Pushy Bosses

Just when I thought switching from helpdesk support to corporate writing would eliminate the endless certification required in my career, my supervisor is now telling me to get certified for the same tests the helpdesk people are expected to take.

I have been in the information technology (IT) industry for more than 15 years with the first eight years in helpdesk technical support. As I grew sick of taking certification again and again, knowing there is no end to it, I decided to quit the line completely.

Now, although I am working in an IT corporation, I am merely a writer, and for the first five years, all was fine. With the recent transfer to write for HQ corporate marketing, however, my American supervisor based in Taiwan, with the backing of the fierce Taiwanese lady boss, is forcing me to get certified, constantly querying me on when I will sit for the test.

My supervisor made it clear that unless I get certified for several papers required by him, my year end assessment will be in jeopardy. My answer to his latest query is as follows …

Dear {supervisor}

In answer to your question, all I can say for now is [I'll take the test] when I am ready and prepared, if I get a chance to finish reading the wireless text, digest its content, commit it to memory, and put myself through some tests.

As of now, every time I get down to reading a chapter or two, I would be interrupted and tasked to do something else, so I can only get back to reading the text and jotting down some notes whenever time is available at hand.

Hope you can understand the difficulty.


Regards
{my name}

P.S. Writing takes time and requires extensive research, rethinking, redrafting and more.

A Worker's Prayer

Teach me each day O God to walk in Your ways
Remind me to always include You in all my plans
Help me draw strength from You while at work
To do what is right and do it well
To rely on You in my weaknesses
And be able to do the things
I have no courage or confidence to do
To exercise miraculous power
And perform wonderous work

Help me O God in my inabilities
Forgive me for my lack of faith
Teach me and lead me to trust You
More and more each day

~ SpideY ~

Busy or Free?

We often complained about being underpaid and overworked, and we envy people who are seemingly quite free at work. Question is, is it better to be busy or free?

In a workplace consisting of employees, productivity is of utmost importance to a business. If a worker is not fully utilized, the business cannot thrive, and if a business cannot thrive, the business will sooner or later die. If everyone else is working hard and there are staff that are not, it is not a sight to admire, because it means the department or the section requires less staff than they currently have. This means essentially some staff are probably destined to be fired because they are not busy enough.

Being busy and overloaded with work often means the need for more staff, but if more staff is added and some become free, it is time for some to move on. I am saying this not without experience, as I have been invited to leave before. When I was employed to provide professional services some years ago, I was trained, certified, and after three months was still not assigned any field job. I knew therefore that business in the area I was trained in was not picking up in the region where I was to cover – South East Asia, and before long, I was given the golden handshake.

That handshake meant almost three years living without income, apart from bits and pieces received from freelance jobs. I have apparently left a 'secure' place to join the corporation because I could see potential in them, but after five months, I was retrenched. To the employer, it seems normal for them to hire and fire, even though all other areas of their business are doing well.

Is it therefore better to be busy or free? Consider now from a different light what it means by being overloaded with work, because it may just be the reason why we are still employed.