Saturday 13 June 2009

about work and friendship

this was lifted from my other blog, i am a newbie in blogger and i am busy at configuring this blog( which is too technical and time consuming for someone like me). an old one, nonetheless whatever is written still stand today......


it’s late. just finished reading a couple of friend’s blog. here i am, debating whether i should drop a few lines about a topic that i actually longed to write for ages and yet couldn’t come upon the perfect moment …until now.

so, what brought this on? earlier, a colleague came to me and said”you are my favourite nurse” and that is from someone i have few scruples about. i was dumbfounded. i managed to say ”thank you” ,while trying to re-attached my mandible to my temporo-mandibular joint, as a result of that jaw dropping comment, and moved on.


i do not want to make friends in the workplace---my credendum when it comes to work. it sounds harsh and insensitive of me to say those words but, i do have my reasons and those justifiable grounds generates from years of experience.

i realized, as i rise in stature and has grown a little wiser in the passing of time,to be able to carry out my responsibilities objectively i have to keep a certain distance to people i work with. i am friendly but not necessarily be a friend. to pass down a decision solely depends on unbiased and non-partisan judgement, i need to free myself of any attachment rather than being a colleague.

in the course of my career, owing to being green as grass, there were instances that i had compromised my work etiquette and standard in favor of friendship. working with friends somehow sidetracked me from doing the job i intended to do. the sagacity of my decision were primarily based on what is detrimental to friendship rather than the profit the workplace will reap from it. i turned a blind eye, looked the other way, even swallowed work related virtue i hold dear...so as not to rock the boat,in a manner of speaking. it was liked treading on a very unstable ground, trying hard not to hurt sensitive feelings, attempting not to violate codes of friendship. to put it mildly, i lost track on what is crucial for someone in my position....OBJECTIVITY.

i write it all down to experience...the best teacher of all.

now, i made it crystal clear to everyone that i am not anybody's friend, i am everyone's colleagues as far as work is concern. when i put on my scrub suit i meant business. we can joke, we can laugh, we can play...only after we are done with the work at hand. inside the four walls of operating theatre, i am responsible for my patient's life. there are members of my team accountable to me and someone i am answerable to. within these walls there are rules i want people around me to abide by and run the workplace like a well orchestrated symphony. i cannot please everybody and stopped pleasing anybody at all. i am here to do a job and a job well done it shall be.

i may not be averybody's idea of ms. congeniality but, believed me, when it all boils down to it...even my worst enemy will opt to work with me.