You're Not Busy

                   

I recently read one article that “You’re not busy, you’re just rude” from internet and it made me thought whether I was really busy or I was just saying my time was more important than your time. 

Actually throughout my career, I loved to say that I was busy to my friends, my family, my colleagues and my relatives. Why? Because I felt like once I said Busy, it made everyone saw me as I was successful and had so many things to do in my hand. There were several email that I didn’t reply on time three years ago. I was waiting the time that people followed up. I loved to be followed up which I now think it was shameful. Sometimes, agency sent two emails to confirm something they were doing. But I didn’t reply on time and my reason was simple, “I was busy”. When the deadline was eventually missed, I blamed agency for not following up as serious matter. 

Now with this article, I would like to apologize for my arrogant behavior to those I used to say I was busy. Actually nobody was really busy. It’s their priority. Whenever you said you’re busy, you were saying that your time was more important than anyone else’s. It’s a rude behavior. I couldn’t remember how long I put on hold when my family wanted me to be with them at home. I couldn’t remember how long I put on hold when my friends wanted to see me at our regular hangout place, when my colleagues wanted to talk to me, when my friends wanted me to listen to their problems, happiness, when my grandma wanted to talk to me.

I was rude. I was behaving so rude for four years by saying that I was busy to the people who needed me. I am sorry for saying that word. And it’s also showing that I couldn’t manage my time very efficiently and I was not that productive. 

So, after I read that article I decided not to say I was busy. Yeah, sometimes, I was busy. For example, like while I was preparing one report or reading through one proposal which I needed to give my opinion right away, my colleagues came to my desk and tried to say something. At that time, I said “Hey, I was kind of busy as I was working on something which I needed to send email right away, so how about I came to your desk after I have done? I bet not more than 10 minutes.” 

Then after I have done on what I was working on, I went to their desk and asked what would they tell me. I even tried to reply all the emails on time. I couldn’t stand messy email box where all the emails were chasing me to reply. If there were several emails in my mail box, I saw myself I was not productive. So, I tried to reply every email on time. If I had to do some analysis to reply one email, I put that email was in reminder list and reply after I did research. 

Whenever I met someone who said they were busy, I wanted to share that article that I read to them. People have their priority and once you said you’re busy to someone, you were saying that that person was not in your priority list. It’s truth. It might be bitter to read this. But it is true that you were rude. 

In corporate world especially in multinational company, most of the employees couldn’t manage their time so well. I used to work with one colleague whose daughter was about to start the school back in June, he told me that his daughter wanted him to send her to school on her first day. But he also had important meeting at office on that morning. I said “Send your daughter to the school, it’s her first day. She will remember how her parents supported her on her first day at school. When I was young, my dad never sent me to school. He barely picked me up from school too. So, I didn’t have that memory to think about how I waved my dad before I went into the school compound. So, just go and I can attend the meeting instead of you. I got your back. Your family is the most important thing. Nothing else matters.” By helping him makes me happy too. Of cos I had to attend the meeting where people were discussing by the language that I didn’t understand. But I was happy. Cos I pictured how his daughter was happy to see his daddy before she started the big step.

About three years ago, my mom called me when I was in the meeting. She called me around 8 PM, but I was still in the meeting. She said she was sick and wanted me to come back early. I said I was in the meeting and couldn’t come back until 10 PM. I heard she started blaming me with low voice. So, I hanged up the call because I knew that she was not sick. But she wanted the emotional support from me. She wanted to see her daughter to ask how was her day. But I didn’t ask. During that time, I focused on my career like a blind person. Nothing was as important as my career. I also didn’t want to make an excuse to leave the meeting room earlier than anybody else. But in that meeting, I was not the important person and most of the time, they were discussing by the language that I didn’t understand too. So, I could make an excuse. But I didn’t. I am ashamed of myself now for not going back early to stay my mom side.

I always ditched my grandmother who loved me uncondionally. I saw her missed calls when I was at work. But I returned the call every 5 missed call. I was super rude and I couldn’t believe that she was still loving me. She is 82 years old now. So, I tried to call her every week and asked my mom if she had contact with my grandma or she was fine or how was her health almost every day. 

As working in corporate world, I got meeting notice at 6:30 PM before I left office which would hold at 7 PM. So, I asked the person who sent meeting notice to find out what was the meeting about. If I didn’t have anything to present or if the topic they were about to discuss were not related to my work, I skipped it. I told HR that I couldn’t show up because I had the plan. When one of my colleagues told me to have meeting at 7 PM, I said “I always wake up 5:30 AM every morning. So 7 PM is not my productive hour for me. I’d rather have meeting at day time where I can put more than 100%.” He looked at me strangely but he said “It’s fine. Thanks for telling me this. I can arrange the meeting at other time.” 

My colleagues are so nice. They understand my situation and they respect me. After I read several articles about busy, I tried to say that I was not that busy most of the time. So, when someone asked me if I was busy, I said “Kind of but it’s ok. We can talk” or if I was really working on close deadline project, I said “I’ll get back to you once I’ve done this thing.”

“Nobody is really busy! It is their priorities.” That is bloody true. I also asked myself whether I liked if someone told me that they were busy and couldn’t give their time when I needed them the most. I found that I didn’t like it. So, I am sure every human being will not like if someone tells them that they are busy and cannot give time to them. Then we should stop saying that we are busy.