Answer your handphone!! Before it rings!! (Posted Wednesday, 05 July 2006)

Cendawan is a little engineer working in a consultant firm. Her basic job scope including designing the structure of a building and seek approval from government authority. One fine day cendawan wanted to submit her documents but she couldn't because the particular of one site staff is not ready. Therefore, little naive cendawan requested the information from the human resources admin, flower. Since flower was busy with something else so she asked cendawan to get back to her later. It was early in the morning. While waiting for the necessary information, cendawan proceeded to work on other project away from her desk. The clock ticked away quite quickly and it was almost 5 minutes to lunch hour. Cendawan naturally sent an online message to flower to remind her about the work. The message goes like this,

"Hi Flower,

Just a gentle reminder. Please provide me with the informtion. I need that for my submission. Thanks.

Regards,

Cendawan"

It doesn't in any way sound offensive but in less than 10 sec time, flower called cendawan... "F: Did you check your voice message? C: No. Why? F: I have left you a voice message telling you the form is ready. AND YOU STILL SENT ME THIS KIND OF MESSAGE!! (furious!) C: I DIDN'T HEAR ANY RINGING TONE FROM MY PHONE. SO I DON'T EVEN KNOW THERE IS A VOICE MESSAGE! So is my form ready? I get from you now." Cendawan only raise her voice when others did it first without acceptable reason.

Then cendawan slammed her phone reciever and walked to flower's personal office to get a stupid piece of paper. On her way back. Another ridiculous fellow, oily stopped cendawan and lectured her on the retrieving of voice message. Basically oily suggested cendawan to retrieve voice message whenever she walked away and returned to her desk.

Cendawan has got her own arguments, more reasonable and make sense ones. Firstly, cendawan didn't hear any ringing tone from her phone. Why would a fellow go and punch the "555" (a code to retrieve voice message) even when the phone is not ringing? It is like telling people "HEY ANSWER YOUR HANDPHONE! Even when it is NOT ringing". Only those super-free people and afford to do that. Secondly, what is the big deal of receiving an online message? Anyway, it is just a "gentle reminder" In this advance working world pre-dominated by technology, everybody is getting email/sms/messages every now and then. Is flower going to raise her voice against everyone else. Cendawan doubted that. That means basically flower is bullying cendawan! Wow, what a friendly and experienced HR personel. Luckily cendawan is not a "fuel-saving lamp" (省油的灯).

When there is no room for advancement and improvement, people tends to be more defenssive making sure that they finish their basic work, get no complaints and go home at 5:30. Is this mentality still work nowadays? Cendawan is not really a "OT person" and cendawan doesn't believe in "time-spent-equals-to-work-done-theory" instead effeciency and quality is the valuable things that employers looking for. However, in real-life situation, people are facing challenges not only from the demanding technical work but also from complicated interpersonal aspect. There are a lot to learn and to deal with in working world. In order to survive, always update and upgrade oneself so as to prevent falling into the trap of complacency. Without a sense to superiority complex, one will never ask others to answer their handphone when it is not ringing!