A wedding and a marriage are two different things. One stands for the ceremony, the other, for the commitment. One stands for the party, the other, for the life. One stands for the event everyone is eager to attend, the other, for the situation everyone is eager to meddle with.
In a society that have commercialized weddings into an industry, I often see weddings as a means to throw a party. We are not celebrities nor socialites, who can host annual birthday bashes that will have photography sessions or videos. We are simple people, and weddings become a way of putting together an event where we are king and queen for one day. Where all of our movement, our smiles, our laughter, even the way we put on our shoes, are pieced together in an AVP with a romantic love song for a soundtrack after. How else can you use A Thousand Years as a soundtrack to your normal day-to-day life, without being Bella or Edward?
On Dec. 8, 2012, I know four people who tied the knot with their respective partners. For one, I stood in as a maid of honor, and I thank my dear friend, for allowing me that. It has restored for me the sanctity of the ceremony, and has made me realize why people choose to be 'wed' when they get married.
It started with the night before, as I give up a night of party and beers with other friends, for a night of simple Cinema One pleasure with the bride. We talk about the wedding, family life, other stuff that are nonsense, and everything in between, until she and I fell asleep.
The day of the wedding, we are a bit unsure as to what to do. There are errands, phone calls, people to coordinate. There is a bit of drama here and there as some things don't happen the way we expect them to, but I keep telling myself, don't sweat the small stuff, this will be over soon.
The bride joined me and our other friend standing in as a bridesmaid, in the bathroom, to share a bit of breathing space. There is so much happening outside the bathroom as the entourage prepares, the photographers take photos of the accessories and dress, and congratulatory videos are taken. At that moment, I see the pressure and anticipation in her eyes, and I tell myself, it's time to step it up. It is not about waiting for this to be over soon. It is about making it happen just the way she wants it to.
As I walk here and there to make sure everyone is lined up, the guests are seated where they should be, and the right song is playing, I feel a surge of energy. I used to tell this same friend, every girl needs a friend who will slap her on the face when the friend thinks she's being delusional. And now, every girl needs a friend who will yell, pressure and challenge everyone to ensure the wedding of her dreams happen the exact way she planned it to be.
The wedding coordinator cues to me that all is set, and we can start the march down the aisle. I tell her to stop, there is only one thing that will signify we can start. I turn to the groom and ask him if he's ready, this is the moment. And we stand there for a minute that felt longer, as he hyperventilates a little, and, I can imagine, realizes all this will only be set in motion if and only if, both of them are ready, in more ways than one. He gives me a yes and a smile, and in the same breath, he walks down the aisle.
I eventually get my turn to walk, and while I do so, I smile and I look around - it's a great wedding. As I reach my seat, I turn back and look at the bride. A Thousand Years begin singing into the background, and I think when she took her first step on the aisle with her mom and dad, all of us looking have one collective thought. Perfect. The song is perfect, the dress is perfect, the aisle, the seats, even the breeze at the time is just right.
It is that moment that I realize why people choose to get 'wed' when they get married. A wedding is where your family, and everyone else who know you, come together to give you away to another family. It is a time where your parents and siblings and best friends take it in their hearts that it is no longer just them who are in your life now. It's a means to help the people around you accept and welcome this new person in their own lives. It is how you tell the people around you that you are happy, and that this is your choice, and that you wish they will all be happy for you.
On my turn to give a speech, there are so many things I plan to say, both funny and sad, witty and profound. But everything that needs to be said has been said, and I felt I couldn't give justice to the joy that was in the air that night. I love writing. I love words. But that day, I came to understand the true meaning of a few words I throw around so carelessly - and so chose to be speechless.
I walked away after the reception, and didn't join any afterparties that night, neither with friends, nor with the happy couple. I chose to stay with Ken, under the brightly lit stars, lying down on the beach, with a mango shake and a hotdog.
