Friday, April 26, 2013

I'M BACK!


So my school has been battling in a national level competition for quite some time now. To sum it up, I’ve been working 7 days a week, almost 12 hours a day. The competition is for Pusat Sumber Sekolah Cemerlang and I, as the the Guru NILAM has a huge responsibility as NILAM and all things related to it contributes 20 marks to the overall evaluation.

Nonetheless, when you work in a team, you do more than your designated tasks according to your Fail Kuasa. Luckily for me, my colleagues at the library where I spend most of my time at school are all very dedicated and we help each other, without having a second thought, “Well, this is not my job so why should I help?”

However, during time of intense pressure and abundant works to do, that’s when you know who can help you or who only pretend to help you. Who is helping because they want to or who is helping because they are forced to do so (by the big boss, Pengetua, since everybody listens to her instead of a junior teacher like me). Who gives their all with no intention of reaping the reward afterwards or who is calculative and only do things if it brings benefits or recognition to them.

One thing I can truly say, if you did things so that people would praise you or reward you, you’ll never be fully satisfied with yourself because you do things just to get other things to happen and when those things that you expected did not happen, you feel downtrodden and you feel there’s no use doing all these things because you don’t get the recognition you think you deserve.

Whereas, if you did things because you want to, because you feel that team work is key and by working together heavy burdens will be lighten, then, you’d be at peace with yourself and with people around you. Hey, just do it! If you keep waiting for people to see you doing your job, then you’re in for a lifetime of unhappiness and feeling forced to do shit that does not give any good to you. Well, newsflash, this is the working world, where half the shit you’re doing means absolute gibberish to you and half other gibberish you’re doing means shit to you.

So, that’s the horrible truth about the working world, where you have to keep eyes behind your back and avoid being too comfortable with where you are now. There are people who love to see you screw up and just waiting to laugh and point their crude fingers at you whenever something goes terribly wrong.  Sure, there are people who really care but you have to open your eyes wide and really digs deeper inside your heart to know these people that you can trust albeit not 100%, so that hours you spend at work won’t be a living agony.

As for those who aspire to be in any competition at the national level, make sure you have a strong body and mind because these things suck the very last essence of life out of you. Be willing to make sacrifices like going to school at dawn and returning home at dusk from Sunday to Saturday. Better yet, bring a tent and sleep at school.

P/S: This is like my first post for like a month now, my daily routine revolves around wake up, go to school, stay at school, come back, eat, shit, bathe, sleep and repeat.

Saturday, April 6, 2013

SOS


Empathy. A concept that is easy to say but not all of us share the same belief. Even the holiest of us don’t really want to help others if it jeopardized the very well-protected circle that we live in. Why would we go to all the troubles to help others if nobody wanted to help us in return? Why would we want to go out of our way to help fellow human beings with no guarantee that others would do the same to us?

Yeah, bitchy ain’t it? When you can’t say NO to people but people keep saying NO to you. When people look for you when they’re in trouble but when the table turns, you are left alone without nowhere to hold on to and nobody to confide in.

A classic example would be in school. When there are events to be carried out and you are one of the so-called big boss and have to delegate the tasks to others.  But when you ask them for help, they come up with excuses after excuses. Sure you’re not friends with them, but they are your colleagues and shouldn’t colleagues help each other when they are in need? But noooo, they will work as hard as they can to ease themselves of all the responsibilities for an event that only took place within a day but have endless consequences in the long run if you keep seeing the same colleague at work.

So, to avoid awkward situations like these, sometimes you just say YES to everything, although it meant jeopardizing your health and not being able to come to school the next day. However, one can only keep quiet and take all the bullshit for so long. Sooner or later, one must break free from the chain of inequality and fight for one’s right.

Sometimes, the delegation of tasks is based on gender. Taking the example from my experience and that of my friends, most form teachers are ladies. What happen to the men? Aren’t they capable to manage a class and perform duties of a form teacher? Like marking students’ attendance and closing the register every month? Why do the ladies have to do it?

Such is the sexist atmosphere at work. If you think the world is totally free from gender discrimination, think again. For you might be very disappointed and shocked when you are faced with so-called reality. Or if by saying NO, you’ll make a couple of enemies in the process then so be it.