The Next Emily... That's All

twenty days after writing my first post for this year, here i am back. still the old me. for the past 20 days i became the short time workaholic. doing overtimes. working for the holidays. and working more than what is expected from me. i haven't gone out with any friend other than my bestfriend. never drank booze. never lit a cigar. never did anything to fulfill my social needs. just plain work. not even blogging. on top of it was the bad cough and colds that i was experiencing for the last week of december and first week of january...

may kasabihan sila na pag may specific na ginagawa ka sa simula ng taon. lets say "nagtatrabaho" sa simula ng taon, eh yun na daw ang gagawin mo buong taon. eh ako? wala nmn ako sa office nung new year. pero the night of jan 1, i was in the office. hmm. so ibig sabihin pala buong taon, puro trabaho ako? waaah. although kasabihan lang sya, feeling ko at some point mangyayari sakin. wag naman sana.

start the year right. how do we start the year right? sabi ko nga dati i need to balance my work and non work activities, pero mukhang hindi. ive been telling that to myself since i started my first job but until now, feeling ko, im back to my old self. the workaholic-no-social-life life. pero hindi naman ako stressed sa work. nag-eenjoy pa nga ako pag nappressure ako eh. pag nangangarag. kasi mas gumagana ang pag-iisip ko pag ngaragan.

pero i need to take a change. cge. gow. kaya ko yan. go for work and non-work balance. goodluck sa akin.

have a happy new year!

Very Light...

padaan lang ng very light. 

sobrang busy sa work.

attendance. auxes. adherence. assets. audits. announcements. trackers. allowance. consolidated. daily. monthly. weekly. agent level. team level. manager level. site level. upsell. management report. production hours. confirmation email. disputes. log in. log out. requests. filing. archives. masterlist. backtrack. moving forward. signatories. distribution lists. overtime. metrics. payouts. incentives. performance. tenured. nesting. 

yan. hindi light. 

heavy yan.

The Voicemail

i expected this night to be a little cute. coz its halloween! and yeah i'd be seeing cute people in their costumes, with their headsets on and talking to freaked out customers who needs technical support. other than that i wasn't expecting anything unusual. (hindi ako lapitin sa multo, i've had no ghost experience in my life, and my third eye, as they would say, is firmly shut, sewn, locked, taped and cemented!)

it was a little over past 9 when i arrived at the office. i came in late for work because of the long queue at national bookstore (its where they sold rihanna-chris brown tickets-and yesterday's the last day for the early bird price...) and in a super rush mode, i immediately turn the computer, got my phone and when to the locker to get stuff. when i got back, i started pressing numbers to check the voicemail, to see, and by default there would be, anyone who might have called the hotline. 

and so the damn ivr spoke.. gave instructions and menu and then the freaky "a-c-c-b-c-c-c..." sound made by the phone came. then the start of the voice messages. nothing new for the first few messages. i would normally make fun of it. id say "wag ka nang lang pumasok forever (referring to someone who kept calling almost daily...), asus, body katamaran! (for people claiming that they are experiencing body pains), feeling mo lang yon! (people for claim that they are not feeling well...) and so forth...

then there this voice mail. it was all a garble to me when i first heard it. it came to me like "oh, probably someone just forgot that he was calling this number and he left the phone hanging..." and so i listened until at the end of the voice mail... there was this really disturbing sound... a sound in between distorted sound of a gun and big appliance being thrown to the ground... 

my boss, who was intentionally listening to the voice messages, got alarmed by this sound that he asked me for a replay. we played it again, and both of us had our ears to the phone with the loudspeaker on and the volume to the highest level...

then there was this unrecognizable sound or perhaps conversation... then after a few seconds... some words became clear...

"bakit po?"

"kidnap to..."

holy f*ck. what the hell is this? we continued to listen. trying to discern every sound made.

"taas mo kamay mo!"

"stupido!"

then a few more unrecognized sounds. then there were sound of a couple of men talking. sounds of the guy almost crying and begging for help. there was this sound of perhaps the caller being held on his neck and him gasping for air.

shit. real shit. this is freakier than halloween.

after playing a couple of more times. we're left stuck nowhere. we had hoped its a prank call but it would have been so concerted that it sounded so true. and our instincts are telling us this is not a practical joke!

we had our managers listened to it and they were shocked and clueless as well. there was no name mentioned on the call. and the number was not given. but there was a time stamp - 10:31 am! Voice IT personnel came and checked the voicemail. unfortunately, the can't trace it. even globe, to whom the company's lines are based on, can't trace it for there was no "tracer" when the call was made (at least, that' what i heard from what OM told me...) 

we ended up not being able to know who the caller was. or what was the number used. as told by our OM, this would be handled by HR and perhaps be forwarded to the authorities... i just hope the guy's ok...

we tried to discern carefully the words spoken on the message. little by little we understood. but what struck us the most was this few words spoken by one of the "bad" guys...

