i attended a wake of a PMS colleague the other night. it became, sort of, a necro/eulogy exercise but it wasn't the usual i think. aside from exulting the goodness of Leo, his family reminded all of us (PMS people) about how much dedication we all give to our work. what really struck a chord in my heart was his son's sharing --- he mentioned that his father was nowhere to be found in his wedding pictures because Leo was going out, taking calls and if not outside, texting at the side. short of saying, he was there but not at all.
how often did we laud ourselves that we managed our Time well, how expertly we tried to balance life at work and outside? how many weekends, dinners, movie dates with girlfriends did i have to disrupt with a call or an email because i needed to delegate or i had to follow through deliverables from someone in the bureaucracy? how often did i doze off during conversations because i was too sleepy from paumagahan work? how often did i have to excuse myself from a lot of celebrations because i had work to oversee? how often have i been missing in family and friends' photos? how often did i disturb my staff's personal time too?!
too often. almost always actually that it has become a way of life.
and now the guilt and self-frustration hit me like it never affected me before.
after all my claims of balancing my work and personal lives well, it was very selfish of me to have missed on how my loved ones felt. and my eyes had to be opened because of someone's eulogy on someone who's work was similarly situated like me, and i tell you, Leo was a mere staff (not belittling his work but emphasizing that much is expected from everyone around here. and the higher you go, the work magnifies in scale too). imagine, the life of a PMS manager?
please don't ask me how i plan to address this. hindi ko pa naiisip.
ang alam ko lang, sa kagustuhan kong mahalin ang Bayan ko, may mga tao rin pala akong nawawalang-bahala.
how often did we laud ourselves that we managed our Time well, how expertly we tried to balance life at work and outside? how many weekends, dinners, movie dates with girlfriends did i have to disrupt with a call or an email because i needed to delegate or i had to follow through deliverables from someone in the bureaucracy? how often did i doze off during conversations because i was too sleepy from paumagahan work? how often did i have to excuse myself from a lot of celebrations because i had work to oversee? how often have i been missing in family and friends' photos? how often did i disturb my staff's personal time too?!
too often. almost always actually that it has become a way of life.
and now the guilt and self-frustration hit me like it never affected me before.
after all my claims of balancing my work and personal lives well, it was very selfish of me to have missed on how my loved ones felt. and my eyes had to be opened because of someone's eulogy on someone who's work was similarly situated like me, and i tell you, Leo was a mere staff (not belittling his work but emphasizing that much is expected from everyone around here. and the higher you go, the work magnifies in scale too). imagine, the life of a PMS manager?
please don't ask me how i plan to address this. hindi ko pa naiisip.
ang alam ko lang, sa kagustuhan kong mahalin ang Bayan ko, may mga tao rin pala akong nawawalang-bahala.
1 comment:
This is so true. If only we still had the same energy that we had when we were younger, when we could go one place to another, one event to another without feeling the need to rest. We could go days without breaks. That was how we managed. Now, we go to work and have an exhausting day and then plakda na agad after. No more time or energy for anything else. :-(
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