Not always a smooth ride - Or never a smooth ride?

----------------------- The Start ------------------------

Before you attend a meeting, you tell yourself that you have prepared and done everything you could for it.

When you attend a meeting, things started going astray. Discussions went off-topics, Management did not acknowledge the effort you have put into the project. You feel the stress and frustration, almost choking you. A tough battle indeed. 

After you attend a meeting, the confidence you had diminished altogether. You had a couple of minutes quick chat with your boss on the things to follow up. You were told to arrange a meeting with him to rethink and sort the problem out. 

You thought to yourself: Not all over again. 

----------------------- The End --------------------------

Do you ever experience this cycle? Do you ever want to get out of this cycle? Are you already sick of it?

Let me be honest with you, most of us will experience that at least once in our work. No matter which position you are in. You will definitely meet such a situation and it will affect your mood, emotions and day. 

Tell yourself: Why should I let this affect me since it is just part of an improvement process? 

Most of the time the above happened because of the lack of confidence in the project, or the solution was not convincing enough for an agreement to be met. To put it more positively, they are just trying to protect themselves (at the same time, you are being protected as well). No one will benefit from a project that goes wrong. It is better to prevent than to risk it knowing the dangers. That also meant more work piling up into mountains. 

If you ask me for the perfect solution, I can tell you straight in the face that I'm sorry because I do not have it. However, if you ask for my approach to such situation, my answer is straight and simple. I will go back sit down think of their comments and suggestions, incorporate the important and relevant parts into the project. Those that do not make sense, it is best to ignore (You are the one who knows your project best, they only had a couple of minutes to read your proposal.) After that, anticipate the questions and issues they will pick on based on the current meeting you have attended. (You experienced it, you have gotten some ideas on their way of thinking so use that to your advantage.) Lastly, make the next meeting counts by ensuring them their comments and inputs are heard (e.g. reiterated what have been discussed in the past meeting and the changes you have incorporated based on their suggestions. Acknowledge that they gives good suggestions. Gives convincing argument on your stand.) You will eventually succeed in one of the meetings definitely. 

Learning from experience can be painful. It may mean overtime. It may mean the lack of lunch time. Yes, it has a cost. Whether you think this cost is worth it, it is all within your control. Those factors out of your control, no matter how much you whine and complain, it will still remains as it is. Work with what you can and learn from it. 

That is how I try to adjust to my current workplace. 

A Conscious Effort

As mentioned in yesterday post, I had decided to put in a conscious effort in writing more frequently. This also means posting more frequently on this particular blog. I am also thinking of having a blog with a specific theme or topic in time to come. In order to do that, I will need to understand myself better and the topic or theme that is suitable for me. Of course, since I am not an experienced writer, starting out will definitely be difficult. However, as long as, I am willing to fork out my time and effort, I believe that I will improve with time and effort.

Now, I believe that everyone has their own working habits. Some prefer to work at night, while others prefer to work in the day. As for me, I am a ‘day-worker’. Basically, I focus better during the morning and I get increasingly more restless as time past. To me, the best time to work is before lunch. Of course, given the current society that we are in, we do not have much autonomy in our working hours. They are pretty standard across the job market, depending on the industry you are in. 

Currently, I am collaborating with a market research company and we have been corresponding emails quite a bit. The team I am working with has a different preference in their working hours. Based on the timing of their replies, I can see that they always sent me their responses after my working hours. Well, that makes a delay in our correspondence and resulting in lesser work done during the day. I was wondering if there is any way around this, if only they could sent me the documents that require additional attention in the day, I could have responded on the same day. When we work with different parties, we need to adapt to their work habits. If the differences resulted in a decline in productivity, perhaps it is time to have a good talk and negotiate a solution in which both parties are able to accept. Well, I wonder if I will be ending up doing that soon. 

Have you ever wondered if breakfast affect your performance at work? (Does this even matter?)

Based on my own experience, I feel that I will be able to focus better if I had breakfast before work. However, the funny thing is it is a complete opposite for lunch. Maybe this is influenced by my colleagues and my thinking. Are there even scientific evidence behind this? I guess I just want to live a simple life without pondering too deeply into things that are not important for me. 

Recently, I feel that almost every minute and second is precious to me at work. I need all the time I have to complete the work I was assigned with. Hence, I started going into office earlier and shortening my lunch break. It may seem stupid to veteran employees of my company. Why work extra when the pay remains unchanged? It is one question that I often ponder about myself. Is it because I want to do my job well? Or is it because I fear of having my work incomplete by the deadline? There are plenty of questions in my head that I could not understand fully. Perhaps, if I keep thinking, experiencing and analysing I will come to know the reason myself. However, when will that be? I hope to know myself better soon. Spending time pondering these questions is not always fun. 

There are always so many different aspects of work which sparks discussions through various mediums. It is only natural as work often takes up more than one third of a day for any full-time working adults. We spent on average almost 10 hours in our office a day, and depending on the location of your home, it may take you around 2 hours to travel to and fro from your workplace. Easily half a day spent. However, when we are asked on how much we value our work, it is not as much as our family, relatives, friends. To some of us who are stuck with doing the work which we don’t enjoy, we don’t value work as much as our hobbies, interest and passion. Right, we often hear people giving motivational talks about ditching the work that we have no interest in and find something that we are truly passionate about. How practical is that in reality? For me, I don’t find it practical at all. (Probably because I have a background in Economics.)  I think in terms of demand and supply and that is how the labour market works. The interest, passion, hobbies we may have does not necessarily coincides with the skill sets the market demands. Moreover, I believe that the things that we are passionate about may not necessarily be the things that we are good at. I find that there are too many sound arguments made by different parties which make sense. However, it is difficult to find a right answer to every question. There may be better answers but no single answer is a complete and right one. 

I guess I will stop right here for today, enough ranting…It’s Monday and we’re all tired. Dying to rest and relax after a long day of work or school. Don’t you think so?