On Working with Chains (Contracts)

written last September 12:

I often see demonstrations by outspoken individuals who seem to demand almost anything and everything from the government; students who insist on their ideals, workers who contest the minimum wage and taxes, and not-so-employed citizens who seem to always arrogantly lay down their requirements as to how they should live. Yet politicians and government workers alike pursue only what they believe are the topics worth debating.

I saw someone in a company meeting who mustered up the nerve to ask if there will be salary adjustments accompanying the re-assignments. One boss handled it very charmingly, asking them also if their reason for coming to work everyday is their salary or their desire to really help. However impressive this may seem, I found myself more interested with the words of another boss who talks about improving the workplace.

I got into a trike, and after revealing to the driver—who had waited in line for so long for his turn—that my place was near, and that he would only receive a mere fifteen pesos for it, he joked to the next one that he should take me instead. My initial reaction was annoyance, thinking that ‘hey, I would pay you reasonably anyway so why the need to joke like that?’ But after which I also thought that I shouldn’t be thinking that way; that this same driver is only working to earn enough money to feed his family, to make the most of the precious highly-priced gas he has in his engine.

Having witnessed all these, I came to conclude that without love or passion for what we do, we are all just in it for ourselves. And that is just what we have to accept from one another—however selfish it may sound. Because sensible enough, the absence of love is indeed selfishness.