Call Each of These, "A Day"

In observance of the Philippine Labor Day, my original plan was to blog something about the Filipino workforce which should have been my first entry for May. However, my weekend turned out quite noteworthy hence could be a good excuse for yet the 2-paragraph draft of the Labor Day article.

Life indeed is full of surprises. With that I mean both pleasant and not-so-pleasant surprises. My recent experiences are like a seismogram showing pleasant-unpleasant-pleasant register.

Ridiculous Allowance

Past office hours on Friday, I was still in a chaos of thoughts. I was exhausted from the day’s work but still attempted to brainstorm a justification to appeal for exemption from the prescribed allowances for external trainings. We are targeting to attend trainings by last week of this month. After weeks of exchanging e-mails with prospective training centers querying for the must-knows and trying to politely deal with their aggressive marketing stratagem (amidst also a breakneck plan we were concurrently working on), my lower jaw dropped to find out how little are the allowances we’re given. We can’t imagine what type of lodging could we avail (if there’s any) for less than half a thousand pesos in the metropolis known to be the country’s business center. Shall we stay in a parking lot and be billed per hour? Hopefully not!

Even the registration fee they are giving us is short by more than a thousand pesos than what was quoted by the training center. Aaargh! I’m just so disappointed with it that’s why I’m drafting this blog tonight rather than the appeal we will be sending out tomorrow…

WORD OF THE DAY: forbiddance (n.) – act of forbidding. variance (synthetic): an amount purposely given as allowance but insufficient for expenditures hence is forbidding rather than allowing.


Stranded in the Rain

Still in great disbelief on our travel allowances, I stayed in the office and unwound by playing The Sims 2 which I learned just recently. By 6PM, it began to rain after a scorching day. I haven’t brought an umbrella so I shrugged it off thinking the downpour shall not last for long just like the previous night. I just enjoyed my game and eased myself knowing that Jing and Doth are still in the other workroom.

Three hours later, Jing and I decided to go home. From inside the office, we hardly hear the rain pour on the roof anymore but looking outside from the corridor, we saw with street lights that the drops are coarse and continuously falling; the type of rain that would not die down in the next couple of hours. We had to make a decision and the only thing we could do is phone for a taxi to fetch us from our building. There are just two taxi operators here and both do not use meters rather have fare matrixes based on zone areas. However, the taxis based outside the Freeport have cheaper rates therefore that must be option A. Jing scrolled through her phonebook for the number of a driver she got acquainted with. She called him using my phone but we learned that he wasn’t on business that time and has nobody to recommend. As Jing was trying to find another contact in her phone, its battery went empty. I offered my phone (it is open line) but as we switched it on, it prompted for a security code which I could not recall until this writing. The last hope was Doth’s. I was left wondering what could be my phone’s security code while Jing went back to their workroom only to return after a few minutes and announce that most of her entries are saved in her phone’s memory. My phone’s battery also was dead already that time *sob*

We were left with no choice but call the more expensive taxis with our fingers crossed hoping that they’ll charge us humanely somehow. P150 was the agreed price from our building to Jing’s residence which, I think would just consume no more that P75 if the taxi is metered at P30 flag down rate. *Tsk! Tsk!*

So we locked our workroom and stood on the terrace keeping an eye for the taxi. Good thing that we did not ran out of something to talk about until we realized that we’ve been waiting for more than half an hour! We had to make two follow-up calls 15 minutes apart, have cited our location from almost all reference points I could remember and joked that Spiderman 4 might have been in theaters already before the taxi arrived.

I got home by about 10PM


Book Shopping Spree

Almost lunchtime on Saturday morning, I went to the local bookstore with the prime purpose of canvassing for size A4 copy paper. After fulfilling my major objective, I browsed through the shelves without anything in mind to buy but I found a paperback copy of “The Devil Wears Prada”. I have long wanted to own a copy and I recall having it in my wish list last Christmas that I informed a friend about it who however seems to have asked with the prime purpose of “canvassing” for wish lists. *sigh* That was the only copy I saw thus decided to buy it thinking that it would take long again before they could restock.