Congratulations to our bestest friend, Toni, and to our new friend, Carlo. There are no words to describe the joy we feel for you :)
Monday, December 10, 2012
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Define: walking
It's been a while now since I have explored a new place, the last time I did that was in Vigan in January of 2011. After that, my trips had been to places that I have gone to before, and mostly just to spend time with friends and relax from work. Next week, I embark once again on a trip to see something new, Siem Reap in Cambodia. It is a trip that my closest friends and I have been planning to make ever since we saw the first Lara Croft movie, there just never was an opportunity to go, or a cheap plane ticket to buy, until this year, when Cebupacific finally got approval to fly there straight from the Philippines.
What I am most excited about is the food. Even as I write, I feel my mouth salivate a little at the thought of what street food I get to sample once we land. When Ken and I go on trips, food is always a major itinerary item, guided by a simple rule: no McDonald's. It was a rule we came up with on our trip to Malaysia in 2009, no taxi rides, no McDonald's.
Three years later, we still abide by this rule. As much as we can, when in a new place, we go around by local transportation, and eat local food. We steer away from taking the taxi because it robs us of the sweet time we can spend walking around and getting lost in the new environment. In a new place, is getting lost any different from knowing your way? It is with vigor and sunshiny enthusiasm that we weave through each town, armed with any map we can obtain from either the tourist centers, or from his iPhone, all mostly on foot, occasionally by train and bus. We stare curiously at food sold on the streets, oftentimes observing first how the passersby buy and eat them, before trying them out ourselves.
One of my most memorable moments of getting lost and discovering great food is in the place I called home once, Singapore. Ken was there for a visit, and per his usual trip, we were out one afternoon, just walking around until we get somewhere. On that day, I couldn't really remember if we planned on going to Arab Street, but that's where we ended up. Looking for an afternoon snack, I brought Ken to a "murtabak" place. I can't remember now, but it might have been a place a Singaporean friend recommended. Murtabak is essentially a crepe with meat filling, served with curry. The place boasts to have been making murtabak for almost 70 years. We watched how the expert cook made murtabak by smoothing an elastic dough on a flat pan, and assembling the fillings. To this day, we always laugh at how he cracked an egg right into the middle of the dough and spread the gooey contents with his hand nonchalantly. Anywhere else, this would have been taken as wrong cooking practice, spoons are made for this task. There, it was a treat to see that your food is made by experts who don't care about cooking show techniques. They use tried and tested skill.
I have never been to Europe, have only been to the US once, and have never set foot in big theme parks like Universal Studios, or Disney. I have never done hard-core mountain climbing, nor have jetski-ed, bunjee jumped, scuba-dived, nor gone white-water rafting. My passport does not boast stamp after stamp of immigration offices from different cities. Yet when asked if I consider myself an experienced traveler, I always answer yes, even if the only stories I can tell are recycled and limited, all of the same places that a lot of people have already been to. I think what makes my stories special is that each experience is unique, in that not many would have tried getting lost the way we did. Not many would have ate the way we did. I am no Andrew Zimmern, eating exotic foods from different places, but I'm happy to share that my palate has now been trained to recognize flavors, texture and aroma, and categorize them according to the nearest type of cuisine they resemble. I'm happy to share that each time I'm in a new destination, I am able to walk to and fro places easily because I have somehow memorized my own landmarks for the place, enough to get lost with a mission. I consider myself an experienced traveler because that is what I do. I experience.
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| My current wallpaper, Calle Crisologo in Vigan, Ilocos Sur |
The selling point of the Windows phones is networking. It makes it easy for you to log in to your Facebook, Windows Live, Linkedin and Google accounts. As soon as you load your contacts, the phone finds common names across your various accounts and links them all, and it does so intelligently. Once your Facebook is logged in, it even takes your Facebook albums and loads them into the phone. All of a sudden, your whole online life is connected through one small gadget. When it was still new, my Android tablet was left untouched for five, whole days, and I only actually logged onto my computer for work. All my other online needs, including games, went through the Windows phone. It is on this week that I rediscovered the old photo albums on my Facebook account, and for some time now, I've been interchanging my phone's wall paper to show my most favorite pictures of the few travels that I have done.
