I've been studying for the last couple of days, preparing for my final exam next week. I was revising the topic Motivation for my People and Organization subject. Then it recall the days in my first job. I was so demotivated. Here are the reasons why I was demotivated:
- Gossip Culture - Every employee, including me, enjoys sharing gossips during and after working hours. We talked about personal lives of each upper management. We make fun of their behaviors, mannerisms, typographical error, everything! We even share some negative comments about the management meetings, team buildings and other activities. It was like we were never contented with whatever the company is offering us.
- Restructure/Reorganization - I totally resist the restructuring of management that time. I rebelled by means of absenteeism, sleeping at work, taking long breaks and playing while office hours. I was assigned to a young, religious manager and I was not respecting him as I should be.
- Reactive Management - I was not a fan of their reactive management. Every now and then they come up with a new policy when they notice something. Like for example, we were taking long breaks and they implemented a 15min break; new employee asked where is the pantry, they made the storage room an instant pantry/meeting room/water room/storage room; manager saw us playing in Facebook, they removed out internet connection; and so on.
Upon studying Motivation, I realized a lot of things that I did in the past that wasn't good. Everything listed above is what the course unit is trying to avoid. In this subject, it is telling the manager of ways to avoid these situations and behaviors by the employees. I remembered my manager that time, he was doing a lot of effort to reach out and lead us. He was conducting seminars, meetings and he even shared some motivational books. But since I was demotivated, rebelling employee, I did not acknowledge his efforts.
Upon my reflection, I just laugh at myself, thinking when I become a manager, I should properly manage difficult people like me. And then I unblocked Facebook in my laptop (it's study break, I should be studying and block Facebook distractions!) and I sent my previous manager a private message in Facebook, I apologized for my rebellion that time and thanking him for his efforts and patience. Good deed indeed!