I caught an eye of a sign hanging between a closed cashier lane and the children’s nook. The sign said “65% OFF”. With a glance on the hardbound books, one would think that those were mostly business and technical books. I pulled a few and discovered that those were fiction. Rounding the shelf, I checked some more and found some bestsellers or at least, bestselling authors. And guess what, it’s on sale at P65 (roughly USD 1.35) each! Those were secondhand books with traces of library cards peeled off the back while some just seemed to be inventory overrun all good as new! I searched through the pile and got “The Guardian” (Nicholas Sparks), “Leap of Fate” (Danielle Steel), “Dare to Succeed” (Mark Burnnet), and “The Things I Want Most” (Richard Miniter).

I left the bookstore thrilled with my finds. I think the earliest time I’ll be purchasing fiction books again will be by end of the year.

By the way, I was also glad to find that the bookstore’s management had acted on the complaint I reported to their Main Office via e-mail regarding their defective air conditioning and being understaffed. Although they explained in their reply why they cannot resolve yet the problem with the A/C units, they considered my suggestion of putting up electric fans in the aisles rather than just in the cashier lanes. I’ll try to share details of this in a separate post.


Stand! Err... No, Sit!

We attended Sunday worship in a different congregation. The chapel is at most 20 minutes ride via public transport from the city. Our family tries to visit that congregation at least once a month. The welcome was warm and the service went as usual. In the later part however, particularly during the announcements before the closing hymn and prayer, I don’t know if we’re really absent-minded or it’s something with a shift of the speaker’s intonation that seem to have given a cue, but my sister and I stood up at the wrong time! Fortunately somehow, we’re on the rearmost pew although some still sit on plastic chairs behind us. It’s like in an episode of Mr. Bean where he attended church and was late and sleepy. We immediately sat down and tried hard to hold back our giggles. *blushing*


Delectable Lunch, Frustrating Service

After the Sunday service, we decided to have lunch at The Coffee Shop located two blocks away. The Coffee Shop is its name although it’s more of a restaurant rather than a coffee shop. They are famed in the city for their giant tacos although I hardly recall of having tried it myself during my first visit about 10 years ago.

Anyway, we chose a table outside and were handed the menu. I ordered seafood kebab with fried rice while my companions got for themselves chicken barbeque, sweet and sour fish fillet, and buttered mixed veggies. We all ordered frozen iced tea for our drinks. The drinks were served in less than 10 minutes. Two plates and the utensils immediately followed. But the next half an hour was a complete drag! We anticipated the time it will take to have our food grilled but then we’ve noticed that there are about four batches of newcomers already served. Whatever was left of our frozen iced tea had been like hot tea already.

My patience gauge dropped below the red mark. I went inside the restaurant and confronted the waitress why our order was taking too long. Of course I anticipated the typical pacifying but invalid it’s-almost-done-excuse but I didn’t take my eye off her as she got anxious serving the other orders while I was irritably muttering things like “Wow! We’ve been waiting for almost an hour”. I didn’t go back to our table until I saw her go in the kitchen and put dishes on the tray. A minute later, she followed and served our orders. And hey! My sister’s BBQ isn’t among those yet. She told us that it will be served soon after and I sarcastically said, “Perhaps for another 30 minutes I guess”.

When all were served, we started eating. Testifying about the food alone, it’s really sumptuous. I have this theory though that it wasn’t the preparations that really took long but the lady might just have forgotten us because we’re outside. If it really took long to prepare our meals, then it would have been served hot. The food is already cold hence it could have been left unclaimed on the kitchen counter for sometime.

The waitress might really have felt our ire because she’s hesitant to come near us in a manner that she’s busing the dishes from a point just enough for her to reach it. Of course, a poor service equals no tip.

We bought half-gallon ice cream somewhere else before heading home. Ice cream truly can make anybody’s day; especially it’s chocolate.