Expertise in The 21st Century Modern Workplace

               

             As Paul J. Meyer mentioned, “Communication - the human connection - is the key to personal and career success”. It is surprised that with the presence and assistance of abundant science and technology means, multiple unexpected problems, errors in operations or even accidents appear to take place in the 21^st century modern workplace, which seem to not promoting, but deceasing the productivity and efficiency of the workers or employees. In view of this paradoxical situation in contemporary workplace, one of the major contributing factors may lie on the ineffective or lack of communication skills possessed by the employees. Undeniably, communication skills are an essential component of a productive workplace, allowing employees to work together cohesively and professionally. Yet, such soft skills are most likely to be ignored or neglected both during the time as a student as well as in the real working environment. Without effective communication routes, there is a high possibility for all kinds of errors to arise, regardless of the level of advanced infrastructures available. In solving this particular issue, improving the employee communication skills through series of trainings and behavior crediting or modeling might give a company a competitive edge. Introducing the fundamentals of good communication, including listening skills, the concept of encoding and sending information interpersonally or impersonally, to any new employees during the initial training program and frequent team-building programs seem to be the most basic mode of action to be enforced. To motivate the employees in long term, communication skills can be further included as a major aspect in performance appraisals in the company, in which incentive awards are encouraged to be associated to enhance the attention focused by them on the often neglected communication aspects. Despite incentive, a better form of award might be promoting those effective communicators into supervisory positions, which seems to also, set the tone in a company by motivating the employees to model the effective communication skills.       

Researching – Physical or Virtual World?

          

           Have you ever experienced getting lost in the shelves of books or have yourself buried in the dozens of pages of reference books through days and nights searching for relevant materials for assignments? Otherwise, are you the one that experience more frequent of surfing the web blindly or end yourself in a confused state, holding multiple sources of supporting materials and busy evaluating which to be use? Conducting research is a task that is closely associated with a student’s life, regardless of which course you are pursuing and almost every single moment, new academic or research papers are produced and published. Have you ever read any academic papers and wondered where on earth that the authors are able to obtain such concrete evidences, examples or convincing information that are able to persuade you to trust the results of the studies conducted? Undeniably, a credible research stems from and is backed up by credible sources of information and at the stage of being a college or university student, the two most common sites to obtain resources for research projects are the physical library and virtual world of internet. Now, let us evaluate both the pros and cons of each source.

            From a more physical and surface aspect, the cost-concern and environmental factors play a major role in determining the types of source a student would choose to find information from. As we have come to understand, library is the traditional place to conduct research for an academic work, whereby it contain a large collection of books, periodicals and printed journals, that provide the students with the opportunity to read hardcopies of the reference materials instead of being extensively exposed to harmful radiation while researching online, which may destroy the eyesight and cause dyspepsia. However, what if you are bound by the operation hour of the library but you need to bring home some information in certain books or journals, which you cannot borrow or can borrow only for few hours, for further research? Then, you would need to make a copy of those pages with the photocopy machine in the library where you require information from, which can be extremely costly sometimes as you need to secure information from not only one books or single pages but multiple sources in the library. In contrast to that, internet will be a better choice in this context because internet provides you to surf through millions of webpages and you can simply bookmarks the pages of information that you feel to be needed and even highlight the important points in the documents or files downloaded from internet. Also, in view of the environmental-concern issues, we, students are taught to be more environmental friendly and conserving paper by limiting printing or photocopying is one of the essential ways.

            Next, the easiness and efficiency of accessing and obtaining the desired information is a factor to be considered as well. Students’ life is bombarded with multiple assignments at a time and the time factor judged by how quickly and effortlessly the desired or targeted information can be found will greatly affect a student’s choice of the sources of information they long to use. In view of the source of library, knowledgeable and friendly librarians are available to assist with locating information in person, chat, e-mail or telephone. A student can request assistance at the beginning of your research and spare valuable time spent on the Internet, being confused by too much information depicted simply by typing a key word. We even have things called “OPAC” in either school or public libraries where students can easily locate the books they wish to find through the library own digital computation system. Unfortunately, the downside of library is that most of the librarian todays are lack of the responsibility and readiness to lend a helping hand to students in locating the information they want and the OPAC search engine are not being kept up-to-date to provide assistance to the students. In contrast to that, internet is a powerful searching engine in which, just by typing the keywords of topics of research, one will get uncountable sources of information online. The tools available for college students online include multiple thesaurus, dictionary, grammar and study guides, and research databases. E-mail, social networking sites, online forum, and social media, such as educational video, are also channels available online which allows students to exchange or discuss opinion and information obtained simply by sharing the link or copying and pasting the raw data to filter and obtain the most accurate and relevant information.