"wag mo muna papatayin!"

...can your halloween get any freakier than this?

...the voice message is still stored in the phone

Un-ordinary

i thought this day would be as normal as i could possibly imagine. with the usual deliverables, calls and reports. nothing can make this different.

as i was going through what i am supposed to do... someone came and asked us to log off our PCs, take our belongings and go down. i wondered what was the order about. i noticed, everyone was packing up too. stuffing their things into their lockers and gathering on the elevator platforms. 

and so we followed. as we got into the elevator and as it went down, we were suprised to a multitude of employees waiting outisde the building. but what stood up among the crowd are the uniform clad men with the letters S-W-A-T at the back of their jackets.

just as i thought. a bomb threat. ok. so where do we go? i started looking for people. my former teammates, my batchmates and  just basically everyone i know. 

and we spent more than 3 hours of "petiks" mode. and as every agent was happy about being in this situation, i was kinda worried that my reports are piling up. and i would end up rendering OT to finish them. but hell, what can i do?

so i just sucked it up. and had fun. it was a night of bonding... like a company camp-out.. or an intercompany camp-out.

at some point, i wished there was an explosion. (well after everybody has been safely evacuated). just so as to make it more exciting. (bad bad!)

ayun lang. 

(you might have seen this in the news. gma. abs-cbn. rpn. were there. ha ha. sweet short exposure... i wasn't interviewed. never!)

(and as expected. the police always comes late...)

Temporary

attendance hotline, hello.

 

hi, goodmorning.

 

good morning.

 

this is ******* calling for ms. ********.

 

yes. and what's her project?

 

she's from project *******

 

oh ok. and can i have her crm number?

 

yes, that's *******.

 

ok, let me verify that. that's *******.

 

yes.

 

ok. male-late po ba sya or absent?

 

she'll just be late.  it's still raining hard kasi eh.

 

oh i see. and what time is her shift.

 

she's on her way now. mga 2 am siguro andyan na sya.

 

oh ok. got that.

 

oh, can i have your name please?

 

yeah, that's ****. *-*-*-*.

 

ok. thanks.

 

ok.

....one of the things i do in my temporary position...

Dahil Electronic na si Manong...

was feeling good today since someone asked me out on a date although its my first day of my work week. had my dinner. took a shower. dressed up. fixed my hair. turned off my pc. now i'm off to work.

since i left the house early, i had to take the bus - to save, although it's pay day tomorrow. sayang din ang 150 ano. took the bus. and then manong konduktor came.

gave out P50 and i said "boni" (ha! now you know where i work!). he took my money. clicked on something on his electronic device. peeled the printout and gave the change to me.

i would constantly look at the price. nung peel off tickets pa, i would add them up to make sure tama yung binigay sakin. this time, no need to do the adding, you just have to look at the value.

P31.50. OMG! trenta'y-uno-singkwenta na? bente syete lang to ah. i already knew there was a fare hike (8.50 na sa jeep, di ba?), but to be this high... is OMG! 5 pesos. we all know wala ka ng mabibili sa piso pero grabe nmn.. limampiso! (btw, 18 pesos ung sinuhli nya. that makes it 32)

ganun na ba kamahal ang langis ha? o siguro dahil naging electronic na rin ang pagtiticket nila na gumagastos pa cla ng dagdag sa ink, papel and electricity para i-charge ung device nila.. argh! kainis.

argh! ewan ko. nainis lang ako. hayz. hirap ng buhay. makapag-starbucks nga muna... choz!

Straight-dar

it has been a commonality in most bisexuals, effeminates, discreets or gays, in general, that when we look at a guy or someone else, we tend to think, first and foremost... if they are one of us. some might disagree with my first statement, but then in the longer run, you tend to think the same way.. specially if the guy is hot, interesting, cute, gwapo and all that...

we all know this instinct, even women have this what we call gay-dar... and so when we see a potential guy far away, yet our eyes so sharp to notice them, our gay-dars, no matter how empty their batteries are, are always on the run. we tend to look for signs - the fingers, the hips, the way he walks, he talks (if we are near), the people with him, the eyes... and sometimes, we just go through our guts...

it has become my hobby to always have my gay-dar up and running... pero sakin... may difference... in a crowd, i treat all men to be one of us... tapos dun ako hahanap ng sign kung sila ay straight.. works quite the same, pero sakin lahat gay muna... and i wouldn't think it's a gay-dar... it's more of a "straight-dar"

i am sharing because i am wondering if my gay-dar or "straight-dar," for that matter, is working fine...

i have this crush in the office. he's not my first crush, had several crushes before sa office, pero nagfade ung iba... he was from another team but since almost everyone knows everybody in the project (not necessarily by name, but by face. its like when you see him/her, you'd say "oh, he/she's my officemate), i always get to see him...

thorough research has given me his name - JF. and i also found out that one of my teammates is a close friend of him - MC (not mariah carey, choz!). one night, MC sent me an email na kamustahin ko raw si JF and magreply sa email nya. through our chat room, i sent him the message. he replied and thanked me.

another night, we were seated opposite each other with just a partition (you know the typical call center partition!). with his headset on, he stood up and said "di ba ikaw c *LFTS*?" (don't bother knowing what's LFTS means, that's looking for the source!)

