A Drinking Straw

I started working in this company for about 5 years and 4 months ago and it is one of the happiest things that happened to me since this is the first BPO industry that accepted even though I have some problem with my communication skills where I stutter too much and I’m having trouble making a point in a single conversation. I can still remember those days that I’ve spent trying to convince the interviewer to give me a chance because I believe that I can work hard and can train myself to correct those communication problems, though not to the point that it will be perfect, but just enough to comply with the standards. I grew up having these problems and I always have this problem expressing myself to the point that sometimes, I just evade every chance of conversation especially if there’s a topic where I need to explain some of it in a detailed way where an organization of thoughts is very crucial in that certain conversation. I can still remember the time where I told myself that I will face those fears and someday I will cure it somehow and there, here I am, as one of those working over the phone and being happy as days, months, and years goes by. I can still remember those days that I was rejected by those companies who are looking for an average speaker and those depressing nights that I can’t sleep thinking how will I comply to their standards; well those nights were scary that it took me some time to build my confidence. I’m so happy working with my colleagues through those years that I felt that I’m a part of their family, though difficult queues we stand, and through off peaks, we’re wasted. Everything’s fine and almost perfect and I thought that nothing will go wrong until some of them decided to aim for a greener Pasteur where they make their lives better, and I’m so happy that they found a great chance to improve their lives better somewhere else; everything’s fine since I can still feel their friendship though we’re not working at the same company, modern communication is more fun these days that you won’t even feel their distance, though schedules are a bit difficult to match up, there’s gonna be always a way to find time.

I don’t have plans of going somewhere else because I value anyone whose 1^st and said yes to me because they saw something in me through those list of my imperfections and they gave me a huge room to improve myself. I learned that having fun at work is one of the most important things to look for when you’re building up your career, though you will meet annoying mates that will push your patience to your limits but extending your patience and widening your understanding will fix up everything, it will make survive through some harsh points of your career, you will learn how to adjust to any situations especially working over the phone is so stressful and requires a though state of mind to overcome it. I met kinds of people from different walks of life and I learned a lot from them and they have their own pros and cons that taught me how to deal with them to have peace inside our working space. I learned that all kinds of offbeat characteristics from your colleagues are bearable and can still give you peaceful working relationships except for one, and it’s the habit of sucking up or being an ass licker. I can accept any kinds of off behavior to its most annoying form or level except a person who sucks up too much to persons in a higher position; I don’t understand why at first but as I tried to evaluate where I’m coming from for this hate against persons who love to suck up too much, I found out that it all started from my relatives and I will not enumerate what they’ve done but it’s something that brought me to the lowest part of my life and from that point, I remembered that it was the time I started to separate myself to a lot of people, some of them are good people that are trying to reach out and make friends because they can see me as a good person; and that until now, I felt sorry for rejecting those people come into my life, it’s just like collateral damage that was caused by a bad experience that I’ve been.

As I’ve said earlier, I can deal with any kinds of bad behavior except for a person who loves to suck up too much and unfortunately, we got one, only one person who does it in an environment that I loved too much and it turns out that I’m not the only one who notices and hate what this person is doing. Well, sucking up is a normal behavior as long as your purpose is to boost someone’s confidence or to make someone feel better through the stressful workloads daily and it’s another way of supporting whatever another person wants to achieve in life, it helps someone to do their jobs confidently and inspired to do it better above the required standards that are being asked by the company; but if it’s in a certain point that another person or a third party person will get involved as a sacrifice where another person’s character will be destroyed just to gain something else then that’s a start of  a toxic habit that can cause a huge mishap inside a working environment. I tried to understand what triggers this kind of behavior at first but I found out that working with a person like this is such a very dangerous situation that anyone can try to engage with; I’m thinking that maybe this person have some frustrations in life that can’t he can’t achieve and he found a way to make a shortcut because he found a fragile points or weakness to those people who can give him perks he likes or to make him ahead of his colleagues with having a fair fight, or maybe he’s just having fun of doing it ever since he’s at the early stage of his life, and lastly, maybe this person just wanted to get even to those who wronged him; but regardless if he’s doing it on purpose or not, it’s still a dangerous move to be around a person who loves to do it. Based on some articles or field manuals talking about strengthening a community or an organization from which I read from some intelligence communities, it says that having one person having this habit is great risk than having two or more persons involved since it’s difficult to pinpoint just one fish inside an aquarium wherein having two or more won’t cause them any risk since those will for sure bring each other down and can be easily pinpoint and dispose. Having a single person like this inside a working environment can make the majority to lose respect towards the leaders, it gives an impression that the leaders are easy to penetrate especially when it comes in making a business decision, employees with right skills and talent will shut their interest in trying if there’s an opportunity to towards a position and some will just comply with the standards though they can exert more effort or their ability to perform can go beyond the standards being required as an employee. I’m not one of those who are performing well and not in a position to express these things that I saw but I knew a lot of people who can but discouraged because of the things happening inside the environment. They tend to shut their mouth, including me, just to avoid any bigger problems; I can say that we don’t have anything against the leaders since they are just doing what they can to get the business going, but to see that someone’s whispering or sucking up too much that affects their judgment is too sad to see, it’s just the person who’s doing it is very good in persuading and setting plots, and the majority of us don’t have that skill.

I love working at this place but it seems that it’s very impossible to do anymore, it’s just sad that things like these are happening. I thought that I will not start from scratch again somewhere but maybe it’s time to find another place, where they can see my value, though I don’t have much to offer and somewhere an effort is being appreciated by not just some empty words. It feels great to have some friends who always exert much effort in reaching out and always there to bring much fun, though sometimes, the fun has its limitations depending on some situation and to find another place to have fun and taking your friends to share that fun is another way to push fun beyond its limitations. Though I believe that it’s not their loss to have me leave since I didn’t perform that much but what about those who are and can perform well? I wish that they will not sacrifice and let go of those people just because they thought that things like this inside the workplace is not that serious, it’s like a time ticking bomb of problems that might explode if not diffused soon.

Photo Credits to https://belokawater.com.au for the featured image