I have often been told by my mom I am a patient person. “I don’t think I have the patience like yours to complete a 2000-piece jigsaw puzzle.” She’d say. So that’s what I’ve always thought – I am a patient person.

Until I was slammed with the difficult truth. I am not a patient person. Perhaps it has something to do with age??? It turned out I am not patient at all and I think one of the main reasons I am impatient is because I am a fast learner. I learn fast and expect others to learn just as fast.

I began working at my current job as an accounting representative and billing agent in 2018. In 2019, the department determined it was short-staffed so it hired a new person to help me with my work and I would be the one to train that person. To be honest, that person wasn’t good at the job and I was too overloaded with my own work to sit next to this person all day to watch her rinse and repeat each task a dozen times before she fully grasped the procedure and order of operation.

This person quit after 2 months – citing she had family issues to deal with – leaving me with a pile of work to sort through, make sure it was done correctly while fixing the ones with errors. It was a lot of work. In fact, I’m still in the process of fixing her errors almost two years later.

A few months later, while we, as a department, were having our lunch out of the office, celebrating one of my colleague’s birthday, someone asked, “Did you know (insert person’s name) wanted to punch you in the face?”

“Me? Why?” I said, shocked.

“She said you were impatient with her and that you were a horrible trainer.”

“Well, that’s because she didn’t really know much and we have our own work. We can’t just sit there watching her do work every second of every day.” Another colleague stood up for me. I was grateful for that but deep down, I knew I was a horrible trainer. I kind of knew I am impatient but to be told that by someone else put me in perspective.

Looking back, my impatience was probably the reason I never succeeded in launching my teaching career because my expectations from my students’ were too high as well as I failed to give my students the time needed to grasp the concepts I taught them.

I must remember: Not all people learn at the speed of sound. Some needs more time than others.

Theme: Of all the things I am

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