            On reviewing the two factors mentioned above, it is seemed that internet has appeared to be a more outstanding source of information for students, yet, the third factor of reliability explains why such wonderful virtual world of supply of information cannot substitute a physical library. Printed materials are more credible in the sense that all the authors and publishers of the books or journal studies are clearly stated and can be cited as strong evidence while presenting an academic paper. In contrast to that, information on the internet is hard to tell who’s telling you what and where is the location of the information. When you use information in your paper from the Internet, you may appear to find that most of the sources you cited from are anonymous or unknown of the authors. Though this is allowed in citation and reference of an academic paper, your work of studies or investigation will later appear to be less credible or reliable. 

 

            The debate over which method of research is better, either through a physical library or the virtual Internet remains a negotiable. Some students find it easier to conduct their research in a library because they can physically search through a reference source instead of having to search it digitally. Others are more comfortable working on online materials when they are conducting research since it is more convenient and environmental friendly. In short, both sources of information have their pros and cons and cannot be substituted by one another. 

My So-Called Adulthood: Top 10 Crisis in The Problematic Transition

Chronologically, a span of life between twelve and eighteen years welcomes the most wonderful period of age for “being young and youthful” and concludes with maturity of early adulthood. To aid in adaption to the challenges and growing responsibility burden in future adulthood, the years of adolescence, which is often known as a time of “stress and storm”, prepare us well by exposing us to numerous contexts in reality, change in perceptions, authority and freedom issues, and most importantly, own emotional responses in different situations. It is clearly shown that with the onset of puberty, an adolescent is challenged to make a number of adjustments to conform into the society.  

Now, let’s check out the top ten crises that our adorable youth need to undergo during the process of conforming to their peers, family, and general public’s interaction and expectation for them while maintaining their own identity! See how relevant is it applying to your children or you – teenagers who are reading this article.       

Crisis No. 1: Lappy Lagging

“Oh my God, why are you so ‘lag’?” It is common for teenagers today to engage in such self-talk session with their laptops or computers, especially when they are rushing their assignments or school tasks. The slowing of the response time definitely lead to a muscle-tension in teenagers especially when the laptops “lag” until they cannot move the cursor but to force shut down and restart the laptop again. That is the moment where they question why the laptop cannot function as efficient as how it was while first being purchased.

Suggested Solution: Do not download or install free softwares online which carry “TROJAN” that causes your laptops’ function to decease.  

Crisis No. 2: Planning Fallacy

“I thought I can finish on time!” The unrealistic optimism of the teenagers often lead them to a tendency of believing that they can get more work done in a given period of time than they actually can. Therefore, they tend to procrastinate and delay their work until the last minute, while indulging in the positive illusion or convincement that they can finish the assigned tasks in few hours’ time and they should be confident about their abilities. Such overoptimistic predictions always make them have difficulty of meeting deadlines, causing extensive stress.

Suggested Solution: Always look backward in time to see how long similar tasks took in the past and be more realistic in future estimation of time for completing the task.    

Crisis No.3: Resisting Temptation  

“McDonalds, Sushi King, Starbucks – I’m loving it” but would the problems of meeting the budget of the month ever make you hold a step back before entering those shop lots? Teenagers are bombarded with dozens of temptation each day, especially where food is concern as seemed their stomachs bottomless pit. “What is the point of living if you do not enjoy food now?” Such statement often leads to insatiable desires which burn the pocket of the young without them realizing.

      

Suggested Solution: Come out with a budget list planning of the month to balance between the input pocket money and output spends on desired food. Postpone the wish-to-have meal to next month if over-budget.     

Crisis No. 4: Counterfeit Omniscient

“I know…I came across this…I get what you mean.” Omniscient is one who perceived to have great and unlimited boundary of knowledge. Teenagers tend to act if they know everything that their parents, teachers and most commonly seen - their peers talking about, even though most of the time they don’t. Such behaviour is pursued automatically to obtain the attention, affirmation and good impression of others towards them, for they believe that this stems and represents a good interaction with all. Pretending to “know” can be rather stressful for them as they might feel they are not themselves.