It's been a while now since I have explored a new place, the last time I did that was in Vigan in January of 2011. After that, my trips had been to places that I have gone to before, and mostly just to spend time with friends and relax from work. Next week, I embark once again on a trip to see something new, Siem Reap in Cambodia. It is a trip that my closest friends and I have been planning to make ever since we saw the first Lara Croft movie, there just never was an opportunity to go, or a cheap plane ticket to buy, until this year, when Cebupacific finally got approval to fly there straight from the Philippines.
 |
| Bah Kuh Teh, Noodles & Teh Tariks in KL |
What I am most excited about is the food. Even as I write, I feel my mouth salivate a little at the thought of what street food I get to sample once we land. When Ken and I go on trips, food is always a major itinerary item, guided by a simple rule: no McDonald's. It was a rule we came up with on our trip to Malaysia in 2009, no taxi rides, no McDonald's.
Three years later, we still abide by this rule. As much as we can, when in a new place, we go around by local transportation, and eat local food. We steer away from taking the taxi because it robs us of the sweet time we can spend walking around and getting lost in the new environment. In a new place, is getting lost any different from knowing your way? It is with vigor and sunshiny enthusiasm that we weave through each town, armed with any map we can obtain from either the tourist centers, or from his iPhone, all mostly on foot, occasionally by train and bus. We stare curiously at food sold on the streets, oftentimes observing first how the passersby buy and eat them, before trying them out ourselves.
 |
| Murtabak with Teh-O-Pengs (Iced Tea) |
One of my most memorable moments of getting lost and discovering great food is in the place I called home once, Singapore. Ken was there for a visit, and per his usual trip, we were out one afternoon, just walking around until we get somewhere. On that day, I couldn't really remember if we planned on going to Arab Street, but that's where we ended up. Looking for an afternoon snack, I brought Ken to a "murtabak" place. I can't remember now, but it might have been a place a Singaporean friend recommended. Murtabak is essentially a crepe with meat filling, served with curry. The place boasts to have been making murtabak for almost 70 years. We watched how the expert cook made murtabak by smoothing an elastic dough on a flat pan, and assembling the fillings. To this day, we always laugh at how he cracked an egg right into the middle of the dough and spread the gooey contents with his hand nonchalantly. Anywhere else, this would have been taken as wrong cooking practice, spoons are made for this task. There, it was a treat to see that your food is made by experts who don't care about cooking show techniques. They use tried and tested skill.
I have never been to Europe, have only been to the US once, and have never set foot in big theme parks like Universal Studios, or Disney. I have never done hard-core mountain climbing, nor have jetski-ed, bunjee jumped, scuba-dived, nor gone white-water rafting. My passport does not boast stamp after stamp of immigration offices from different cities. Yet when asked if I consider myself an experienced traveler, I always answer yes, even if the only stories I can tell are recycled and limited, all of the same places that a lot of people have already been to. I think what makes my stories special is that each experience is unique, in that not many would have tried getting lost the way we did. Not many would have ate the way we did. I am no Andrew Zimmern, eating exotic foods from different places, but I'm happy to share that my palate has now been trained to recognize flavors, texture and aroma, and categorize them according to the nearest type of cuisine they resemble. I'm happy to share that each time I'm in a new destination, I am able to walk to and fro places easily because I have somehow memorized my own landmarks for the place, enough to get lost with a mission. I consider myself an experienced traveler because that is what I do. I experience.
When you meet someone who can walk as briskly, and as endlessly as you can, stick with that one. You know he's never going to get tired, nor tiring.
Thursday, August 9, 2012
Define: damage
For a whole 48 hours, the first level of our house is submerged in waist-deep flood water. Much of our common household items swam and floated, while we camp out in our small room. Today, the rain finally stopped, and the flood water finally subsided. We began sweeping and checking what damages have happened.
Some of my clothes, a few bedsheets that I bought from Singapore, a lot of CDs and kitchen items were wasted. The washing machine was floating. It will be a few days before I can actually plug it in and do anything useful with it. The fridge almost floated, thank goodness it didn't.
Out of all the things that I've had to clean up or throw away, the one thing that disappointed was a pack of Chips-A-Hoy cookies in the fridge. When we defrosted the fridge, the freezer water seeped down to the rest of the food that's on the lower levels, including my cookies. They were soaked with freezer water through and through.
As soon as I saw the soaked cookies, I felt an incredible sadness over it.
