What's Da Buzz?

[ad]

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.

“Kill’em with kindness.”

 

Anah
“If the shoe fits, wear it.”

We have heard about these. Likely most of us have tried to do a quick fix whether it is on a motorcycle, plumping issue, botched recipe, computer issue or any number of possible things. When a government does it, everyone in the country ends up finding out about it.

But how often to quick fixes work and for how long? Life experiences tell us how quick fixes usually end up. The action is usually quick but we regret it later when the fix more times than not creates a bigger mess that takes much longer and more money to clean up than if we had done it the right way the first time.

So what happens when quick fixes are made on larger scales such as on the government level? We get the current food prices zooming up worldwide by 83%, skyrocketing gasoline charges, inflation scaling up the charts and overall economic nightmares.

Where is the point in wisdom in all of this? Quite simply, take your time and get it right the first time. If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it. All of this takes patience to wait long enough to get all of the information you need to make a solid decision. If it is a repair job, you live with the inconvenience until you can fix it the right way the first time so more isn’t ruined later.

Anah

“If the shoe fits, wear it.”