TAKING A STAND

My brother has transferred jobs twice in three years. And he's looking to transferring to another office again before the year ends. What's up with that? Does he think that looks good in a resume? And what about corporate loyalty? Is it really dead?

Maybe not so. I talked with my mom about what's happening with baby brother and I learned something new about my brother which I never thought he had in him. My brother takes a stand for what he believes in. And if it means losing his job, no matter how good the pay is, he'll go ahead takes a stand on things.

His first job was as a call agent in one of the biggest call centers in Manila. After a year, he was promoted to team leader. He wasn't exactly popular among the other agents. Hindi daw marunong makisama. He took his job seriously, as anybody should, and it seems that this trait earned him the respect of his superiors. One day, two of his subordinates asked permission to go on overtime. He agreed. But when he went back to the office a couple of hours later, he found out they didn't go on overtime at all. When he reported this to the operations manager, it turned out that the two guys were buddies with the operations manager and the ops manager would rather not do anything about it. He elevated the issue to operations director. When the ops manager found out about it, pinag-initan nya brother ko. He later resigned because he was having such a hard time at work.

His second job was as a customer service manager for a Philippine-based Japanese firm which deals with call cards in Japan. Six months into the job, he uncovered a scam in the company. Some managers who had access to the PIN numbers on the call cards were selling them outside company channels and were pocketing the money for themselves. He informed the head office about this and some managers were fired. After that, he thought everything would return to normal. He was wrong. For some unknown reason, he would find his car with the tires blown, he would find threats of physical harm emailed or pasted to his car, that sort of stuff. Fed up, he left the company.

I was so surprised when I learned this from mom. I never thought my brother had this in him. I felt ashamed because all the while I thought he wasn't taking his work seriously, and was quick to blame this attitude on him whenever we would find ourselves arguing. Bro, salute ako sa yo. I'm sure dad is proud of you as well.

THE VIEW FROM MY WINDOW

You may like them, but I find clouds a little bit too freaky. I mean, they're cute too look at. It may even draw you into a pensive mood, but not me. Clouds make me feel like some sort of psychic freak.

Ever since I can remember, I always thought I can make clouds form into shapes just by willing them to do so. I can spend hours just looking at them and telling them what shape I want them to make into.

So here, on the 11th floor of my condo, I'm seeing big fluffy fish. Lots of them.

A MEME FOR TODAY...

1. My sofa is the most used piece of furniture in my house.

2. The one electronic 'gadget' that I use most often is my PDA.
3. My favorite appliance, and the one I absolutely cannot live without is the espresso machine.
4. One thing that I thought I just HAD to have at one time, and I now barely ever use, is my sandwich maker.
5. I find it easiest to keep in touch with family and friends via SMS.
6. I own more cd's (or other music media) than I do underwear.
7. All my important addresses are stored in/on my PDA.
8. If I had to live without TWO keys on my keyboard, I would choose Z and V.
9. I probably own about 2 pieces of software that I haven't used in years.
10. There are a few food items that I try NEVER to run out of, and those would be Cerveza Negra, Granny Goose Cheese Tortillos, uncooked pasta, and pesto sauce.

FRIDAY FIVE

Quickly, without giving it too much thought, write down five things you can see from where you are sitting. Now, tell us five things about each of those five things.

1. An industrial fan - We bought this fan a long time ago, while we were still living in Cavite. The living room in our house then was small, and everytime we turn this fan on, it makes this droning sound that after makes you want to turn the fan off. Problem is, during the summer, it gets really hot inside. So, it's either we suffer from the heat or suffer from a headache due to the sound the fan makes. My wife would rather have a headache. Now that we've moved to a bigger place, we use this fan to drive air outside the condo unit, especially after we cook something smelly, like dried fish.

2. Disc holder - We have two. One for my wife, where we keep all of our DVD's. The other one is mine, where I keep all of my PS2 games. We bought these when we figured out that it doesn't make sense keeping the DVD cases from the movies we buy. They're too bulky. In the case of PS2's, if you keep stressing the hole, you'd end up with a bad disc. Don't ask me, I don't know why. All I know is that ever since I started keeping my PS2 discs in the jacket, I never had a game go bad since. Which reminds me, I need to buy two more of these soon because we're running out of slots fast.

3. My laptop bag - Big, black, and bulky. This is my life. All of my work is in there. Since I move around from one office to another, I have to keep most of my important documents in there. In fact, this is where I keep my passport. I probably won't be placed in a situation where I have to leave the country immediately and just bring this bag along, unless of course I kill someone, but it's good that I'm prepared. Some of the things I keep in the bag: a pack of condoms, a pack of cigarettes, pens I get from hotel rooms, among others. My wife gave me her laptop bag, which is bulkier, but I still haven't found time to transfer my stuff in there.

4. Ashtray - I know I can't smoke inside the house but I can't help it. Especially when I'm working. When we bought this ashtray, we didn't really mean to use it as an ashtray. It was supposed to be a non-flammable platform for burning scented candles. But now that we've outgrown our fascination for scented candles, and most of the time I just find this lying around somewhere, I've given it new life by using it as what it was made for.

