IT WAS PAST 10 P.M. AND THE RAIN HAD JUST STOPPED. I was very thankful that it did.Earlier that night, an office mate and I presided over the monthly meeting of one of our company’s divisions. We would have finished early, but the heavy rain made it impossible for us to go to the venue of the meeting dry and on time. We couldn’t use the company vehicle since the driver had gone home. But no matter how late it started, the meeting went smoothly. Finally, I thought, I can go home and start making the audio-visual presentation that I will showcase in a product exhibit at 2 p.m. the next day. My day was not yet over.
I stayed up until way past 2 a.m. to make half of the video. I decided to sleep even though the video was only half-finished since I still had to wake up at 6 so that I could be in the office by 8 o’clock.
It didn’t happen as I planned. I woke up at 7:15 and arrived at the office at a quarter past 8. I was 15 minutes late.
I proceeded to my table, greeted my office mates, sat, and sighed. It was the third time I came in late that month. I would be getting a memo from the HR department. This made me sigh deeper.
I did my best to put my predicament at the back of my mind if only for the rest of the day since I still had a video presentation to finish. Before that, I also had to conduct the weekly seminar for new sales representatives. There was no time to waste on worrying about my tardiness.
By 1 p.m., the video was done. To my disappointment, however, my presentation was moved to a later hour.
After three presenters, it was my turn to make my presentation and I thought it went well with my audience. I looked at my watch and saw it was already 7:05 p.m. Suddenly I felt tired.
It was a Saturday and I was supposed to work from 8 o’clock to 12 noon only. I didn’t request for overtime pay since I thought that an additional three hours didn’t really matter. But getting done at 7 p.m. was a different story. I sighed again.
By the time I arrived home, it was already 9 in the evening. And before I knew it, it was 12 midnight.
Before I could go to sleep, I recalled the things that happened in the last 24 hours. I sadly realized that regardless of how hard I had worked that day, everything would be overshadowed by the glaring reality of my being 15 minutes late.
I was right. When my boss arrived the following week after attending a conference in Hong Kong, I immediately briefed her on my situation and asked her if it would be possible to offset the 15 minutes I was late since I had worked late the night before and worked late again that Saturday. But apparently I was not convincing enough, judging from the way she replied. I had little hope that I would be given some consideration. I sighed, yet again—but not so much in despair as in indignation.
Some things stuck in my head like a disgusting bubble gum to a shoe: It wouldn’t be noted in my record that I stayed up late to finish a video. It wouldn’t be written that I was nervous while waiting for my turn to make a presentation. It wouldn’t be recorded that I had to work double-time and multi-task to accomplish my assignments that Saturday. And it wouldn’t be noted how I sweated and strained to be the best I could possibly be so that I could represent our company very well.
No, these won’t merit any mention at all. What will be recorded is this: Number of times tardy for the month—3; total number of minutes: 20. Just that. And these numbers will matter a lot when my performance is evaluated.
I have nothing against work schedules and the system set by people and organizations to make time work to their advantage; time is invaluable, I know. I do not wish to change the way things are in the corporate world because that would be way too ambitious. Neither do I question the way people in power apply the rules; I trust their better judgment. And most importantly, I do not wish to sound like a disgruntled employee who cannot accept that she was late (though I know I sound like one).
Call me bitter. Call me pathetic. Call me immature. I just cannot let it pass this time. Let me complain since I have every right to do so. And allow me to say this: Somehow, I feel cheated. I feel that I didn’t get a fair deal. I feel defenseless in the face of this system.
During the two years that I have been employed, I have learned one lesson I have come to appreciate a lot, and that is, never to allow mediocrity to creep into whatever I do. I can say with full conviction that I have always given everything to every task assigned to me. It may be as brainless as collecting flyers from competitors or as tricky as dealing with new people with different personalities. It may be as easy as encoding the names of new sales agents or as challenging as revising or making new flyer designs. And I have learned and mastered Photoshop on my own. How can mere numbers nullify all these? What rule does the company have to rectify my situation?
I remember a college professor saying that numbers do not dictate our worth as individuals since they are not enough to show how much we have learned from school, from work, from life. But in the industry where I work, numbers mark success and the worth of an employee is measured by his or her contribution to the company’s sales. Still I would like to believe what my professor said, even if my present predicament proves otherwise. In the eyes of the people who will rate me, nothing will change the fact that I was 15 minutes late.
Krizza Mae L. Balog, 23, is a project coordinator at a real estate marketing firm in Davao City.
