It's 2:30 in the afternoon, and here I am sitting infront of a computer screen, trying to figure out what to do so that I could find the motivation to finish everything before my June 3 deadline... I wonder where the loads of motivation I had in me when I started to work with this bank went. I could still remember that time when waking up in the morning didn't need to be exerted with so much effort because as I open my eyes and get out of bed, I could feel enthusiasm and excitement surge through my veins at the thought of meeting old and new clients, interacting with officemates, coming up with reports, and gaining new experiences.

After three years however, the enthusiasm and excitement started to ebb away and discontentment and boredome suddenly sprouted out of nowhere so that waking up in the morning becomes a nightmare. Punctuality at work is at the least of my priorities right now, so is productivity. These days, I often find myself uselessly lingering on my seat staring blankly at a flickering cursor with open folders splayed carelessly on my desk (just to make it look lie I am very very busy). If not, I'd be listlessly roaming around the office hopping from desk to desk looking at what my officemates are doing and engaging them in idle conversations with topics ranging from the latest Korean Novela on TV to the latest items on sale at the mall. Or you could find me at the pantry drinking coffee or eating anything edible just to keep myself awake for the rest of the day.

I often ask myself whether or not my colleagues have noticed my unproductive stay inside the office. Are they aware that the whole time I am seated on my swivel chair right now, I am just writing this article to stimulate my mind and prevent adding another unproductive working day in my life when I get out of the building later today? Would my boss ever believe that despite my on-time call reports and seemingly busy schedule, I am actually doing nothing most of the time and he could easily find it out if only he'd find the time to check on me? But he seems to trust me enough and I feel so rotten for being this way lately. It isn't that I have a daily routine with my current job. In fact, this is one of the most coveted positions in the organizational chart because it involves traveling, working with upper level management, interacting with businessmen, and being expose to several business opportunities all the time. And yet, I couldn't get any motivation from those thoughts. All I keep thinking is the hope of getting hired by one of those companies’ I submitted my application documents for the last four weeks. I also couldn’t eradicate what my college professor told me when I paid him a visit just the other week. He told me that the most pathetic thing that could ever happen to an employee is finding himself stuck in a job that he is not happy with. That just hit me bulls’ eye. I gave him a smile as I nodded in agreement to what he said, and deep in my heart, I felt myself die with the realization that I am indeed that pathetic.

I am trying to figure out why I am feeling this way lately. So I’m gonna try looking at the benefits first. The company offers a lot of these, mind you. It provides medical coverage, insurances, vacation and sick leaves with pay, spiritual and physical programs, traveling and relocation allowances, profit sharing and bonuses, even career enhancement seminars and workshops. But don’t talk about the salary, alright? I could barely take it when I think about the fact that I have been with the company for three years and two months and yet I am earning just P500.00 more than my friend who’d just finished her 6-months probationary period with her current employer (oh, please don’t count her overtime fees…). Not to mention the bruises on my ego each time I meet with my high school friends and the topic would shift to earnings and income.

But I couldn’t convince myself that this salary issue is the main reason why I feel so unmotivated and discontented with my job. Nope, it couldn’t be the main reason because right from the very start, I was already informed of that fact. I wasn’t gonna earn big and yet I accepted the offer. Was it because back then, I didn’t give a damn about financial issues? Or was it because prices of goods and the fare then weren’t as high as they are now? Was it because my young mind was then pre-occupied with what I can do for the company and the thrill of applying everything I have learned from the academe so that reality had escaped me? Hmm, I don’t know. All I know is that back then I was happy and fully satisfied with what was credited to my account every 15th and 30th of the month. Every morning, when I enter the office, I always had this genuine smile on my face because I always see the same on my officemates’ faces.

But not lately…which brings me to the next thing I must explore. My office environment and the people I am constantly interacting with---my officemates. What could I say about them? Most of us are single young people with a gist for life and fun. And believe it or not, we are totally in the same state at the moment. Just lately, I couldn’t remember a day when not a single soul would come to me and groan about being bored and tired of doing the same thing over and over again. Then there are issues about how good it was before when the loan portfolio wasn’t too big and the number of customers was just a handful. Plus the issue on not being compensated well, how badly the implementation of policies within the bank is these days, and how in the world could the immediate superior be so less knowledgeable about certain procedures when in fact she is the officer. The litany would go on and on and at the end of the day, I would go home with discontentment lingering in my heart and mind. We are a bunch of twenty-something people who are subjected to the realities of employment life. I am beginning to believe that indeed, some good things never last (and so the song goes). Just as I have gotten the hang out of my job, these people I work with also had their share of it and now, at the same moment of our lives, the deadliest venom of employment life is about to poison us all.

What a sad fate. My four years at the academe never mentioned anything about this. Not even a thing close to this. I’ve always thought that praying for a job was enough. But only now did I realize the importance of praying not only for a job but everything that comes with it. Salary, benefits, workmates, workplace, nature of the job, even the job schedule itself because in the end, having a job is not at all everything. It’s just icing on the cake. There are a lot more to consider than just getting yourself hired.

Three of my officemates have already submitted their resignation letters to the HR department and two weeks from now, this office will be three persons short in numbers, which means, a big increase in the loads of those who will be left, is something we should look forward to (argh! Oh please!)....