DOES EVERYTHING HAPPEN FOR A REASON?

I used to like the saying "Everything happens for a reason"
But, recently I wonder: what if there is no reason for something to happen?
I mean, do you need a reason to love someone?
Do you need a reason to dislike someone?
Do you need a reason to be suddenly happy?
And do you really need a reason feel bad about yourself?

When unexpected things happen in my life, and I can not understand why.
I hope, pray, and kinda wait for "A Reason" to show up and explain everything.
But when it never comes, I try to explain it myself, and wait for "Another Reason" to come up and so I can deal with everything.
But it never does.
So, what am I supposed to do? Wait again? Waiting is painful. Painful especially when do not know what are you waiting for, and when you are finished. You do not know whether you wait for a good thing to show up, or just another painful life lesson. Or is the wait itself the answer and the reason?

I do not know about you, pals but I have decided that my wait is over.
I am so done with waiting or whatever life is going to teach me about patience & endurance.
I am bound to take action with my life because I will feel so bad, not using everything I can and everything I have, to do something about my life.
Something that makes me happy, happy as a living one, content as a human being, and proud as His daughter.
For I believe that happiness is simple, but feeling happy is totally your choice.

So, if some insist to know my reasons beyond the decisions I have made or will make, there is only one: Because I, as much the same as others, want to be happy :)

The Ugly Truth

If there is a thing I realize when I am being an adult, is that "life does not work 'that' way."

And by 'that' I mean: 'that kind', 'that generous', 'that nice', 'that easy', etc. 

The point is you don't always get what you want in life.

You work so hard, but there is always someone who does better.

You be so kind, but there is always someone who is more like-able.

You give so much, but there is always someone who receives more.

You pray so often, but there is always someone who gets better luck.

Not such a surprise eh?

Life won't treat you kind. No, it won't.

Life gives you lessons. Lessons that are never be taught by your parents & teachers.

But those life lessons can be tough, they can make you crack, break down like a wall. They can tear you up, make you scream out of your lungs, cry like a baby, get you begging worse than a beggar. But life can also make you smile, wider than anything you ever know, laugh like a lunatic, and wonder what have you done in the past, that makes you lucky enough to feel all of those emotions. 

 

Life is full of surprises. Sometimes so cliche that you ever think that God may play a joke on you.

Life is impossible to be explained and understood, unless you go through it yourself.

A nice reminder not to judge on others.

Maybe I am being mellow, but if you feel that life is being hard on you, just know that you are not alone.

A Reason To Resign

It's the most wonderful time of the year, they say. Christmas's coming, discounts are everywhere, and for corporate officers like me, the end of the year is all about performance appraisal and bonus.

So, while waiting for that time to come, I will not deny the fact, that just like everyone else, these times are the times when I feel I should decide, whether next year I will be staying in this same office, doing the same job, report to the same boss, etc. According to the data, in the beginning of the year (after year-end bonus), people are most likely to hand over their resignation letters.

I would like to sum up some of the main points (at least in my point of view), that we can consider before we choose to shift to another career option. It all depends on what we are looking for at work:

1. Financial Security
a.k.a money.
I think this is the main focus of typical married man with kids. The amount of income, the stability of company's financial condition, and other facilities, like medical coverage become their main reason to survive or to move to other place.

2. Your Job, Your Pride
This is the second most popular reason why people work. I mean, there is even a saying: If you love what you do, then you will never feel that you have to work. However, it is also the hardest example to find. How many colleagues you find at work, who actually claim that they LOVE what they do?
For some people, the job they have, the title/ position they're sitting at, the company they serve, and the office location they go to everyday can be their main reason to continue working or to resign. I don't know about you, but it feels so good when my friends ask me where I work at, and I can answer those questions proudly.

3. Leadership
Unlike two points above, leadership is the factor that you can not know or choose from the beginning. But having a good boss can really determine everything. From your career ladder, your development (both technical & soft skill), your mood to work, and finally your reason to resign.

4. Promotion/ Career
As what is prescribed in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, people need to actualize themselves and for grown-ups, it can be done through your work. The complimentary part after self-actualization is getting recognized. Rewards, awards, and promotions, are very important to retain the employees to say, stay & strive.

5. Environment/ Culture
Last but never least, is the working environment/ culture. Culture is definitely one of the most important aspect of a company. Bad or unfavorable culture can cause unhappy & unproductive employees, dissatisfied customers, and eventually, ineffective company's business. Ironically, culture is tangible, you can not see it, but you can feel it. That's what makes it harder to fix an unfavorable culture. It takes tremendous effort, time, and strong management commitment to produce a healthy & favorable culture.

In addition, we should never forget that now we have millenials at work, who, as far as I am concerned, shift their jobs every 1-2 years. Makes employee engagement more challenging than ever.

