Thursday, September 22, 2005

Workplace Relationships

I stumbled upon this website; http://www.christianitytoday.com/workplace/. Thought it will be a good read to keep me from compromising my faith at work.

Recently, I've learnt not to reveal my true self to people especially at work. It's really a sad state to be in, but perhaps necessary to protect oneself.

The place where I work is wrought with people who are not really interested being better and learning the trade. I feel that most of them just want to get through the day. Of course, there will be days when I want to just get through the day, but I have to keep reminding myself that I cannot waste time and must learn as much as I can.

However, being in such an environment is not always conducive for learning. For example, if I am suppose to deal with a file, I might try my level best to deal with it, while people who are appointed to assist me may just leave me to do every single thing. Or they may just tell themselves not to worry their little minds, I'll do everything in the end.

Which makes me wonder whether I'm actually learning or just picking up after people coz they refuse to do their part. It saddens me as I'm writing this, because I might have wasted three hours out of nine just trying to do other people's work.

What will Jesus do? I really don't know. Jesus exerted His authority over people and had to be hard on them when they disobeyed eventhough He loved them. Like the time when He went into the temple and was angry as the people had misused His Father's house.

And that is precisely what I'm struggling to do. To keep good work relationships but at the same time be hard on my staff. Not take work related things personally. I'd like to believe I'm at least a quarter there.

I've also learnt that not everyone is who they seem to be. Perhaps that's why you can't really make real friends at work. It's rare to have a friend-colleague, but I thank God I do have one. (And if he is reading this, stop grinning!)

Sigh.... you learn something new everyday. In the end, you will come out stronger and wiser. And I'll just have to hold on to that for the time being.