Efficiency

Our firm just recently moved to a new building.
New furniture, new offices, new work areas...
It was cool, really.
We can even electronically adjust the height of our desk.

So one time, the office manager gave the landlords a tour of the office.

She goes, "These desks are really nice. You can adjust it really high that you can work while standing up."

Now who would want to do that?

Timezones

At 7pm, a lawyer, also in our Calgary office, sent me an email for something he needs to be done for his 8am closing the next day.

Since I work from 8:30 am to 4:30pm, I didn't get that email till the next morning, 30 minutes past the deadline.
I assumed that he already had someone else to do it. I mean if you need it by 8 and you can't get a hold of me, the smart thing is to get a hold of someone else right?

Anyway, at 8:45am he calls me up, all upset, asking me for the documents.
He tells me the closing was 8am, Vancouver time (9am in Calgary)
And that I should start hurrying because I only have 15 minutes.

How the hell would I know that?
He is in Calgary.
I am in Calgary.
The document did not mention Vancouver.
And I'm not a psychic.

All I could tell him was...
WHAT???

Well, since we're picking timezone,
I pick Nome, Alaska.
I still have an hour left to do it.
So relax!

Scared

So this female lawyer really scares the hell out of me.
She is 'fierce' personified. Horns would look good on her.

Don't get me wrong, she's not a horrible person.
I don't know her very well, but from our encounters, she is actually kind, sweet and is very funny.
Contrary to what I thought, she won't bite.

She just looks really...
Intimidating.
The complete opposite of 'approachable.'

She exudes strength and power.
I find her really pretty.
Although I would suggest less eye makeup to soften her look.
But then again, as a female lawyer, do really want to look SOFTER?

Anyway, one time, she approached me and said,
"Why do you look so scared all the time?"

To which I replied almost automatically,
"Because you scare me."

She laughed.
I guess I wasn't THAT scared of her after all.

payless last day

since i'm coming back to the Philippines,
i had to say goodbye to my second home here in canada:
the Payless ShoeSource store at Southcentre mall.

the people there have been great to me.
as a retail newbie, they were very patient,
teaching me all there is to know working in a store,
making my first few weeks in a foreign country as bearable as possible.
and though most of them are way younger than me,
they made me, the foreign girl, feel like she belonged.

the store

lauren, jenn, mike

with kris and steph

with amber

closing time

Close encounter with a shoplifter

so i was working at the till (aka cash register. i only discovered that after 2 weeks of working here in canada...) and this tall gangsta' looking guy comes up and asks how much these (he was holding a pair of black airwalk dots) shoes are. i did a price lookup in the register/till and told him it was $49.99. he asked me if they were on sale and i said no. then his wife, who was beside him, gave him the 'no-it's-too-expensive-we're-not-getting-that' kind of look (apparently she wears the pants in the relationship) and handed me a dora-the-explorer flip-flops (presumably for their kid) i rung it in, and told her that it was $12.99. and then she goes: "but there's a sale tag on it for $3.00". the sale tag was kinda loose so i kinda was doubting it. but then again, tagging has been a mess lately so what the heck, i decided to change the price.and then i asked if that was all they were buying. she said yes while giving her husband an annoyed look.

so she paid for it with a credit card, i had her sign the receipt, put the dora flipflops in a bag, put her copy with it and put the store copy in the drawer.

when i looked up. the husband was 10 feet away from the store holding the airwalks.
i was stunned and confused. is he taking those shoes away?
he looked back at me and we stared at each other for like 2 seconds and he walked away.

he was already gone when i realized what actually happened.
i didn't even considered running after him. (well he was 2x my size so i guess deep down inside i knew that running after him by myself wouldn't do me any good.)

but, anyways, i did tell the manager what happened. and he didn't suggest that we run after him either. (though i think we should have. the manager was a tall guy and he could probably take that moth@$f#$k@r down.)

i couldn't believe what happened. minutes after, i still feel so bad. maybe i should've said something instead of staring at him. or maybe i should've chased him (but keeping a good distance...) but the manager told me not to worry much about it.

