Office Boy
My 2nd public speech as part of ToastMaster program titled 'Office Boy'
In a nutshell - i will tell yall 'why' ?
Barely 7 months after joining in the Contact Centre, the management informed that there's another Centre opened in Malta, and half of the work will be transferred to there.
Hence, they have decided to stop most of us from picking up the call and asked them to look for other opportunities in the organization.
So while waiting for new opportunities, i decided to do the menial tasks around in the office, such as Photostatting, Shredding and Arranging files, as I didn't want to sit idle and get paid for nothing. I would be walking around, and asking other managers if there's any tasks that i can help with.
And that proactiveness attitude of mine had attracted the contact centre's HR manager and she reached out to me and asked me if i am interested in data inputting. And i replied ' say no more', i am already interested (like how Flash replied when Batman asked him to join JL) I really bonded well with the rest of the team and they took care of me like i was their lil bro.
One fine day, one of the AVP from the contact centre dropped by and was chit chatting with HR manager. Upon seeing me, he called me out - 'hey office boy, how are you' . I was really taken back with that remark and speechless. The HR manager quickly jump into the discussion and probed on the reason why he called me' office boy'
He replied' yea la, this guy is the office boy in here, doing all these menial tasks and being paid as contact centre agent' and HR manager quickly backed me up and demanded to stop with the name calling.
The damage was done and i felt very demotivated and hurt. I am not sure how this incident travel faster than spread of wildfire. Most of my contact centre colleagues had started calling me 'Office Boy' and the worst part, some of them are my good friends.
Honestly, i felt hurt, but I didn't react to the name calling. Instead, i took it as an inspiration. Knowing that i will make it one day. The title' office boy' stuck for few years, despite i had laterally moved to another department within an year.
I kept my eyes on the prize , even though i felt dead inside. I kept moving on and striving , despite being stuck in the same position for 6 years. My victory came after more than six years of uncertainty. Got promoted to Assistant Manager role and there were times that I used to attend 20 internal interview in a year.
When you feel the entire world is against you, and when people around tries to demotivate you and even your closed ones think that it is time to call it quit. Remember this, you cant quit until you decide to call it quit. Until then, keep going on and keep winning.
The sky is not the limit, and now i can fly thru any weather.
And if you ask me now, if i am ok with being called as 'Office Boy'. Hell yea, i am probably the highest paid office boy in the world.