5. My duffel bag - This was given to me by my team from Arizona as a goodbye gift. We use it for short out of town trips in the province or when we sleep over in my sister-in-law's place. It's big bright Intel blue, and has lots of pockets. It even has a special pocket for putting your soiled shoes, which makes it really nifty as a gym bag. Not that I ever go to the gym...

Quick ones...
Just ripped EBTG's Alfie into MP3. Who wants a copy?
It's a Friday! Yehey! Have a great weekend!!

LET'S GO SOMEWHERE

I can't remember the last time we went on a vacation. Ever since my wife transferred to her new job, we've been stuck in the city. For one thing, she doesn't get any paid vacation leaves for her first year on the job. That means not only do we have to shell out money for the vacation, we're actually gonna lose more money because she doesn't get paid for the days she doesn't go to work. Another thing is, where do we go? Baguio? Boracay?

For the past couple of days or so, I notice that she's been dropping hints that we go somewhere. I know she wants to get physically far away from the office. Her boss, from what I gather, seems to be one big oaf who doesn't know jack about what he's supposed to be doing. She showed me his resume last night and frankly, I don't even know why he was interviewed for the job. But I'm pretty sure he'll get booted out one of these days. And when that happens, they're gonna look at my wife to take over. And if that happens, she'll get more stressed out and then we really have to go somewhere.

Hong Kong would be nice. I wonder when Disneyland is opening there? Australia. Now there's Fox Studios there. That would be interesting to visit. Bali, Phuket? Not with the recent bombing in Jakarta. Hay...

ALMOST NAKED

I love Wednesday mornings. After my Malaysian manager realized that there's simply no way I can reach the office at 8:30 because of color coding, we came to an agreement that yes, I can work from home on Wednesdays but I have to go to the office in case something comes up that needs my personal attention. No problem, I can do that.

So for almost half a year now, my Wednesday routine will be to wake up at 8 to have breakfast with the wife, kiss her goodbye at 8:30, then fire up the laptop and have email up and running by 9am. I still don't have DSL at home, but at dialup speed of 49kbps, it sure beats working at the office where at best, I would get only 21kbps.

Now I'm a guy who likes sleeping in my underwear at night. And for some particular reason, I didn't bother changing into house clothes this morning. So there I was, working in my underwear. There's really something interesting about firing off an email to my hot and sexy customer service manager wearing only my briefs, but that's for another day.

Then I had the urge to make another cup of coffee. Two tablespoons of ground beans, half a cup of water, and soon the first couple of drops of espresso was flowing into my mug. Then I looked outside.

I'm living on the 11th floor of my condo, and the other tower is like spitting distance from mine. And there she was, looking at me curiously. She was a middle-aged woman, also in her underwear, but she looked like she was dressing up. We both kinda looked at each other curiously in a non-malicious sort of way, then just smiled. She finished dressing up, blouse and skirt and all; and I topped off my espresso with frothed milk. Then I went back to work.

A MARGARITA AFTERNOON

I was exchanging text messages with a friend yesterday afternoon. She's a friend from college, we took the same course. Although we weren't batchmates, we had a couple of subjects that we took together. Being the sucker that I am, I had the mistake of interpreting our closeness as friends as being something more. But we recovered from that and we're quite close up to now.

She said she wanted to meet up and talk. I could sense that there was something more. I knew she's getting married soon, so I thought it could probably be wedding jitters, and she wanted to talk to someone married to know what getting married is really like. Hah! As if I really know!

We were supposed to meet in Starbucks, but at the last minute sa Dencio's na lang daw. I was 15 minutes late and when I got there, she was already midway into our first of five pitchers of margarita. Hot Tuesday afternoon, icy margarita... what the heck!

Turns out the fiance was screwing somebody else. But you see, their setup was disturbing from the very beginning. They've been going out for more than five years but they've never had sex before. At least, she has never had sex with him. But she's okay with him having sex with women he meets in bars, women he pays to screw him, women who wants to have sex with him. But my friend... nope, she's never banged him. Ever. And now she finds out that he's screwing his best friend, who's very close to her now, and who has even offered to cater for their wedding. How weird can that be? At this point, I'm thinking... whatadude! WhataLUCKYdude!!!

So I was an Ate Helen for one afternoon. I wasn't really talking a lot. Must be because it was hot and I was drinking the margarita as if it were fruit juice. But every now and then and I'd butt in and her all excited again. I'm a bad friend. I like seeing people get angry. Then she thought out loud that she wanted to get even. Kailangan akong gumanti, hayop sya!!! Then she gives me this look. Me? Want to get even with him by banging me? Oh yeah!!

Then I knew I was thinking with tequila bubbles in my head when I said, wag na lang. Pag-isipan mo na lang kung gusto mo talagang pakasalan yun. Can you live it? Can you sleep at night without him by your side and not think that he's screwing someone else? But I will not be drunk by then, and you have my number, so please call me.