A few hours of cleaning later, I felt relieved and glad. Out of all the things that got soaked in the water and rendered unusable, the one thing I was disappointed over was a bag of cookies that I can replace easily from the grocery. I wasn't sad about the soaked clothes, or the imported bed sheets. Not about the prized office papers of old workshop materials.
Either we didn't have a lot of damage, or I can finally tell the real things that matter from the ones that don't.
Some of my clothes, a few bedsheets that I bought from Singapore, a lot of CDs and kitchen items were wasted. The washing machine was floating. It will be a few days before I can actually plug it in and do anything useful with it. The fridge almost floated, thank goodness it didn't.
Out of all the things that I've had to clean up or throw away, the one thing that disappointed was a pack of Chips-A-Hoy cookies in the fridge. When we defrosted the fridge, the freezer water seeped down to the rest of the food that's on the lower levels, including my cookies. They were soaked with freezer water through and through.
As soon as I saw the soaked cookies, I felt an incredible sadness over it.
A few hours of cleaning later, I felt relieved and glad. Out of all the things that got soaked in the water and rendered unusable, the one thing I was disappointed over was a bag of cookies that I can replace easily from the grocery. I wasn't sad about the soaked clothes, or the imported bed sheets. Not about the prized office papers of old workshop materials.
Either we didn't have a lot of damage, or I can finally tell the real things that matter from the ones that don't.
Monday, August 6, 2012
Define: growing up
Things I eat now but didn't eat when I was a kid:
Squid - My older brother loved "adobong pusit", squid cooked in its own ink with soy sauce and garlic. My grandmother would cook it all the time, but she would cook me something else because I do not eat it. One day in high school or college, I tasted it, and to this day it's one of the dishes that get my mouth watering when I see it in cafeteria selections.
Okra (ladyfingers) - As a child, I was not trained to eat vegetables. My grandparents I guess wanted to be spared from the hassle of training a child to eat greens, so we always had kid-friendly food instead - pork chops, chicken, hotdogs. We would see vegetables on the table, but those had always been for grown-ups. I do not remember the day, neither the dish, but just like the squid, one day, I picked up a cooked okra, and now keep some in stock for steaming so I can eat it with almost anything.
Liver - I guess when you're a kid, a lot of things are just not familiar to you. We not only don't want to spend time with something unfamiliar, we don't want to eat it! And so when the grown-ups told me that what's in that menudo is chicken liver, I reject it. These days, I pick these tiny cubes from menudo and eat them with the potatoes and carrots each time.
Dinuguan - Dinuguan, or pork parts cooked in pig's blood, will definitely sound yucky in any language. Imagine what a child would think upon hearing that she's about to be fed blood. We never cook dinuguan in our household back when my grandmother headed the kitchen. Some time back, my mom took over the cooking and she cooked dinuguan. At first taste, it became one of my automatically favorite dish.
Some things never change:
Inihaw na bangus - I left our family home to live alone when I was 26 years. I lived in Singapore for about 3 years, and when I came back to the Philippines, lived with my long time partner. Since 2006, the time I spend at our family home are more of weekend visits. I never declared grilled milkfish or "bangus" my favorite dish. In fact, when asked what my favorite food is, I often answer spaghetti. But I guess my mom and dad knew better - because ever since I left home, there will always be, always, grilled milkfish on each and every visit. And in the few times there wasn't, my mom would replace it with my other favorite dish, one that I have declared, pork pochero.
Bone marrow - People all over the world love bone marrow. There's something about that gooey, rich fat that you suck out of the bone that makes people's mouth water. Or so they say. I have never eaten bone marrow, and despite the many trips to Tagaytay where the bone marrow is famously cooked in a heartwarming soup that I love, I will never eat bone marrow. As a child, I didn't eat it because it looks weird. As an adult, I won't eat it because I know it will taste good. I don't want to eat it and like it, because I know it's bad cholesterol, plain and simple.
Bagoong - From the day my mom introduced me to diced tomatoes with bagoong as a young child, to this day, bagoong has always been a staple in any fridge I have. In Singapore, I have had to wrap my bagoong jar in layers of newspaper and plastic so it doesn't get detected in the airport. In Makati, I always keep a small container, and get my fill whenever I go home to Tondo. Bagoong is my all-around flavoring - it goes well with my rice, my fish, my tomatoes and my okra.
