Habit 1: Be Proactive

After the previous workweek, I ended up unmotivated with my work.  Probably it was just the stress of handling customers. Plus the bad survey that precipitated the whole drama.  You see, as an agent we were trained to troubleshoot with merely cooperative customers who are, in the best possible term I can think of, aggravated due to the loss of their phone/TV/internet service. Their technical concerns are highly variable. Once you log in to receive a call, it’s like being in a raffle of concerns. Lucky if you get the ones you’re familiar with.

But then again it’s all not that bad. Based from experience, customers will only get irate for only three reasons: (1) They are extremely inconvenienced due to the loss of their services, (2) You do not seem to be willing to help them, and lastly, (3) You do not know how to help them. For reasons 2 and 3, I probably learned the ropes on those areas. For the last one, all you can do is apologize and take the heat.

So I felt that everything became a routine. It’s like saying the same things all over and over. Delivering the same scripts. Promising the same bullshit. I realized that working in this kind of post is very far from something I want to become and do. I would like a job that would be fulfilling. Something that would foster personal relationships rather than a 15-minute conversation over the phone.  Something that would get me somewhere.

If we were to review basic Physics, the work is a product of force and distance. Let’s try to correlate it to my point. Let’s say force (energy that allows something to move) equates to the ability/effort you put in your work. Then for us to consider that work is present, there must also be distance or movement. There must be displacement form the original location to the final location. There must be advancement or growth into it, or an endpoint. The mere absence of distance in the formula Work= Force x Distance is enough to kill the very essence of work. This is exactly how I feel about my work. I have to work because it pays the bills. I do it for neither growth nor fulfillment.

I went back to reading Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People earlier. Like a gospel sent from the heavens, the 2^nd chapter which was about Habit 1: Be Proactive made me realize a lot of things. It reminded me that we are the ones who can choose how we react to whatever is happening in our lives. We can focus on the things that we have influence on and accept whatever is already present. I might just apply this starting today. I will be more proactive.