Multiple Personality Over My Work

          It is a good realization for me that in our very complex life experiences, as we age, our decisions become vast, greater and more significant. As mature individual, our decisions brought us to where we are right at the present, making sense as we are trying to deal with the many disparities in our environment, by understanding and judging our present situations, we may be predisposed to survive. Our will to accomplish for these complicated yet vital reactions as we live will set us to experience our instinct to exist our living with greater cause and passion. For over three years now I was able to handle two vital yet very different positions in our school.  I was hired mainly as the guidance counselor for college but given one special assignment as the officer-in-charge for college registrar. As college counselor, it is my duty to handle students’ personal and academic concerns, including their adjustments to school through counseling and developmental activities. Counseling can be conducted through individual and by group while I can input developmental activities through my homeroom classes. 

          Homeroom class is exclusively given to the first year students, through this session a designed activities are being given which cater their needs for personal development. Also, my task as counselor is projecting and designing school activities central to the personal and interpersonal development of each student along with our school’s mission-vision. Aside from that, I am task to hold school campaign to different high school campuses in Samal Island, in other words I also act as the campaign officer of the school. In my experience as marketing officer, we intently visit to at least fifteen campuses from different private and public schools for three days straight from eight in the morning to five in the afternoon. But the high school campuses in Samal are increasing. To my observation, the roads are irregular and tough and majorities are rough and bumpy. Motorcycle is the mode of transportation to any key areas in the Island, if there is really a need, we will hire a motorcycle unit as our operation service just to arrive the target schools or if the budget is enough then we will rent a multicab vehicle, we do these things if the school’s service vehicles are not available for the trip. 

           As resident in Davao, this job campaign is so tiring but I consider this a chance to explore what’s within the island and with those experiences I was able to see places and observe the characters and statuses of its public schools. To my comparison, the lifestyles of their high school students are very different from the place where I grew up. Their exposure to real scenarios in life is very simple and plain but certainly very limited in terms of the new technologies and contact to social media. Consequently, I still can say that the people of Samal are warm, reserved but well-mannered citizens. Aside from that, my office also caters for the classroom evaluation for teachers per semester. I usually do this task after midterm of every semester. Scheduling becomes very crucial to this attempt. And I always see to it that the students will give a precise and objective type of responses for the said teachers’ evaluation.

          My second major role in the school is that I act as the officer-in-charge for the college registrar. My main job is to keep the school’s and students’ academic records. Processing requests from our alumni and dealing students with their concerns on their admission requirements as required mainly by our school. As college registrar, I see to it that I should be more objective and can implement strict office policy. In other words, my counselor personality is not applicable to this profession. This is a tough job for me since I will adjust to another persona. A counselor who possesses friendly personality to a registrar that needs to be inconsiderate and strict sometimes. Furthermore, part of my office work is to update students’ records, prepare the teachers’ load per semester, arranges students’ class schedules, processes graduation programs and queuing enrolment system concerns. My roles as counselors and as registrars in the school are obviously conflicting and may create inconsistency on my part especially in decision making concerns. This is a very great challenge as psychology graduate. The threat may be here is the quality of services I can render to my clients. But aside from these complicated responsibilities, I also perform as part-time instructors for psychology and management subjects. In every semester I will handle up to five subjects, all are preparations meaning are different subjects. My main concern to this task is the preparation my examination to five subjects, that’s hard to handle. Of course, as classroom teacher I should see to it that I imposed learning experiences of my students, committed to become objective to their performance, classroom participation that targets to their development as future professional someday. 

            It is very true, that from these major roles I render in school, there are occasions that I can’t hold the proper applications of time management. But it is a funny thing to consider that time management is considerably basic to us as professionals. From my skills in counseling, administration and as an instructor, I would like to make emphasis on how I efficiently and effectively manage my time relating to my daily workloads over my personal and family concerns. Do this multitasking job really affect the quality of my work output concerning to quality I serve to my clients? In addition, I’d like to stress the negative and positive costs of my employment conditions considering the time I will spend to work and the quality time I can spend to my family.

