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In Michelle’s self-introduction, Michelle admitted that she used to have a bad temper. Fortunately, she came to know God and believed in Him when she was in university, or she would likely have become an aggressive person. With such a bad temper and aggressive behavior, how could it be possible to change this personality? But then, Michelle did change after she came to know Christ. God imperceptibly corrected her values, changed her attitude and reformed her life. This is especially evident in her workplace, where God persistently used different circumstances to shape Michelle’s life.
In today’s competitive and tense corporate world where we worked in, it is not hard to find people being oppressed by pressure from the management. Intense stress built up between bosses and subordinates, which often resulted in flare of temper and loss of control over own emotions. Faced with such situations, Michelle did not feel good either. But she constantly reminded herself that this is an opportunity for God to shape her life and personality.
Once, Michelle was tasked to start a survey to study the possibility of a new department after having gotten the consensus from her superior. Thinking that it was only the very initial stages where data and information must be acquired from various departments before they can be compiled, analyzed, studied and then discussed with the department heads, Michelle went to ask the subordinates for information without informing their department heads. Little did she know that it was a taboo by the company’s management! Emails in a company are generally “flying around” and so if a particular email has eventually landed in the hands of managers of other departments or higher leadership, it is truly nothing to be surprised at all. Yet, the response from one of the managers was shocking. A simple act of requesting for information had become a serious case of poaching. Michelle then realized her oversight, however faced with this serious accusation, she did not know what to do to resolve this incident.
After she calmed herself down before God, she replied to the various department heads and higher leadership with a brief explanation, starting her email with a sincere apology. In fact, she was struggling at that time: while the Holy Spirit told her to obey God, die to and overcome her “self”, she heard another voice telling her, “Why did you have to make things difficult for yourself? You could have banged the table and fought for yourself!” Michelle chose to obey the first voice. She asked God for help to control her temperament and take the initiative to mend the relationship. Thank God, all these years, she could speak comfortably with the affected manager, and they are still able to talk about many things and discuss work related matters. The leadership gave Michelle a highlycommendable review prior to her departure from the company. This gave Michelle great encouragement and comfort.
There was once that Michelle received an email from a manager who was notorious to be careless in his speech. In the email, the manager consistently made one-sided remarks, used accusatory tone and asked many questions without getting a full knowledge of the situation. Michelle was furious upon reading the email, but she made it a point to calm down before God. She gave him the simplest reply in the email and was surprised even with herself even, when she boldly ended the email with a sentence, “Perhaps in future, you may want to use more magic words such as please, sorry, thank you in your email communications. The use of magic words and positive attitude are something that we as parents will require our children to follow. Similarly, we should also set an example in the company. Thank you!” Michelle then finished her email with her signature smiley face. The manager replied. “I was just being direct. I will be more careful and polite in my future emailing to you.” Michelle read his reply objectively, and thanked him. She also asked him not to be uneasy about the situation and ended the email with another smiley face. To prevent any of them from falling into Satan’s trap, Michelle took the initiative to greet and talk to him as if nothing had happened after the situation. And she maintained a positive relationship with her colleague where they could discuss work related matters in a polite and respectful manner.
Indeed, through this matter, Michelle learnt that although she cannot control the feelings of others, she knows that she certainly can ask God for help not to bear grudges, to release herself, and to die to self. And no matter who’s in the right or wrong, she can take the initiative to mend the relationship.
Have you ever encountered what Michelle has encountered in your profession? How did you deal with it? From a Christian point of view, work is a calling from God. We believed that even before we were born, God has already given each of us with different capabilities, interests, characters and blue prints in life. God also make use of different environments to train us and mold us. Regardless of the profession in which we are in, the responsibilities of Christians are to excel in our job, to be more Christ-like in our character and to bring God’s blessing to others through our interactions with them.
Michelle concluded for herself the 10 commandments of the workplace as below.
Workplace ten commandments
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This is Terry, Signing out.