Skip to main content

The hard way

One thing I really dropped the ball about this year is carrying some of my (bad) habits from student life into working life.


Overall, I am a very meticulous person with careful attention to detail. When I was in college though, I realized there was just no need for me to THAT attentive to detail--after all, I was dealing with hypothetical case studies in class or a sentimental gift that was merely meant to bless. Initially when I did carry out things to the tee, my teammates either dismissed it as unnecessary, or the attention to detail was unrecognized, hence (in my mind) deeming it as something not worth the investment. So I graduated college without doing everything detail-by-detail, pretty lackadaisically, and in Korean terms, very "dul-lung". My grades didn't suffer much as a result of my half-hearted efforts, which also affirms the recent NYTimes Article about "Skating through B-School" :P

I carried this "I don't really have to be THAT attentive to detail in order to succeed" mindset when I transitioned to working life, and MAN do I wish I had known better.

The first project I worked on at work was in helping prepare a report of top opportunities with current or potential clients. I was merely doing what I was told, but carried my "half-hearted" mindset and ended up messing up big time. After my teammate "called me out" for the mistake, I humbly accepted my (lack of) responsibility and expected him to forgive. Sadly I realized there is no concept of grace in the real world (at least much less of it than what I was used to in biblical community) and I got a nice blow to my face.

Today I spent a couple hours sitting through an online tutorial to receive certification for an online database I am to manage. The tutorial concludes with a final exam where I must answer at least 80% of the questions correctly. The first two times I breezed through the tutorial and took a stab at the final exam, I failed miserably with a 36% average. I see now that when dealing with real clients, real projects, and (ultimately) real money, I can't just "take it easy".

Unsurprising fact, but I just had to learn the hard way.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Delirious

delirious (adj): marked by uncontrollable excitement or emotion; ecstatic; filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy (1 peter 1:8); me I don't think I had a personal relationship with God until 2 weeks ago. There have been a lot of formative moments and experiences in the past 6 years of me considering the existence of a higher-being, 3 yrs of being a Christian, 1 year of living by faith, 6 months of serving on church leadership, 1 month of dire circumstances, each of which have been challenged and supported by specific instances in my life.* But it's only been 2 weeks of finding pure joy, satisfaction, and freedom in Christ (alone). Though it's been 6 years since I first stepped into a church building and 3 years since I accepted Christ, I was always afraid to admit that I didn't know what grace, freedom, repentance, or Jesus meant--in terms other than the ones I had heard or read--it was always a theory and never a reality in my own life. After years of doing chur
5 comments
Read more

And just when you least expect it..

Today I went down to the food court with another intern and as I opened my box of sushi, I hesitated. Feeling as if there were too many eyes on me (I only ate with one other person -_-), I questioned whether I should pray before my meal, in fear of social rejection. After I prayed, she asked me if I was a Christian, and I awkwardly responded that I was. Then she said, "Finally! What a relief to know that there are other Christians!" WHAT THE.. I couldn't believe it. Here I was, sitting with a co-worker that I had simply exchanged cordial greetings with, now talking about God haha. Even though I was scared and honestly did NOT want to pray, God used a habitual thing like that to open up opportunities for me to invite her to small group and share my faith. Crazy how He works when you least expect it.
5 comments
Read more

Honesty

If you're my friend, teammate, lifegroup member (or you have any context with me at all), I've probably hurt you. I've probably hurt you in the way I approached you, made you into an agenda, or seemed disinterested in our friendship at times when we weren't being "purposeful". I probably gave you the idea that I didn't value our time together unless we were doing something "productive"--and in all honesty, you were right--you read right through me, and knew exactly what I was thinking. Ever since experiencing God (personally) for the first time three weeks ago, I've seen how my skewed relationship with God has affected so many other parts of my life. Before, I saw having a relationship with God as a list of tasks--in my warped point of view and biases of being an already-too-task-minded person, if I wanted to know God, I needed to read the Bible, persevere in prayer, get involved in biblical community, and serve the church. If I did all these
2 comments
Read more