I love long weekends!

I feel very much more recharged after the three-day break, and it makes me happy to know that after a scant 4 days of work it'll be the weekend once again!

Anyway I attended a workshop at SMU last week as part of the Spring ETP, and to my surprise it's actually quite useful and most of us found it enlightening in one way or another. I love it when I attend stuff that make me think of things that never used to cross my mind, or to clearly point out what's so obvious that we're blind to it. What I have taken away from the course:

• Praise. Give praise and credit where it's due – it'll make people feel happy and appreciated. Singapore is a praise-deficit economy. We need to learn to do more than complain.
  
• Employee-employer fit. We need to know ourselves and the company better so as to identify the respective party's needs/wants, issues/concerns so as to find a win-win situation in which we can learn more, feel useful and contribute greatly to the company such that it is worth their while for our bosses to train us.
  
• Aggression is triggered. Our choice of words, tone and body language are very important, and it is crucial that we sound non-defensive when being given feedback because aggression is usually triggered by a catalyst.
  
• We have a say in our employment conditions. In fact, we are actually entitled to voice our opinions, give feedback, and basically have a stake in our place in the company.
  
• Network. Guanxi and goodwill will go a long way in helping us in our careers in the future, and it pays to have a large network to tap on when the need arises.
  

Some people sound pretty unhappy at their SME workplace, and I'm glad that I didn't join the ranks of the dissatisfied employees. In comparison, HMI is investing a lot in us by providing us with a month-long training so that we're in the loop about what's going on in the healthcare sector both locally and internationally, from organization structure to healthcare terminology to marketing techniques. I much prefer this than a tunnel vision of the industry, focused only on a particular job scope, squirreled away in a corner of the office hammering away at the laptop on one's desk. It's a happy coincidence, sheer luck really, that I landed where I did. Giving thanks for little blessings.