Fresh tomatoes - I have met some people who don't eat tomatoes, and I find it incredibly bothersome. I don't know how they survive. As a kid, I grew up surrounded by tomatoes. Our home in Tondo is in the middle of the marketplace, and the area I live in especially is the place where tomato storage warehouses are found. Crates and boxes of tomatoes surround me, how can I not grow up liking it? When I cook spaghetti, I put about 5-6 big ones in. When I eat anything fried or grilled, I don't feel complete without it. And between the choice of white sauce or red sauce in pasta when eating out, I often get puzzled why people choose white.
Squid - My older brother loved "adobong pusit", squid cooked in its own ink with soy sauce and garlic. My grandmother would cook it all the time, but she would cook me something else because I do not eat it. One day in high school or college, I tasted it, and to this day it's one of the dishes that get my mouth watering when I see it in cafeteria selections.
Okra (ladyfingers) - As a child, I was not trained to eat vegetables. My grandparents I guess wanted to be spared from the hassle of training a child to eat greens, so we always had kid-friendly food instead - pork chops, chicken, hotdogs. We would see vegetables on the table, but those had always been for grown-ups. I do not remember the day, neither the dish, but just like the squid, one day, I picked up a cooked okra, and now keep some in stock for steaming so I can eat it with almost anything.
Liver - I guess when you're a kid, a lot of things are just not familiar to you. We not only don't want to spend time with something unfamiliar, we don't want to eat it! And so when the grown-ups told me that what's in that menudo is chicken liver, I reject it. These days, I pick these tiny cubes from menudo and eat them with the potatoes and carrots each time.
Dinuguan - Dinuguan, or pork parts cooked in pig's blood, will definitely sound yucky in any language. Imagine what a child would think upon hearing that she's about to be fed blood. We never cook dinuguan in our household back when my grandmother headed the kitchen. Some time back, my mom took over the cooking and she cooked dinuguan. At first taste, it became one of my automatically favorite dish.
Some things never change:
Inihaw na bangus - I left our family home to live alone when I was 26 years. I lived in Singapore for about 3 years, and when I came back to the Philippines, lived with my long time partner. Since 2006, the time I spend at our family home are more of weekend visits. I never declared grilled milkfish or "bangus" my favorite dish. In fact, when asked what my favorite food is, I often answer spaghetti. But I guess my mom and dad knew better - because ever since I left home, there will always be, always, grilled milkfish on each and every visit. And in the few times there wasn't, my mom would replace it with my other favorite dish, one that I have declared, pork pochero.
Bone marrow - People all over the world love bone marrow. There's something about that gooey, rich fat that you suck out of the bone that makes people's mouth water. Or so they say. I have never eaten bone marrow, and despite the many trips to Tagaytay where the bone marrow is famously cooked in a heartwarming soup that I love, I will never eat bone marrow. As a child, I didn't eat it because it looks weird. As an adult, I won't eat it because I know it will taste good. I don't want to eat it and like it, because I know it's bad cholesterol, plain and simple.
Bagoong - From the day my mom introduced me to diced tomatoes with bagoong as a young child, to this day, bagoong has always been a staple in any fridge I have. In Singapore, I have had to wrap my bagoong jar in layers of newspaper and plastic so it doesn't get detected in the airport. In Makati, I always keep a small container, and get my fill whenever I go home to Tondo. Bagoong is my all-around flavoring - it goes well with my rice, my fish, my tomatoes and my okra.
Fresh tomatoes - I have met some people who don't eat tomatoes, and I find it incredibly bothersome. I don't know how they survive. As a kid, I grew up surrounded by tomatoes. Our home in Tondo is in the middle of the marketplace, and the area I live in especially is the place where tomato storage warehouses are found. Crates and boxes of tomatoes surround me, how can I not grow up liking it? When I cook spaghetti, I put about 5-6 big ones in. When I eat anything fried or grilled, I don't feel complete without it. And between the choice of white sauce or red sauce in pasta when eating out, I often get puzzled why people choose white.