           The minimum hour trip going to Samal Island from Davao is up to one hour and thirty minutes that depends on the road traffic and the wait of the ferryboat going and back to the island. In other words, this three-hour travel is part of my daily travel routine, and whether I like it or not, I have to cross its boundary – rain or shine. Traveling to the island is considered to be a risky endeavor. During bad weather like heavy rains, I could really experience how these watercraft juggles with the waves of water just to reach Samal or travelling going home back to Davao.  I consider it (heavy rains) a worst day to travel but I don’t have any alternative of getting in my office. However with all of these experiences, I could simply say I am fulfilled and happy knowing that I was able to reach out and serve the people in the island. And as I observe that there are also people who perform the same schedule to mine. These people are also coming from Davao who passionately serves various communities in Samal Island. Some of these professionals are government officials, bank employees, doctors who manage their own clinic, public and private school teachers and some are managing family businesses.

          There are instances that me and my wife will have a little confrontation about my work routine, she’s is very concern about it, she would always ask me that do I really have to sacrifices my health over my work? She will always mention about my travel time, my multiple positions and roles in the school and my graduate school enrolment. Significantly, she’s demanding on the quality time that I should spare to them.  Because of my schedule, she’s afraid about the consequences that it could bring in our relationship as family. But the idea really is she is just reminding me that I still have to prioritize our family next to God, and I am always agree with that.   We are aware and practice and prioritize these values, God first, family second and the third one is our career. Relating to multitasking idea, I am noting on Edward M. Hallowell, a child and adult psychiatrist, he describe it as a mythical activity in which people believe they can perform two or more tasks simultaneously as effectively as one. Clear to this point that I got plenty of pending jobs in my offices. 

          My schedule becomes worst when most deadlines will meet like updating records, examination preparations, evaluations, enrolment, graduations and program preparations. I would really experience high level of stressful moments. Not to mention, my Ph. D. projects, so stressful.  But opposing to this idea, some research suggests that if people are trained to multitask at an early age, they will become efficient at multitasking (en.wikipedia.org). At my level, I understand multitasking as to functioning professionally to the different tasks assigned to one employee which are directly associated. I can say that I am trained to multitask and this might not new to us, since I started working I have known that multitasking is part of every employee’s job descriptions. To this idea, we may distinguish clearly the disparity over my job’s workload case. (www.smartime.com) mentioned that multitasking doesn’t lead to high quality of work being done, it actually reduce the quality substantially. In addition, Valdez (2011) developed the thought that when a multitasking worker is evaluated, productivity and employee performance decreases because of the added stress and destruction in his work (www.ehow.com). Montarno (2009) also agreed that multi-tasking is generally less efficient and it impairs production (www.biznik.com). It is hard to accept that from these very few points and I could agree that I may experience these quality service problems for my clients and I think it’s obvious. To my reason, I would always see to it that my clients will feel delighted after a request is being served. But what about applying time management to these multitasking concerns? Basically we do it especially in our work, and according to (www.wikipedia.com), time management is the act or process of exercising conscious control over the amount of time spent on specific activities, especially to increase efficiency or productivity. Exercising control to my work time is a very tough job and it is a challenging effort to accomplish. In other words, time management is very important to my daily tasks. I should know how to prioritize things in school without also sacrificing my role as father in my family.

           As conclusion to this research story, one objective of our school is to see the quality output of their employees concerning to their efficiency and productivity. This is in light with the satisfaction of their work experiences and the privileged that an employee can get from the institution. Well, it doesn’t really matter what prizes I could bear from these experiences (multitasking job) rather what matters to me are the intrinsic factor that could satisfy me as employee and as a service oriented individual. Yet again, I am enjoying doing my multitasking jobs and serving with a heart to these people in the island. I know from these little ways I personally imparted inspiration and gave encouragements to the community especially to our students. That may be very simple yet the biggest answer I could give why I stayed connected in the Samal Island.