What I’ll Never Trade Off

I remember taking a class one time on entrepreneurship and all of that stuff and the teacher made a statement that has stuck with me till today. He said ‘everything is negotiable’. And when you look at things this way, a lot changes for you.

A while back, a friend of mine got a job offer but didn’t like the pay because it wasn’t even going to be able to transport him to and from work. So I told him the same thing this teacher told us. He went back, negotiated and got a better deal. Life’s sort of actually easier when you know that you can always negotiate things and drive them to work for you. If they don’t, you can just walk away cos you’re not going to and even supposed to inconvenience yourself for the benefit of another person.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve negotiated so many things down to the tiniest detail because why not. Especially in my work life, I’ve negotiated my way out of so many things and even to think that I negotiate my work schedule is funny. But you’ve got to do what works for you. That’s what I believe in.

In the midst of all these negotiations, there’s always that one thing that I do not negotiate on or compromise and that quality. In anything that I do, I make sure to deliver to the highest standards. Because what you do and how you do it defines you in a way. I’ve work on projects with people who at some point in time wanted us to take the easy way out. It’s always oh, why don’t we just do this and get it over with. Do we really need to go and see if with p it eyes, we can just send someone. But hey, all these don’t work for me because I believe in giving out the best.

I mean, what’s the essence of negotiating my work terms when I’m not even able to provide quality services? It’s more like I’m a fraud and my conscience wouldn’t let me do that. So, as much as I love to get work done as quickly as possible, quality it’s what matters to me. If it’s going to take the whole day, or two or even a week, I’m always ready to put in the work because I wouldn’t want to always have to be looking over my shoulders in case someone came across something I intentionally left out.

Call it stubborn, I call it integrity. In a way, quality and integrity go hand in hand because only someone with integrity would be so conscious enough and keen on quality.

---

all images belong to me.

---