I had an interesting conversation with a co-worker today. Not that the content was interesting, at least not for me, but my emotional reaction to it was.
I didn't really have time to talk to her. It's funny how people don't always read your visual cues, take a pew and start chatting while you're arm deep in pear juice and exam marking. Oh the joys of teaching! I don't know how 'real' teachers do it. Really!
I did my best to stay open and present and really listen. Unfortunately what I heard was someone unable to cope with the stresses placed onto them on a daily basis and their need to be saved from work they were unable to cope with. I can understand this situation myself having worked at my current institution for a year and a half. There is a lot of 'dumping' that goes on from above. Luckily for me I've become a lot more proactive and have started to say 'no' way more often than I ever have in the past.
In general, taking on extra work/tasks is not necessarily a bad thing for it gives employees the chance to prove themselves at work. But in terms of this institution, from all I've seen, generally you just end up getting blamed for all the problems that are mainly due to mismanagement. Therefore, it's best all around just to stand your ground and say 'no'. This is unless you are saying no to responsibilities that are a daily requirement, of course.
Going back to the conversation - I did tend towards being a nay-sayer in an effort to question why I was really being asked to do this task. My questions didn't go down well and my co-worker felt the need to put me down in order to prove her point in giving me the task. This is the part that interested me the most for purely personal reasons.
First of all, I could totally understand where she was coming from and why she said what she did. There was also no doubt in my mind that it wasn't worth retaliating in anyway, so I sat back, nodded and let her voice her piece. I then spent the rest of the morning stewing over how to create a solution rather than a problem now that it was obvious there was no way I could avoid doing this task.
Then it came to me. Instead of focusing on the co-worker or the task or solutions to our problem, I should be focusing on the energy this conversation had created. The energy was familiar in every way, the only difference was the way I was viewing it. While in the past I would have carried this energy around daily, thinking over and over about the conversation and put-down I had received, now I realized that all I was really dealing with was energy! And this energy had the power to involve me in gossip, backstabbing, he said/ she said, all in the ego's struggle for survival.
Luckily, with an exam to invigilate, I was given the time I needed to realize the game my ego was playing in an effort to hold onto any little grasp it has over my thinking now that I've been practicing Buddhism and the wisdom of Eckhart Tolle for a good while. I wouldn't say I'm now in better control of my ego as I've only just started noticing this pattern of thinking. The urge to speak to someone else about how hurt I feel having been put-down is still extremely strong. However, I can feel positive in the fact that I'm starting to improve in my choice to keep the put-down to myself and figure out a solution to the problem without letting the ego take over.
Of course, I just shared this story with you so I can't feel too positive just yet. The next time it happens and I don't speak OR blog about it will surely be the most important baby step so far!
Namaste
No comments:
Post a Comment