What's Da Buzz?

Like many others, I am furthering my education for purposes of better employment and more responsibilities in the future. I have a high standard of performance that I expect out of myself. After all, I’m spending the hundreds of dollars and time per credit on these classes, so I expect the best out of the class and myself.

Sometimes though, the end result isn’t what you would have hoped for. Sometimes it is the fault of the student, the mandated curriculum, the structure of the class materials, the professor, or a combination of more than one. In my situation, I was taking a pre-requisite class for a certificate. I already have a degree in Computers. I thought taking the MS Office 2010 class would be updating my skills. Was I ever wrong.

The class resembled what you would expect to be taught in 8th grade, not college. What made matters worse was the class materials and what the professor asked of us. The “tests” were generic tests on MS Office 2010 that can easily be found online. However, the reading material only covered 2/3rds of the questions on the test. Yup, you got it. We had to guess on the other third.

The online method used to “train” us on how to use the MS Office programs ended up hurting our grades more than helping. It wasn’t about learning to use the MS Office programs; it was more on how to appease the grading software.

Lastly, there was a major focus on discussions, blogs, wikis, and other forms of written interaction. I have no problem with discussion topics provided the material of the course lends itself to discussion. Excel, Word, etc. do not lend themselves to discussion material. We are there to learn how to use the programs or the tools for business. We didn’t pay hundreds of dollars for group psychotherapy to discuss our feelings about a spreadsheet.

What did I learn from the course? I got lessons in expensive frustration in terms of money and time wasted. Was I given any useful information to help update my skills? Not a single dang penny’s worth.

Enjoy your day!

Anah

Do you all look forward for Mondays? I work 5 days  a week and the thought of leaving my kids at home again makes me sad. I lost count of how many wishes and hopes of being able to stay with them every day and be Mom. We all have to make sacrifices for our family. But my situation is different though. I may not be able to stay at home, but it is such a wonderful blessing that my awesome husband is a stay-at-home dad while homeschooling our kids. I am so proud of him and very thankful knowing that my kids are not in daycare. Please don’t start arguing with me about the ‘we do not have the luxury of me staying at home’ because it will not make sense at all for me. Do the math and it is possible that one parent can stay at home, trust me!

Like most of you, I have goals and aspirations in life. Aside from God, my priorities are my husband, my kids, and my family in the Philippines. Life is dull if they are not in my life. I’m blessed and thankful every single day. I may not have all the materials or the so called ‘riches of the world,’ but I am a very happy wife, a mommy, and a servant of God.

I’m always thankful for Mondays because I got to spend the 2 day weekend off with my family. The weekend is the break to spend time with the family. Mondays are the reward as going back to work is what generates the income to feed the family and take care of needs. We can’t sit at home expecting our bills to be paid by someone else and not paying them ourselves. I’m a role model to my children. The work is a reward as my sacrifice of time away will show them the character it takes to be an adult.

Mondays are not a doomsday because it is the start of the work week. It is the beginning of a brand new week of experiences and lessons to learn and to teach.

Thanks God it is Monday!

Anah

It seems to be a universal thing no matter what country you are in or what company you are working for but office politics is one of the ugly sides of having a job. (Hence why I feel self-employment or running a business is better.)

For those who have not been graced of experiencing office politics in a Western company, I’ll explain it briefly. Office politics is not based on who is performing better or frustration with dealing with someone not pulling their share of the workload. Instead office politics is when you are judged based on whether or not you associate with the “in crowd.” Basically, those who often are not good at doing a job go back to forming the groups like they did in elementary and high school instead of being mature and working to get the job done.

Individuals in the “in crowd” may take exception to your not participating in their group or honoring their group and try and find flaws in your work to get you fired. These childish antics of those who are insecure are unfortunately common. The nastiness is getting worse as morality in the USA declines.

So if you are a Filipina here in the USA or other Westernized company, how do you get past the office politics without sacrificing your own identity (harming your home life in the process because of changing for the worse)?

The answer lies in the core of what a Filipino is. We are respectful, very hard working, polite and kind as a general culture. That is how you beat the office politics in-crowd. You stay kind and polite at all times always giving the proper respect to those who are in authority while asking for clarification on work issues. Do not engage in gossip or anything the in-crowd focuses on. Do your job better than anyone else in the company without giving the desire to “climb the corporate ladder.” By performing better than the rest because of our hard work ethic while remaining humble, you remove the threat to their job unless they are paranoid about you taking their job because you are outperforming them.

Work hard, do your best to remain error-free, accept constructive criticism as it relates to the job while letting them know you respect a person’s knowledge, experience, and title but you are equals when it comes to being a human being. Or as the phrase goes “Kill’em with kindness.”

Live well,

Anah