"uu"

"di ba pinangalan ung name mo kay *LF* at *TS*?"

"uu sa anak ni LJ"

my name was actually taken from the two sons of a famous band member... (guessing game ba ito?)

and that's how we became friends. thanks to my parents who gave me that name.

from then on he would always ask me if i had lunch na. or kung break ko na. he would always call me by my name + the last name of the band member... favorite nya kasi un. we would talk about alternative music (band of horses) and would always borrow my psp to play NFS Carbon.

it was always ganun. feeling heaven.

until one night, i found out na sila na pala ni MC (MC by the way is a girl). MC confessed na they have been dating and theyve been partners for almost a month na. sakin, cge goodluck sa inyo. straight nmn ang tingin ko sa kanya eh - at least that's what my gaydar says... or is it? (note, within that "almost a month" kami nagkakilala).

i dunno if i diagnosed it right. or maybe im just fooling myself na straight nga sya talaga.

here are the facts.

>> when times na dadaanan nya ako, or mapapadaan lang sya, there are times na he would touch my waist.. discreetly... oh.. heaven for me.. ha ha..

>> another time na sinabi pa nyang "hindi mo na ako kinukulit?" (if he knew i was bisexual, or even if he knew i was straight, would he ask another straight man na kulitin sya?)

>> i took one of his escalated calls, which ended up as a dispatch (sending out a tech to the customer's house), i did a favor for him na ako na ang magp-process ng dispatch. i sent him a mail na the dispatch has been successfully made... guess what he replied... thanks!!MWAH!! (and i quote, the mwah are typed in caps!) - would a straight guy tell "mwah" to another straight guy? or at least someone who pretends to be? ive done same favors for other straight guys, and as a reply, they say "tenchu", "thanks", or "salamat pre/tol" but never was a mwah in any of the messages...

>> here's one more... this happened just last night.. he was sitting with his friend (which is an extremely out loud gay - call him ER) and as usual, i was near them... biglang banat si ER - "JF bottom mo nga ako!"

...JF's reaction was at first dumbfounded... then he reacted... "TOP ako..."

...bwelta si ER "dali na bottom mo ako"

...JF didn't react...

...then...

...JF : "versa ako eh..."

...ER : "ah versa ka, eh di bottom mo ako, bottom kita!"

...JF just laughed...

for a straight guy, and in some one in a straight guy-girl relationship, the guy's always on TOP, no questions about it. but for a straight guy to know about TOP, BOTTOM and VERSA... oh cmon (not unless he's a tripper - trippers >> naku bading din yan, feeling lang straight!)

what do you think?

pa-repair ko na ba gaydar ko?

Taxi-Talk

was making my steps bigger than usual. according to my watch. i only have 45 minutes left before for my work time starts - and by experience, i needed to take a cab...

and so i hailed a cab (wait! does the word "hail" sound very glorious or godly? it's like summoning the gods of Mt. Olympus!). while we were driving to work, we got into the "taxi-talk" (and i brand it "taxi-talk" - i just noticed that whenever a taxi-talk happens, it's always about the same topic!)

and then the taxi-talk goes on and on (apparently, the driver is an expert!)

talked about call center jobs - on how we hurry to work coz we got to be on the phone on time, on how much we earn, on what the benefits are, on our social lives, and his experiences with call center agents as his passengers...

until...

MD (stands for "manong driver"): ilan na asawa mo?

Source: wala "pa" po. (have i just made a decision that fast?)

MD: ah.

Source: (pwede ba i-rewind? bawas ung "pa")

...

MD: san probinsya mo?

Source: wala po akong probinsya. pinanganak po ako sa (****) eh. lumipat po kami dyan.

MD: anu yon, may bahay kayo dyan?

Source: wala po. nagrerent.

MD: ah gnun...

MD: san ka ba galing? (what he meant was, where is my house located.. i would usually walk from our house to the place where cabs stay and wait for passengers)

Source: dyan po sa (****)

MD: ah, sa may (****)

Source: hindi po, sa tapat.

MD: ah, sa may tapat ng (****)

Source: opo.

MD: ah ung malapit sa (****)

Source: sa loob pa po.

MD: sino kasama mo dyan, "chicks"?

Source: ah hindi po, family ko.

Source: (chickboys pwede! he he)

MD: ah kasama mo pala mommy mo.

MD: ay ang ibig kong sabihin mga magulang mo...

(nothing was said until we reached the office)