2020 Week 22

It is good to start writing again. Now that I am well, it is time to build good habits as there will be times when things get hard again. During those things, it will not be easy to use will power. Probably during those time, we can only God’s grace where one of the grace is that our good habits will continue. For example, during tough times, we still take a shower, eat, say grace before eating, sleep because we are already used to.

The question that I have is that how can I break and slow down so that I can stop in time instead of crash when things get tough. One of the things that have shown its helpfulness is to write. Both speaking and writing require us to slow down unlike our minds that can think many things at the same time although it is messy. Speaking is not easy especially when it is not proper to speak. So writing seems to be one of the best option. So let’s start writing again at least once a week.

Taking time to reflect the past week, the 22nd week of the year, I am thankful for the chance to set up the new Bluetooth speaker, the birthday gift from my best friends last Sunday. I had also finally submitted the claim for my wife, something that has been delayed for 3 months. I am thankful that I was able to go for hair cut on Monday. On Tuesday, it was my first Board of Examiners’ meeting where I learnt a lot. It was also the day I shared 8 things about me in my team’s staff meeting. On Wednesday, I had the chance to attend my Vice President’s all employee meeting and had 1-to-1 with my manager, both were insightful. By coincidence I remembered about an internal conference which has been converted into a virtual conference and broken down into West and East version. I managed to call in for all of the West version although I had another meeting in the first 30 minutes. I also called in the first 1 hour of the West version.

On Thursday I had a good meeting with my team and then listened to a good sharing from an external speaker on how to pick up Data Science together with practical challenges and a necessary reminder of the importance of the mathematics behind each modeling. I forgot a meeting at 5 pm thinking it would start at 5.30 pm. I was really grateful for my colleague to remind me. I was happy that I could do exercise and then joined the zoom meeting of my daughter’s pre-school. Thursday was challenging as I made a mistake of not checking my address when ordering for food delivery. It ended up the rider going to a block that is far away from my place and additional $2 because of that. But the real issue is not of that mistake, but deeper than that which is I was too busy that I neglect my family. On Friday, I had good staff meeting. But again I underestimated my two tasks, creating slides on regional performance and the report for early insights report. I promised to send during office hour, and then before 10 pm, only to send it at midnight. On Saturday, I was really grateful to God who shows us another impossible thing, my daughter finally is willing to wear face mask so that my wife and I could go out with her for the first time since her pre-school closed.

May this reflection does not stop here but continues to be a regular good habit by God’s grace.

The heart of the problem

It has been several months that I face this issue. It seems that I know well about the problem which is perfectionism and anger management. I also know how the vicious cycle works, namely doing nothing and then being angry or being angry so much resulting in doing nothing. There have been several strategies given such as stop being angry, do not run away and do the task regardless of the feeling. Three good habits have also been proposed, namely self-affirm every morning, plan the to-do lists one day in advance, and do the tasks in small amount of time such as 30 minutes. Then we have also considered about the importance of having enough rest and regular exercise. We also talked about finding ways to better prepare or make things less scary.

The question is that despite all of those, why is it still not working or the improvement is small?

It seems that the heart of the problem is not yet touched. There is this self-hatred consuming all the energy that make changes are difficult to happen.

The heart of the solution is then to have self-compassion. A conscious decision to love myself regardless of what happens. There is a question on why do we need to love ourselves. There are several possible answers. If not us, who will?; because we want to be happy; and ultimately because God first love us. This most probably won’t make things easier to solve. But it is the right thing to do and we need to embrace and practice self-compassion to address the self-hatred as the heart of the problem which hopefully will energize us to make the necessary changes.

Doing the right thing even when the feeling is not nice

I somehow has a misconception that a better feeling means a better quality of work. Also, it seems that I wait until I feel better before start doing. I need to separate them. Feeling better does not mean a better quality of work. It can cause over confidence that make us do things wrongly or carelessly. 

We also do not need to wait until we feel better before doing the right thing. In fact, doing the right thing may be the key to feel better. So let’s focus on doing the right thing even when the feeling is not supportive. 

I also received a text saying that trusting God in the light is nothing but trusting God in the darkeness is faith. I pray that even when the feeling is still not nice, I may take the courage and be brave to do things. To avoid running away from making decision. To remember that not deciding is also a decision with worse consequences. 

Aside from doing, let’s also be thankful even when we don’t feel like it. Count the blessings. Remember God’s abundant grace in our life. Admit that withoug God we can’t and without us God won’t. So let’s be brave and get back up every time I fall. Be confidence and take actions. 

What makes me love supply chain?

It is tough to learn and teach supply chain. So let’s ask why I love supply chain so that I continue to remember the reasons while navigating these difficulties.

I first learned about logistics and supply chain management in my fourth year first semester of my undergraduate study. I fell in love with the subject because it was so interesting thanks to Prof. Kumar and Prof. Jiao.

Three things I became passionate about supply chain: the broad knowledge in the supply chain, the disparity of people and the importance of supply chain to help them, and the closeness of it to our daily life.

Supply chain is a cross-disciplinary concerted efforts to optimize many tangible industries. It is like economic subjects but drilled into the engineering aspect as the quality of the raw parts, the manufacturing process greatly influences the outcome.

The disparity of people: in Indonesia, we can see the large difference in prices between islands because of the different supply chain capabilities. In islands other than Java, the infrastructure is not well established and so the prices become much more expensive there. I was dreaming on how I can help the supply chain of products such as drugs that they become affordable for many people. The other parts are also during disaster. The effectiveness of the supply chain in channeling help such as clothes, food, drugs, and materials for re-building are crucial in saving many lives.

The closeness to our daily life: I chose mechanical engineering because I can see more clearly than the sytems in electrical engineering. So when I learned about supply chain that not only mechanical items are influenced by the supply chain but also food even those that are not produced using machine, I got excited. Even money is also greatly affected by supply chain process.

So yes, now is a tough time. The pressure may be high because this may be the last chance. But let’s enjoy this grace of learning and teaching and continue to remember why I love supply chain.

What makes me love working in Customer Satisfaction team?

In the past 1 month I have been dreading for work because of the consequences of delaying many action items. I am so stressed that it is hard to focus and to get things done. It becomes a vicious cycle. One of the recommended cures for procrastination is internal motivation. So let’s ask myself now what makes me love being in Customer Satisfaction team.

First, I like to help people. And so it made me sad if my company’s customers are not happy. I wish that I can do something for them that can solve their problems or prevent them having problems.

Second, I like to learn. In my previous role, my responsibility is to ignore issues if they are not related to my discipline. But now in Customer Satisfaction, every issue that customer faces become my issue. It is very stressful indeed to have so many issues where I have little expertise on them. Nevertheless, let’s remember that it is actually a unique experience where we can be exposed with many different problems that cause the dissatisfaction in the customers.

Third, this is exactly the job where I can learn my three areas of growth: technical presentation, prioritization skills, and ability to control my reactions. I need to learn to make many presentations in this job. I need to learn to prioritize and embrace the failure of wrong choices as long as I learn from them. I need to learn to be more self-composed instead of following my feelings.

So, although now things are very tough, remember of why I love this job.