So, for those who are thinking of resign and move to other career plans, make sure you know your focus at work. Remember that every workplace has their positives and negatives. It definitely a challenge for us, to find the most suitable ones. After all, life is a choice, make yours and be proud about it.

References:
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/081015/8-reasons-why-valued-employees-quit.asp
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/2014/05/11/the-top-8-reasons-your-best-people-are-about-to-quit-and-how-you-can-keep-them/#5129e0ca719b
http://www.forbes.com/sites/joshbersin/2015/03/13/culture-why-its-the-hottest-topic-in-business-today/#6934f77cb6e2

Life is Tough, But ...

I am writing this blog live from my office desk. It is Wednesday, middle of the week, caught in the frustrating documents and demanding tasks (not to mention certain people), and I feel like writing a blog while listening to Yiruma will actually decrease this upset feeling.

I do not know if it is normal to feel upset just because of the small things. Like overheard someone talking about you, in quite a negative way. I don't get upset easily, but I do now. I feel more disappointed because I feel like I am being judged regardless of whatever reasons I have. 

Sadly, it has been an ugly truth, a general knowledge that Life is Never Fair. Fairness in the workplace is even harder to see. Your colleagues get recruited, promoted, appreciated, not because of their competencies & achievements, but because of whatever reasons the bosses think they deserve. 

I don't blame them or the system. Performance appraisal is always subjective.

Though it is tough, there is one thing to know for sure: Do Not Let Anyone Get In The Way Of Your Happiness. Life is tough to you, and so it is to everyone else. But, the good news is: you can decide your own happiness by deciding your reaction. I have decided to be happy and to embrace all the life lessons given in this life. 

Life is never fair. That's what makes it fair. So, choose wisely :)

It was not T.G.I.F, it was Thanks God I'm Safe.

Been a while since I lasted updated my blog. Only in this middle of Jakarta's chaos, I managed to have some time to write. Although my mom warned me all the time to stay in my boarding house during weekend (she even forbade me to go to church), I could not stand the loneliness. So here I am, sitting comfortably in the nearest coffee shop, with my long-term-companion (read: laptop), earphones on both sides, and iced vanilla latte.

I will probably just mumble, because I don't have anything to write in particular.
Okay, I will talk a bit about yesterday's demonstration. I do not know much about the politics behind it. At first, all I care was whether my office would declare it as a day-off or not (sadly, it wasn't). I remain calm, though I read all of those articles, and know that my family in Surabaya would feel anxious about it. I don't blame them. As a former student who studied mass media. I know sometimes the media exaggerate, whether it is only for the title or the pictures. Bad news is good news.

I was accompanying my friends to shop for her wedding day, when I realized that the terror got worse. Burnt cars, robbed store, and the use of tear gas to help calming the actors. I got home late that night and directly turned the tv on, feeling afraid that some '98 events repeated. The images shown are quite terrifying. no wonder even my dad, called me twice that night to make sure I am okay.

I don't know what should I write, Is it about the impacts of media that spread some words of Ahok and eventually outrage some people? Is it about Ahok's words itself that are sometimes controversial? I mean, he should know better that he has enemies, spying on every step he takes and every word he says.
But instead of blaming him, I sympathize him. And his family. I wonder how they cope with this terror everyday. Surely this is not the first time. It is true up to a point, that he has supporters. But how do you live with the facts that there are so many people dislike you, that they can potentially hurt the innocent people with the same race and religion like you? Sounds like a korean historical drama I've been watching recently :p

All in all, I pray for Indonesia, I pray for the maturity of the people and for the peaceful democracy.
(Just like Martin Luther King Jr. said) I have a dream that someday, we will be able to freely choose our leader, in spite of his/her race, gender, and religion.

Though again, I am just mumbling, and this writing is nothing in particular.

The Job

Hey there! Been quite long since I last posted. Due to the planning cycle at my office, I have been kept really busy and overloaded. I haven't finished the book I promised to review, soo in this opportunity, I thought I will share a little bit about my job, and the section I am currently working.

Well, I worked as an Organization Development (OD) analyst/ officer. I know, it is an abstract title. I did not know what that word means a year ago. In the office, I belong to HR division, but OD mostly talks about the system rather than the people in an organization. In some companies, though, OD doesn't always belong to HR, it can be a part of corporate function, like corporate planning function, etc.

So what does an OD do? well, I will tell you based on the ideal theory I got during my in-class-training.

1. Business Process Mapping
There are hundreds of definition of what Business Process Management is, but I'm going to give you a simple one. It is actually mapping out workflow process, as effective, efficient & as adaptive as the company wants. Every company has a business process, whether it is documented or not. For example in my company, as a leasing company our major business process is: Sales - Credit - Service - Collection. Business process comes down from company's strategy, vision & mission, and WBAWI (What Business Are We In).
As an OD, we need to map out business process in each function (it's called minor business process), measure its effectiveness and improve them, to be more efficient & effective than before. In fact, having an adaptive business process can be a huge competitive advantage for a company.