Suggested Solution: Learn to say “I don’t know” while asking for guidance of others humbly and take action to build up general knowledge which enhances interaction.

Crisis No. 5: Self-shot Syndrome

“One more shot, please!” Surrounded by camwhore peers, teenagers would undeniably conform to the influence and trend of taking and posting photos online to get attention of not only the peers but general publics. They tend to have think that even if their looks are just “so-so” in reality, with the advancement of technology nowadays, like the photo editing tools, and the good skills of self-shooting, by catching the nicest angle of own looks, they can at least look nice in the photos. Self-shooting is becoming an essential skill that seems to associate with every teenager and it somehow causes inferiority for those who possess a poor skill in this aspect.

Suggested Solution: Do not be shy to ask help from your peers and rehearse repeatedly to train up your skills. Practise makes perfect.     

Crisis No. 6: Nomophobia

“Where the hell is my phone?” Living in a cellphonic society where losing one’s phone is perceived to be more dramatic than losing one’s virginity, people are at a relatively-high potential risk of engaging in such psychological-concerned syndrome, that is nomophobia – fearing of having the mobile phone out-of-sight. It is a navigable myth of the reasons with some saying that they cannot afford to lose such an expensive cellphone while others fear of losing contact with others or are just too indulge in the games of their smartphones.

Suggested Solution: Buy a cheap 1950’s Nokia phone instead of a costly smartphone which strike your fear of losing it. Learn that there are a lot of people in real around you and it is extremely hard for you to lose contact with others. Channel your addiction to games in smartphones to other beneficial academic or cocurricular activities.    

Crisis No. 7: “Like” Urging

“Let see, how many ‘Like’ has I got?” Nowadays, instead of focusing on likeableness of others in face-to-face daily interaction, teenagers are urging for a virtual and vague form of affirmation by simply viewing the amount of “Like” given by others on the most popular social networking site – that is Facebook. They tend to have the perception that the amount of “Like” clicked by others reflects how popular one is in the social circle and it can be quite inferiority-striking when a teenager is comparing and competing with other peers who sometimes getting more amount of “Like” simply because they post more statuses or confirm more number of friends on Facebook.  

Suggested Solution: This is just a matter to do with the teenagers’ cognition and false perception. Do understand that likeableness during face-to-face interaction is more important and realistic than worrying over the abstract “Like”-ableness on Facebook with people you sometimes do not ever meet.

Crisis No. 8: Friends-Dating

“We are just friends.” It can be quite tiring to build on a strong and intimate friendship with the opposite sex peers, especially when a scandal starts spreading among the ingroup friends which your explanation about the relationship just fall on deaf ears of the friends. The process of defending and clarifying can be somehow exhausting and frustrating. This can even happen among same-gender friends-date sometimes in the homosexual-prominent society. Yet, self-disclosure is a good way of enhancing friendship and it is best to be carried out during a one-to-one friends-dating.     

Suggested Solution: Bear in mind that we cannot control others’ mouth and speech and just continue to date with your friends if you feel comfortable to be with him or her.

Crisis No. 9: Keratin Upkeeping

“Wow, nice manicure and new hairstyle”. Instead of paying attention to the face which is frequently exposed to pimples-attack due to hormonal change that is out of the teenagers’ control, they focus on their nails and hairstyles, which are synthesized by tertiary protein called keratin in the body, by ensuring they are up-to-date. Failing to match the nail-polished design with clothes worn or suitable hairstyles that fit the shape of the face can be a form of stressor for the teens.

Suggested Solution: Read and surveyed through the abundant fashion magazines in the markets to do some homework before you deciding for a certain haircut that suit you. Go for simple manicure courses or simply interact with peers to acquire new skills of designing the nails. 

Crisis No. 10: Mindfulness-Lacking

"I don't know whether it's me or the world around me that has gone wrong". Teenagers are often indulging in the cycle of stressful and problematic consequences caused by the above nine crises by attributing the incidents or problems faced to external factors or others’ fault. As a result, they end up trapping themselves in the same problems regardless of how they struggle to change the situation.

Suggested Solution: Acknowledge and do take time to reflect your own behaviors and thoughts which lead you to the crisis. Meditation can be a good alternative in this context. Finally, transform your thoughts into actions to eliminate the crisis eternally.