Sept 6. 2014. Job satisfaction and No job satisfaction

My first week of online class was left undone. I slowly and hesitantly logged into the courseplus website. Oh, finally, I am taking my 2^nd year classes! To tell the truth, worrying was the first thing I did when I begin looking at the syllabus. How do I both work and study at the same time? There were no more required classes any more, but I wanted to study more. Did I have ever taken the classes truly for me? Actually, not really. Pressing for time, requirement, and exam, I have always had a superficial knowledge of public health. During my undergraduate as well. Whenever exams were finished, I immediately forgot everything that I studied. I do not like the situation that I have been studying for grade, not for truly myself. I feel like I still know nothing about public health. Since my coursework was done and practicum is going to the final destination, it is time for me to enrich my internal stability. I have to have my field of specialization, so it might be the best time for me now to enjoy study for my knowledge.  

However, I let out a sigh unconsciously… The grade anyway would follow me, and I would feel pressure of that. I am now Public Health Informatics (PHI) certificate candidate, so all 21 credits of required classes should be taken as letter grades. For the 1^st term, there is only one class, “Introduction to Biomedical and Public Health Informatics” to take as a PHI requirement. To my great delight, my colleagues, Nicole and Mingfan were doing PHI certificate as well. I also saw Xi was taking this course. All right, my in-class classmates have just come back to take the same online class and we meet again on online this time. I needed to be remotivated to study; thankfully, their existences were great encouragement to me. I bravely added two more classes just for fun(!?), “Current Issues in Public Health,” and “Nutrition and Growth in Maternal and Child Health,” and worried too long that if I would finish all of them well in two months. Okay, no more thought from now. The dice has been thrown.

I have not imagined I would able to take online classes in Africa. But there are some challenges. To join LiveTalk held in Baltimore between 5:30pm and 7:00pm EST, I would have to stay up until 2am here in Tanzania. Internet speed was not also guaranteed, and the download or streaming is at a snail's pace. Also, mosquitoes and mice were kindly with me anytime in the office. During this first term, I would change my locations - different African countries - a few more times, and I do not know what other Internet conditions I would encounter in the future. It has flashed across my mind that this working condition would be one factor of job dissatisfaction. According to Frederick Herzberg, “The opposite of job dissatisfaction is not job satisfaction, but no job dissatisfaction.” It took for a long time for me to understand what that meant when I first read it. In other words, there is a clear dichotomy that people’s satisfaction and dissatisfaction toward the job are totally different area. The factors that satisfy people are intrinsic motivators, such as achievement, recognition, work itself, responsibility, advancement, and growth. Whereas, the factors that contribute to job dissatisfaction are hygiene factors, such as company policy and administration, supervision, relationship with supervisor, work conditions, salary, relationship with peers and subordinates, and security.

I am motivated to work in Africa because I feel myself I am growing up more and achieving my goal as a public health student. Working for maternal, newborn, and child health and having responsibility that I was given was also a great driving force for me to keep working. For hygiene factors, relatively poor working conditions, no salary, security problem are likely to demotivate me. Sometimes, I felt that I was lost because the level or frequency of supervision was different from what I had expected. Luckily, those intrinsic motivators far outweigh hygiene factors, so I like to live in Africa. 

Some people only worry about difficulties of being in Africa, but I believe there are way more wonderful learning experiences that would enable us to overcome those problems. I might have been simply complained my working conditions, like “Oh, I don’t have running water!” “Oh, there are so many bugs!” “Oh, there is no electricity…” However, if I differed in thought, all of them would teach me very important life lessons. I realized I have already had everything here. Even if the Internet speed is not fast, I am just very thankful for taking online class here. I hope that those hygiene factors would not act as my dissatisfaction any more; rather, it would reborn again as another type of satisfaction so that even poor condition would motive me to achieve my goal more stronger.

<One More Time: How do you motivate employees?> by Frederick Herzberg. - Harvard Business Review.