Summer Blog Episode 10 – A Piece Of Work (Final Episode II)

What is a piece of work?

My friend Barbara from Philippine did some research and noted to me that it either means “someone who, although often interesting, is difficult to get along with on an every day basis” or “a remarkable person, achievement or product”.

For some strange reasons, in my mind, when I asked that question, I was looking at “a piece of work” literally as a piece of work.  As in one unit of work.  An innocent question that stemmed from a conversation overheard, outside my office that looks more like a farm.  Maybe I shall compose an article of frequently used and abused terms in my department.

My colleague from India and I often chat.  One morning, like any other morning, she indicated to me her unhappiness towards the many work issues she has.  But these are just work items, I said.  If we have a process to take care of work items, it is a matter of having an issue dropping into this black box called “my daily job” and coming out as a handled issue, which could still be an issue, but it is handled as per the process agreed.

It is like if my daily job is a toilet cleaner, I see dirty toilets coming in and cleaned toilets going out.  Whether a cleaned toilet is indeed a 5-star clean toilet depends on many factors (some public toilets are just impossible to clean, don’t you think?).  The bottom line is, it is a cleaned toilet.  I am neither sad about the dirty toilet nor happy about the cleaned toilet.  But I am delighted about the money I take home that day.

PS. It is quite a miracle that I can write another ‘final’ episode.  I thought I would stop at 9.