Monday, February 27, 2012
Define: time-out
In nostalgic moments in movies or books or any other romantic media, we always hear or see the phrase "this can change your life". Now that I am working with people, I realize that there really are moments that can change a person's life. One tiny decision that someone else makes for them, can spell the difference between success and failure in the future.
Therefore, if you are tasked to lead a team or work with people, remember these words: this can change some one's life. Take the context of corrective action memos. Oftentimes, we issue them to team members who, in a nutshell, have screwed up. However, it's important to realize that while for us, it may be just another company protocol we need to follow, for the person, it is an important, singular learning event.
One of the things I haven't done in my life before 2011 is issue corrective action memos to people. I had always been an individual contributor, and never had to coach, motivate nor penalize anyone in my teams at work. I had feared that the confrontation involved in these kinds of interactions can be intense and pressurizing. That I have to be on edge and alert to attack on these moments.
When I remembered that a few years back, these people were me, all of a sudden, coaching became easy. I tried to think back to the times when I would screw up at work and get very anxious at what sermon the boss is going to give me, and think back to how my superiors then handled the situation. Some did well, others didn't. Those who didn't do well, I can't remember anymore. I don't even remember what the screw-up was. Those who did well, I remember like they just happened yesterday. I remember what I did wrong. I remember what I was told. I remember how I improved after.
So what do we do then? Simple, take the time to put yourself in the person's shoes. Reflect on how this person is feeling now, what he/she is thinking, where he/she is coming from. More often that not, simply putting yourself in their situation for a second can remind you that you probably were in that position once, and that, consequently, will remind you of how you felt at the time. Were you embarrassed? Did you feel ashamed? Were you smug and thought you didn't do anything wrong? Were you assertive?
More importantly, you will remember how you felt about the person who gave you the coaching for it, and the corresponding memo. You would remember if you shrugged off the incident afterward because you didn't like your supervisor. Or if you cried afterwards for being yelled at or humiliated. Or if you quit out of anger.
Think of these situations as critical learning events. By the terminologies themselves, you are supposed to provide "corrective action", meaning after you have served the memo, you would expect corrected behaviour in the future to come. And for correct behaviour to happen, a person needs to learn from the experience. He/she needs to understand where the gap was, and what needs to be done to cross it.
Realizing it from this perspective has made coaching easier for me. Instead of viewing it as a session to point out mistakes, I now view it as a session to impose a time-out, a break in the system for both myself and the person, for us to think together about the screw up that happened. What I often find is that I too learn from the session always in so many ways, and it has now become a pleasant experience for me.
Of course, learning doesn't happen overnight, and that's the real reason we have "prescriptive (or -ion?) periods" for these corrective action memos. Well, OK, these roll-off/prescriptive periods are also for the benefit of tracking, so we all have a timeline of events. What we usually fail to remember though is that it's not always a prescriptive period for a corrective action to end its effectivity. In the context of learning, it's the period you're providing the person to "learn" from this mistake and prove that learning happened by demonstrating corrected behavior.
Throughout the prescriptive period, the person is going to stumble along the way, miss a few items here and there. But remember that these are all part of the learning process. We need to constantly remind the person to get on track, and tell them if they're doing a good or bad job. Even more important, we need to assure the person that their learning is important. That they are within a safe environment wherein even though we are monitoring for hits and misses as their supervisor, we are not judging them internally as human beings.
In the craziness of the daily grind, we often forget that at the end of the day, we are all the same person - someone trying to earn a living so we can go on with life. Sometimes, we get sucked into the daily motions of emails and meetings, that working with people become the last agenda in our minds, and we resort into tick-marking the items we need to do: have I conducted a 1-1? Yes. Did I document and serve a memo? Yes. Did I submit to HR? Yes. Did the person leave before I can hire a replacement? No. And afterwards think that our work in that event is done.
If it were all that easy and automatic, leading people would've been handed over to machines and computer programs. But it's not that easy. Because the tick mark that you squeezed into your busy calendar can change the course of someone else's life.
