Can You Motivate Me?

I know that motivation comes from within – that the self more than anything else directs him to move. However, there are times that the same individual suddenly loses the drive to go forward. He becomes an organism with unclear purpose or no purpose at all albeit alive. He is in the crossword of nowhere. That person could be you or somebody you knew. He is me now.



I am working in this organization for so many years now, a total of 17 years, so to speak. I stay because I feel appreciated as I share my knowledge and skills. I love my work and I do not consider it as an activity but a sort of relaxation or hobby. At the same time, the experience gives me financial freedom, security and fulfillment.

This week, the same drive, force, power, inspiration, aspiration, stimulus or whatever you call it that keep me going through the years suddenly wanes. Waking up and going to work becomes an ordeal. The tasks seem routine and boring. The clock ticks slowly while it was unnoticed a week ago. The reasons?

The Accounting Department is the most love and hate section in an organization. Accounting staff are admired and loved during payroll and bonus distribution. They become monsters when implementing measures that save resources or reduce costs. The direct targets of course are the employees who bring stationery home, sleeping employees while on overtime, erring workers who get penalties, etc. The immediate effects of these measures are reduced salaries, benefits and freedom.

I am working in the Accounting Department but at the same time, I am also carrying out some of the functions of the Personnel Department. The scheduling and travel arrangement of our workers was given to me by my boss because the one in charge could not do it efficiently. Even the issuance of medical referrals rests on my shoulder because, again, the one responsible could not handle it properly. Adding to this extra work is the occasional request from my boss of preparing memos. Memos are usually used to inform or explain. In our company, most of the memos posted on the board or given to the employees are cost-reduction memos, penalty and warning letters.

Because our employees knew that I was the one preparing the memos and at the same time I am from the Accounting Department, it is more often than not, they concluded that I was the originator of that memos and not my boss. They came to this conclusion because of the many things that had happened in the past. The culprit?

My boss is one of the partners of the Company. The problem with him is that he could not stand firm with his memos. When he declared that nobody can get a loan, in a day or two, he would ring me and tell me to give such employee a loan. He signed time sheets without overtime authorization although he ordered a day before that no overtime shall be considered without approval. He approved a 120 day vacation leave when the Company policy specified a maximum of 100 days. All these “small favors” that my boss thought he gave to our employees backfired to me. All of these proved that I was indeed the one giving “hardships” to my co-workers.

Because of this misconception, I gain enemies instead of friends in the rank and file. However, the problem did not stop there. Instead of helping the boss or me in defending the memos, some of the junior and senior staff are pinning me down and they are in harmony with the workers. This is because most of these staff envied me or were jealous of me because of the many benefits my boss gave me for being a loyal, industrious, effective & efficient worker. I calculated that a great number of our employees hate me in some degree. This troubles me as I cannot function as efficiently as before. I also realized that a situation and other persons’ perception towards you can shape the way you act or react. Because I feel threatened, or away from the second level of Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, my performance or behavior was somewhat affected.



I am now a less motivated organism with low morale and less enthusiasm surrounded by jealous and indifferent staff, misinformed workers and irresolute superior. How I can get out from this mess depends of my reevaluation of my purpose, my goal, my aspiration and level of sacrifices.

Can you motivate me?



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