just have to assist the driver of the project. I find that I can just concentrate on what I have and try to excel in them. With lesser projects, I can think of more new initiatives for my current assignments and try to improve in them.

In a bad light, you can see it as management has seen that I was not capable enough to handle so many things, some of which are major projects and so relieved me of these stuff. In a positive light, there is better allocation of jobscopes and with more manpower, things are being distributed evenly so that each person can excel in their area of work.

I have a new found passion for what I do, not because I do it to get higher performance review and thus fatter bonus but more because of in everything I do, it is committed to the Lord and this is for Him. At least when I leave, I hope to leave with a good impression and not with the impression that a 25 year old is not capable enough to handle the big assignments. After all, this is only her first job after graduation.

I leave you with 10 things that I have learnt from my 3 years in the workforce.

1) Do not gossip. What goes around comes around. (And the bible says so, do not gossip.)

2) Wisdom does not come with age. A lot of older people are still childish and immature.

3) There will always be politics in every company, everywhere you go.

4) Never underestimate the power of Secretaries.

5) Some innocent-looking people are the most scheming, backstabbing kind of person. Looks are deceiving.

6) Never trust people too easily. Everyone has their own agenda, to each its own.

7) There are many leaders in this world, only a few of them are good and a handful, excellent.

8) Not all colleagues are your friends. Some are just colleagues. Time will tell. Hang on to the true friends you have found.

9) Always do things that will cover your own backside (aka black and white) and back up your stuff.

10) You dont need everyone to like you, ignore the sarcastic comments as long as your conscience is clear.