Wonderful. I have just gone through a few friendsters' pages on my friends list and realised I'm connected to a lot of future doctors, lawyers and top corporate execs who've probably utilised their parents' investment on high tuition fees more efficiently than I. An officemate once expressed the same sad sentiment, telling me, "what we've done for the past 4 years while our batchmates were studying to be professionals was to hone our photocopying skills!"
I feel like I'm an illusion of success sometimes. My student pals tell me I'm lucky to be working in a mulitnational company and earning stable income, and truthfully I am grateful to God that I do have this job that pays me well; yet I always get to thinking that I may have not gone through college at all and still be able to perform my tasks in the same level of intelligence I'm in right now. Is a regular baccalaureate no more than a ticket to employment? Perhaps the only help it got me was to pass the entrance test...
Others go on to glaze my job with the prestige it appears to have. Believe me, there is nothing glorious about it. The parties and the special projects with the head of the company that I have previously covered are icing on a cardboard cake...though they were experiences that were a delight telling to family over dinner (to make them feel I'm doing an excellent job). But it is a long way to go before I really move up the corporate ladder, and it's disconcerting to find that there are some who get up there (or at least make more progress than most do) just because they're good at answering written tests but seems to lack the personality of a good leader. The company's closed-minded culture isn't helping either; one's prowess is dictated by conformity to age-old standards rather than the initiative to analyse why such standards exist or the boldness of ignoring such absurd control measures.
My first 3 years in the company I work for have completely turned my profile around. I was no longer a "people-oriented person" due to inexplicable and emotionally-destructive attitude differences; I was now seen as a technician who knew how to unjam papers in and change the toner of the photocopier, a computer whiz who knew how to install updated software before the I.T. guys could get on the elevator (heck, some of these so-called I.T. support guys even ask MY help in making programs work!), and as a credit card for the dept's expenses like birthday gifts or lunch take-out.
Despite my trooper attitude, though, I haven't come across those people as the "reliable" kind. This could be because I almost always fail to meet deadlines and shun assigned projects altogether when I don't feel like doing them. My, I'm becoming more spaced-out than my boyfriend! And I don't do it with the same "charm" that makes it more of a novelty than a flaw. For the longest time, I was attributing such light-headedness to departmental prejudice against me. Until I bombed at my new post at the branch.
During my 8-day leave the hidden mistakes and unsubmitted docs came into full view, and not a few clients were disappointed because of my oversight. Hopefully this won't hurt my good rapport with my new officemates and my boss, too...
Otherwise, I should file for a year of absence and start ironing out my life in the Himalayas.
Or maybe I should get that law/med degree.
Monday, December 06, 2004
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