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Words of Wisdom

In life, we have to choose between the jeans and the cookie jar. Liz Hurley chose the jeans and I chose the cookie jar

~ Nigella Lawson....(on women's body image and her own voluptuous body)

Thursday, April 1, 2010

The 'March-ing' Order! U call this helping a friend?

March 2010 sucked!

I didn't post that much in March noticeably. Spent most the time last month feeling very very pissed off at people from work. Lots of things in my life didn't go well last month.

1. One subordinate of mine ran away after spinning some tales to us to the last day

2. Forced into doing the highly technical Audit of the Lab system at our workplace. Come on, my brain is old. Do I have to work it this hard again? Besides, there are other people who went into that training but are freed from the job. I didn't even finish my training due to work commitment at the time and yet I am the one who is having to study this set of Lab policies on my own so that I could carry out the Audit work. How unfair!

3. My car clutch plate broke really bad and my car stalled right in the middle of a busy junction. Thanks Heaven that a nice brother from another Division who was there at the time helped me push the car to the roadside. Thanks bro. The car had to be towed away. That already cost me MYR70. Now, I'm anticipating a HUGE bill to pay for the rest.

4. My father found out that his brother actually has the Soursop fruit tree which is known as a natural cancer killer. Sadly, at the moment, the tree is not bearing any fruit.

5. One item I already paid for on 1st March on eBay still hasn't arrived as I'm writing this. The seller never informed me whether he has posted it or not.

6. I was suddenly dragged into a project at work I didn't want to be a big part of. Unfortunately, I have been made a 'key person' by 'default', I would say.

7. As a result of No.6, I am now feeling very pissed off at a friend as he was the one who put me into that situation.

Now, let's talk of No.6 and No.7. This is how it started.

I certainly am no jerk but I am no angel. So, when a friend of mine who was having difficulties coping with his work came to me for support, naturally I helped out. In the past few years, I kind of have a reputation as an 'unofficial mediator' between my colleagues, subordinates and the division management. I really don't know how it developed but I assume it must be down to my work principle of keeping the communication with the upper management, being in the middle management myself.

Being that 'accidental mediator', I tended to speak out for those who can't communicate well with the Management. However, I am not the type who support people blindly (which is why I'm not associated with any political parties here). I speak within reasons and I give advice to friends accordingly when they ask for it. I don't like it when people ask for my support and then 'hide' behind me. To me, when you ask for support from your friends, you still should be the one to stand up on your own and have your friends as the additional voice along with yours. You should stand side by side with your friend and NOT push your friend to the front to cover up for you.

I was not happy when my friend drag my name into a supplier environment control activity which came to a stall after another collague resigned last year. As the person who is in charge of the Division environmental procedure, I have made it clear of who should do what. Supplier control is certainly not the job I had defined as mine. I did support my colleague last time here and there a bit BUT as a supporter only, NOT the main person-in-charge.

I was very very angry when my friend didn't even attend the meeting he initiated with the procurement person. There I was at the meeting table with a reluctant member from my upper management facing a tough-talking lady from the procurement group. I ended up having to highlight other people's problems on their behalf. Needless to say, I told my friend off that day, "Don't you ever do that to me again!". Things got worse when in the subsequent pre-meeting, I was still 'the voice'. Then, all the emails and management requests started to be directed to me instead. Now, this is what I hate about the working culture in this company or in this country for that matter. Those who speak out will end up being made the person-in-charge.

So, now I have another burden being slumped on my shoulders. This Supplier control project is still under discussion whereby I shall have to revise some clauses in the procedure. I certainly don't want people to come to me for Supplier rank summary or to follow up with Memos and such.

Now this is where I am SO frigging pissed off at my friend. Guess what? After all these, he announced to me that he just got another job offer from another company! Worse is, I was the last among his close friends that he informed. I could have strangled him!

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