Make the job

Egay Uy

“MAKE the job; don’t wait for the job to make you.”

This is what I would advise my friend with whom I recently talked to. He narrated to me his observations with respect to the working atmosphere in his workplace. I told him it may be a good principle that could guide him or whoever wants to succeed in whatever he or she is doing in a disorganized environment.

As I see it from the point of view from where my friend sits, there are different kinds of leaders or managers, starting from those who only do whatever are listed in the outline of duties, should there be any, which is actually an improvement of those who do not even do everything that is in the list.

Then there are those who expand the list on their own so they could perform better or deliver more, and my friend, I told him, is showing signs of being in this territory.

And there are those who, even without the list, do make the job. Parenthetically, it is the latter group that will make things really happen and deliver the desired results. Ah yes, on second thought, my friend does belong here.

The most “hardworking” (read: gahi ipa trabaho) could be those who, despite the knowledge that are passed on to them, refuse to learn because their minds are preoccupied with their hidden contradicting agenda. That is to put it more civilly.

Bluntly, there are those who simply pretend to have learned. And it makes things worse when they fail to see, deliberately or not, the disturbing atmosphere around them and unwittingly regroup the “old guys’ club” so that it will be “happy days are here again” for them.

My friend said he had observed how some others would appear to be liberated once somebody who has initiated to reengineer an organization suddenly exits.

He said he was seeing “what-are-we-in-power-for” in action.  I retorted, “They probably don’t have that in mind.  It is more likely ‘what am I ignorant of’ in play.”  Pretending to have learned better ways of doing things is dangerous.

Or stated otherwise, it could be a case of “what-are-we-in-powder-form” as my late friend Engr. Peter Abejuela would put it.  He may have been kidding but pondering on his play of words struck me that indeed the expertise of the pretentious could just be a puff of powder on their noses.

A pretentious leadership will most likely tolerate inaction and abuses by those in the “may pinagsamahan” circle.  And this is dangerous for those in the organization who, like my friend, are there to make their jobs.

Of course, he was concerned that “the return of the come back” to the dark days of “management by fear” and “management by intrigue” becomes more pronounced and those who really do not add value to the organization would lord it over the others who do.

My unsolicited advice to my friend:  “Just make the job.  Don’t wait for the job to make you.”