2. Competency Management
After we map out a clear business process, we can know what core competencies the company need. To survive, an organization needs to have capable people and therefore we need to determine what are the core competency that the people in the organization need to master. Then, we can recruit the right people in the right place.

3. Organization Management
Along with competency management, OD has to create the organization structure, the positions equipped with clear job descriptions, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), and the position rank in the company (Job Value). KPI determines how a position holder's performance will be evaluated. Job Value determines the position's rank among any other positions, whether that position can be assigned to a bachelor degree fresh graduates, or an experienced professional, and job value also determines the starting salary and the top-stop salary for the position holders.

4. Productivity Management
Last but not least, OD needs to plan the resources needed to do all the jobs designed above. First, we need to determine how many people is enough to hold each position. We can do it by determining productivity standard, measuring the workload in the positions, and analyzing the target for each position, and also, the long part: discussing it with the users (authorized positions, usually the head of the position).
Regularly, OD has to review, analyze & improve people productivity. Because the business is getting tougher, the company wants to be more efficient, but the salary has to increase, so the resources need to be more productive. Annually, we have to do "manpower planning", a process to plan the number of people needed in the organization. A number that is enough to achieve the sales target, but also enough to make the company profit. And this is the hardest part, that consumes most of my life in these months. Often, OD get stucked between the operation target that needs as many people as needed to achieve the target, while the finance function demands the number to be "as small as possible" to fit in the profitability report. And it happens every year.

God, it is Sunday and I am writing about my job to you all. A good reminder before Monday, I guess.

Cheer up, Monday People!

I am 24 and I don't know what to do in my life: Am I Normal?

I woke up this morning and I am frightened. I am scared to face this day, and what scares me the most is the fact that I no longer have goals in my life. I am in a phase that people call as a mid-life crisis.

I think this is the right time for me, as an adult to really think about what I want to do in life. Last year, a senior colleague of mine, told me and several fresh graduates to write down 30 things we want to achieve in the next 10 years. And I write a lot, like being a career woman in a multinational company, get married, start a family, build a big house and a car, run a small-owned business that I can manage while taking care of my children, travel to foreign countries once a year, and many more. I think it was quite a realistic dream at that time.

However, as time goes by, and BOOM suddenly I turned 24 this year, and I am terrified that my life would not go accordingly to what I have planned before. I am not saying that I am not happy right now. I have got a job in a big company, which is a part of a world-well-known company. I have fun colleagues at work and massive career & development opportunities. My parents are happy and healthy, and though I have to work far from home, I always have the resources (money and time) to come back home. So what can go wrong with all of those?

I know, I should be giving thanks instead of complaining. And I do. And I am not complaining at all. But what I mean is, I just don't know what to do next. I don't know whether I am going to stay working in this field or not (because it is far from what I have learnt in college). I don't know if I am living my dream or I am just wasting time. I feel bored sometimes, and I have asked myself whether I would be happy doing this kind of job for like 5 years. And I though the answer is no. But again, I don't know if feeling bored would be normal for employees like me. I guess I am just being envious of those people who claimed that they love what they do, because it is their passion. 

But is working by your passion really exists, or is it just a trap, because all works eventually require endurance & patience?

Sometimes I think that I'd like to take up new skills, by joining courses and I even think about going back to college for my master degree. But again, I am lost. I don't which course or major would be enjoyable and at the same time beneficial for me and my future career. 

The second thing that makes me petrified is that I am seeing a lot of my friend getting married, being pregnant, or even getting proposed by their boyfriends. 5 years ago, I would say that I am optimistic to get married at 25-27. But hey again, I am not seeing anyone right now so I am sooo afraid that I would not be able to have my plans done. I am tired of seeing those quotes of finding the right ones. I  just can't seem to find one. And this makes me feel lost because I thought at this age, I would be busy planning about my future family.

I would really appreciate if you share you experiences here. But let me tell you this one thing: Take a deep breath. You are normal. It is okay to feel confused. And lost. And sad. And afraid.

You know, not everything will go according to our plans. The world doesn't happen that way. If you really want something, then work for it,

I think it is time for us, to plan our life out (again), and this time make it work. I am thinking hard, too right now. One of my friends who study psychologist, taught me to find what my passion is. It consists of 4 tangling circles like this, well back then he just taught me 2 of those (what you're great at & what you love). 

You may use it as your guidance, as I will too. Just one last thing to remember: It is okay to be confused and afraid. We just start figuring out what our lives can be. Keep calm and let's conquer the world!