M.O.B. Mentality - My Managerial & Organizational Behavior

At some point this morning, I realized I was staring at the screen and not moving. Just staring. Not registering anything before my eyes. Hypnotized by the bright glare of the screen and coasting along into nothingness.

I should add that the heat was turned off on our floor this morning due to construction. I shivered in place and recoiled into myself to conserve energy.

I won't lie and say and that I don't lapse into such a state of unproductivity occasionally. That fact, combined with my Managerial & Organizational Behavior (M.O.B) course, has forced me to adopt a M.O.B mentality and consider the following:

What kind of worker am I? What work environments/conditions do I thrive in? Am I a better manager or leader?

Is anyone paying attention to whether or not I turn into one? Am I?

Am I potentially an accidental success? Will someone randomly pull out the rug from under me and leave me wondering where I went wrong?

Is there any room for this kind of deep introspection in an academic, health/medical research environment that rests entirely on the whims of the National Institutes of Health?

I've come to consider myself to be a worker bee with a cavalier streak that no one could do anything about if they even noticed it.

I work because I like to work. I chose to work in this field because I want to make a contribution to public health and global justice. I work because I'm comfortable with a certain kind of lifestyle. But I also work because a job is a job, and I wonder if I will ever be able to stop viewing "work" as such and feel engaged in a career.

Why, you may ask. If you tally my blog hours, you might notice that I'm just a tad, a tad bit lonely during the workday. I work largely by myself on a research study whose Principal Investigator thankfully respects individual work styles and is insanely busy. This is a wonderful thing - but also a bit of solitary experience. After much thought, it struck me how much of my work in public health and non-profit sector has been this way.

How this will affect me professionally, I don't know. But it does make me wonder about the things I may have missed out on. That said, I can't say I regret having the opportunity to fulfill work responsibilities, read The Huffington Post & New York Times everyday, do homework during lunch, visit the drugstore in the afternoon (if necessary that is...), leave early for class, and get to work in 10 minutes the next morning.

It's likely that it won't, unless someone directly inquires about my organizational behavior and cavalier worker bee ways. Until then, I've taken it upon myself to focus on a new personal evolution, one with concrete goals and an enthusiasm it's taken me a long while to develop.

Thanks, Professor.