By Tsion Taye
What did you want to be growing up as a child? Some of us were fortunate enough to know right from early age what we would like to be in adulthood. Part of us may have had a vague answer to this question, like wanting to be a doctor for instance. A doctor of what, we did not know. And the rest of us may have had no clue of the answer to the question. I tend to be on the side that a large proportion of us were either in the vague or the no clue category. Maybe we did not have anything that would inspire us to become someone we aspire to become. Maybe the freedom to choose was not given to us. Or maybe we were not offered options to chose from, options out of the box and the usual that could have inspired us to make life choices. The generations of today are in a better position to make life choices at an early stage because parents or caregivers have started to understand the need to give children options, the freedom to choose what to become in life. Such luxury, I would say, was not available for many of us who are now over thirty years of age.
One of the consequences of not having the freedom to choose what to become in life, the consequence of not having any particular aspirations in life is that we tend to prefer being employed by others than being self-employed. The other main consequence I would like to talk about is that, when we finally get employed, it is the fear of losing our income and therefore our bosses at work that drive our work motivations instead of our duties and responsibilities. In other words, if the boss is there, and is a tough one, we work hard because if we don’t, we may lose our job and therefore our income. But if the boss is, hands-off and lenient, then we do not work as hard as we would if the boss was a tough one. In short, our work and just the fact that we have a responsibility when taking on a particular job is not our boss.
I have observed that many people do not work responsibly if the boss is not closely following the delivery of their assignments. The fact that the particular job is not their dream job or the fact they do not like the job is not the only factor that contributes to the lack of a sense of responsibility. Poor work culture also plays a very important role. What people fail to understand is that, at the end of the day, they are being paid to deliver a particular assignment, as low as the payment they receive might be. At the end of the day, people fail to understand that others who depend on the timely and quality delivery of their assignments will have to pay the price because of their poor work culture. Some people fail to understand that they have a responsibility towards others when they take on a particular job. Whether a boss is there to watch or not should not matter as long as one is given clear tasks and responsibilities to deliver. Those responsibilities should be the main drive or motivation to work hard. People should not be pushed and harassed to deliver their responsibilities. After all, when you reach the employment age, you are no longer a child. A sense of responsibility and duty towards others who depend on the proper delivery of your assignments should come with becoming an adult!