I opened my iGoogle account to get to my shortcut for my school's website, and got digressed instead to reading the Tumbleblog. Reading 'The One with the Online Dating Game' inspired me to take a few minutes to reflect and write, and maybe change some one's life. Thanks, Megzy, for always keeping me focused on what matter most :)
Therefore, if you are tasked to lead a team or work with people, remember these words: this can change some one's life. Take the context of corrective action memos. Oftentimes, we issue them to team members who, in a nutshell, have screwed up. However, it's important to realize that while for us, it may be just another company protocol we need to follow, for the person, it is an important, singular learning event.
One of the things I haven't done in my life before 2011 is issue corrective action memos to people. I had always been an individual contributor, and never had to coach, motivate nor penalize anyone in my teams at work. I had feared that the confrontation involved in these kinds of interactions can be intense and pressurizing. That I have to be on edge and alert to attack on these moments.
When I remembered that a few years back, these people were me, all of a sudden, coaching became easy. I tried to think back to the times when I would screw up at work and get very anxious at what sermon the boss is going to give me, and think back to how my superiors then handled the situation. Some did well, others didn't. Those who didn't do well, I can't remember anymore. I don't even remember what the screw-up was. Those who did well, I remember like they just happened yesterday. I remember what I did wrong. I remember what I was told. I remember how I improved after.
So what do we do then? Simple, take the time to put yourself in the person's shoes. Reflect on how this person is feeling now, what he/she is thinking, where he/she is coming from. More often that not, simply putting yourself in their situation for a second can remind you that you probably were in that position once, and that, consequently, will remind you of how you felt at the time. Were you embarrassed? Did you feel ashamed? Were you smug and thought you didn't do anything wrong? Were you assertive?
More importantly, you will remember how you felt about the person who gave you the coaching for it, and the corresponding memo. You would remember if you shrugged off the incident afterward because you didn't like your supervisor. Or if you cried afterwards for being yelled at or humiliated. Or if you quit out of anger.
Think of these situations as critical learning events. By the terminologies themselves, you are supposed to provide "corrective action", meaning after you have served the memo, you would expect corrected behaviour in the future to come. And for correct behaviour to happen, a person needs to learn from the experience. He/she needs to understand where the gap was, and what needs to be done to cross it.
Realizing it from this perspective has made coaching easier for me. Instead of viewing it as a session to point out mistakes, I now view it as a session to impose a time-out, a break in the system for both myself and the person, for us to think together about the screw up that happened. What I often find is that I too learn from the session always in so many ways, and it has now become a pleasant experience for me.
Of course, learning doesn't happen overnight, and that's the real reason we have "prescriptive (or -ion?) periods" for these corrective action memos. Well, OK, these roll-off/prescriptive periods are also for the benefit of tracking, so we all have a timeline of events. What we usually fail to remember though is that it's not always a prescriptive period for a corrective action to end its effectivity. In the context of learning, it's the period you're providing the person to "learn" from this mistake and prove that learning happened by demonstrating corrected behavior.
Throughout the prescriptive period, the person is going to stumble along the way, miss a few items here and there. But remember that these are all part of the learning process. We need to constantly remind the person to get on track, and tell them if they're doing a good or bad job. Even more important, we need to assure the person that their learning is important. That they are within a safe environment wherein even though we are monitoring for hits and misses as their supervisor, we are not judging them internally as human beings.
In the craziness of the daily grind, we often forget that at the end of the day, we are all the same person - someone trying to earn a living so we can go on with life. Sometimes, we get sucked into the daily motions of emails and meetings, that working with people become the last agenda in our minds, and we resort into tick-marking the items we need to do: have I conducted a 1-1? Yes. Did I document and serve a memo? Yes. Did I submit to HR? Yes. Did the person leave before I can hire a replacement? No. And afterwards think that our work in that event is done.
If it were all that easy and automatic, leading people would've been handed over to machines and computer programs. But it's not that easy. Because the tick mark that you squeezed into your busy calendar can change the course of someone else's life.
I opened my iGoogle account to get to my shortcut for my school's website, and got digressed instead to reading the Tumbleblog. Reading 'The One with the Online Dating Game' inspired me to take a few minutes to reflect and write, and maybe change some one's life. Thanks, Megzy, for always keeping me focused on what matter most :)
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