It's been a while.
I try to come back here when I've good news to share and remember but it's mostly unpleasant experiences to document that keep bringing me back. I'd like to look back at this space one day and realise how much I've grown as an individual trying to stay afloat in this world.
There used to be a certain flow to words that made it easier to express my thoughts and feelings but the longer I spend away from this platform, the more apparent it becomes that I'm slowly but surely losing touch with the way I used to write. It's going to take some time before I find that familiarity but what hasn't changed is the way writing comforts me in lengths that no human communication can.
The past couple of weeks have been a tough battle at work and at home. Matters at home are easily resolved because I've reached a point where I've stepped up and become the man of the household whereas matters at work are on an entirely different level.
I believe in a flat hierarchy where mutual respect is earned and generously shared, and proper guidance is given unconditionally. As a minion in an organisation, I would like to be able to look at my colleagues for direction when I bump into the unknown. I do bravely navigate through unchartered waters on my own but I'd feel a lot more secured if a mentor was around to experiment with me.
But bad organisational culture and leadership has become so evident in where I work and with who I work with.
Just two weeks ago, a senior manager screamed at me over the phone without clarifying what had happened. And my assistant director who overhead this senior manager screaming at me did nothing to rectify the situation.
Truth is, I'm not okay with being screamed at. I'm the kind of person who is ready to apologise if I did wrong. But the moment she raised her voice at me, I lost all respect for her as a senior manager and an individual. No one deserves to be screamed at, not especially when I've been putting in my 200% everyday.
But what I'm more disappointed about is the way my assistant director dealt with the situation.
She did nothing, as if justifying the senior manager's unreasonable behavior. In all honesty, I did nothing that deserved being shouted at. It was a minor misunderstanding but before I could say anything, the senior manager vented her pent-up anxiety about the upcoming event on me and hung up on me thereafter.
As the boss of this senior manager, my assistant director should be encouraging good habits and fostering respectable culture. Nope.
Instead of trashing things out with me, she believed someone else's story about what went down. Even after hearing from the managers in charge, all she could say was that she had heard "a different story".
I'm not sure whose story she's supposed to believe but that story didn't come from me -- the person directly hit with a verbal brawl from the senior manager.
What's even more disgusting is this same assistant director ever once told me I wasn't ready to be a manager in this organisation, that I had to improve the way I communicate with my colleagues. (Shortly after, another manager told me to shut up with a finger to my face and my assistant director, again, did nothing.)
The irony is so clearly plastered right in front of me. How can my hiring manager talk to me about communication when her own staff have far worse ways of communicating with junior members of the team?
The same senior manager and assistant director seem like they are in a tag-team to destroy my morale, really. Both of them took turns to feedback to my reporting officer about the way I was pre- and during the event we had been preparing for. (My reporting officer wasn't involved in said event, though.)
Whatever feedback they gave was either based on observation (ie. no direct interaction with me) or hypersensitivity that led to unnecessary magnifying of certain (unimportant) elements.
I was told that I didn't help my trainers with the set-up of the event and that I had left the elderly couple to lug heavy items to and fro on their own. When I asked for clarification on when exactly this happened, my reporting officer couldn't specify because all he was told is this feedback was based on sheer observation. I was also told I sounded "unfriendly" in my emails to the senior manager before the event. (How do you even tell a person's tone from an inanimate static email?)
What I absolutely hate is neither of these people who had feedback about me approached me personally. They thought going through my reporting officer, who was never in the picture to begin with, was the right channel to get to me.
I was robbed of a chance to explain myself or rid any potential misunderstandings. And now they will carry on with preconceived assumptions about the person I am because they are not sincere in getting to know me.
And that frustrates me further because I'm in no position to change anything now.
My guiding principle in life is to never shortchange anyone, including myself. And I know I can't change the way people are but I had wished for better colleagues to work with -- people who see my effort and are not stingy with their compliments nor shy or embarrassed to express their gratitude.
People here sit on their high chairs and feel entitled to look down on ("observe") you from their thrones and share feedback about you to your reporting officer when they don't even try to communicate with you.
I'm at a point where I'm avoiding these people. Thankfully, it's not hard because I don't work directly with them. But it's not easy to put on a front and pretend I'm glad to see them when I know about all they've said about me behind my back.
I also feel bad to my reporting officer. I don't want him to feel he hasn't been a good manager when he's really a beacon of hope in an otherwise hellish place. But the dude needs to realise he is one man trying to save the world -- and I don't need saving.
I'm well capable of standing up for myself should the need arise. I can defend myself when I have to, and I can take criticism (as long as it's reasonable and constructive). But I cannot deal with pretentious higher-ups.
I guess this is what adulting is all about. It's about dealing with nasty colleagues, getting caught in meaningless political wars; all while trying to focus on the bigger picture.
I sometimes wonder how I can drag myself to work every morning when I hate the people so much. I used to enjoy work even when the people weren't the nicest. I loved what I was doing. But even with what I'm working on now, it's ultimately the people who make or break my time here.
It's true bad leadership is everywhere but here, having to be at the core of it, takes such a mental toll on me.
Life has trained me to become sagacious yet reasonable. I look at these people and I think to myself, "If I don't yet know the kind of person I want to be, at least I know the kind of person I don't want to be."
I'm the kind of person who is immediately cheered up with a chocolate bar. I laugh a lot and smile a lot, and never stay mad for long. I forgive easily. I'm mostly a cheerful ball of energy doing my best to sprinkle kindness and spread positive energy.
But-
Don't mistake me for a meek maudlin young blood not ready to take on big shoes -- I already am wearing shoes too big for me. I am more than what I seem to be. Don't mistake my happy-go-lucky attitude for sloppiness. And most importantly, don't underestimate what I am capable of.
I do feel very wronged and compromised, what with all the untruth seeding in. Unfortunately, people will talk however they want to, and there's really no point trying to change their perceptions of me. I've always been the same person I was when I entered -- and that's exactly who I am.
I still want to go to work with vigor and motivation every morning, and go home to cuddle with Shelty every evening.
I turn 25 in a couple of days but right now, I am caught in a hard and rock position. (This definitely qualifies as a quarter-life crisis.) I sure hope things get better. Nine months is not a short time to endure such unjust treatment.
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