hope kharma will get to that a#@h$#e

First Canadian Job: Sales Associate at Payless

oh yes indeed!
hehehe...

that's my pin for work. we don't have uniforms. just a dress code and a declaration of love for shoes. well, i'd probably wear that pin even if i didn't work at payless.

yes. that's my first job here in canada. i'm a sales associate (aka: saleslady) sa Payless Shoe Source. our store is located in a mall here in Calgary, so mas fun unlike in a detached store in the middle of nowhere. before i time-in for work, i go window shopping. and minsan after work din. hihi...

you read that right. i am having fun!
it's a no-brainer work. once you've memorized the rack plan (yun yung arrangement ng shoes sa store) and some customer service protocols, you're good to go. i've been to law school so memorization is a piece-a-cake.

so what do i do there? syempre sell shoes. ehehehe. which is easy coz it's a payless store. the concept behind it is, it's a selfservice shoe store. the shoes are displayed according to size and if you want to buy a pair, you just take it from the shelf and bring it to the counter. so mas madali dito. you can just leave everyone there to find everything for themselves. unlike in the philippines na nakatago lahat ng left shoe so you have no choice but to call a saleslady.

anyway, for the past few days, i've been memorizing the rack plan. (kids, womens, men... dress, sandals, casuals, sandals, athletics... dexter, predictions, fioni, airwalk...) so incidentally, i do stocks narin, which i like to do. i clean the shoes up, meaning, take the unnecessary pieces of paper sa box (yung mga nakasuksok sa sapatos na bago...) and then i put them in their proper places in the rack. simple! you don't need a law degree to do that. ehehehe...

and just recently i've been taught how to till (aka work the cash register) i like this one too except when they pay for cash. kasi naman up to now, nalilito parin ako sa mga coins. at suklian. (dahil nabobobo ka sa math sa law school... bigla tuloy ako na-bilib sa mga jeepney drivers ah...) so fave ko when they use their debit or credit card, which is a lot more often naman than cash payments. so ok narin.

nga lang, when i do the till, i hate doing returns. dun din kasi yun tas it is a more complicated transaction. (eh diba nga ang goal nga is minimal mental activity?) and they have such a lenient return policy so sa isang araw, you can't help but do 5 returns sa 2 hours mo sa register.

anyway, what i love the most is breaking down shipments. so may dadating na boxes from the supplier, i'll open them up and arrange the shoes according to gender and size. i like it coz sa backroom ginagawa yun. it's quiet and you get a break from the customers. plus nakikita ko yung bagong dating na shoes so nagsusukat narin ako. ehehehe...

so aside from it being a no brainer job, it pays me a decent wage. interestingly, mas malaki ang sweldo ko dito sa payless kesa sa mga lawyers sa pilipinas. but syempre naman, mas malaki naman ang gastos dito. a friend in the states once said, we earn in dollars but we spend in dollars too.

so what happens to my legal profession? honestly, i don't know...
for more than four years i've been trying to become a lawyer in the Philippines. i don't want to spend another couple of years trying to become a lawyer in Canada.
parang i'm just tired of studying and trying to become...
for a change, i just want to BE someone.
right now: a sales associate in Payless.
and soon: a lawyer in the Philippines.

Promoted

In my writing job, the process is:
you request for an order, admin approves, and thats the only time you should work on it.
So there are quite a few of my request that have been denied for various reasons.
Ane reason is that someone else requested it who is better qualified,
another reason is that it has been picked by a premium writer.

A premium writer can pick an order without admin approval.
I guess they have already proved their capability and responsibility, so admin trusts them.

I hate it when a premium writer picks an order that I requested.
I feel that he/she just pulled the seniority card on me,
and it has nothing to do with my capacity as a writer.

So since then, I aimed to be a premium writer.
I met deadlines, replied to customers, etc... etc...
Until I came across a difficult client who gave me a really really bad review,
and caused my Reward:-1

After that, I kissed premium writer status goodbye.
I just concentrated on my reward points.

But on April 21, I received a notification,
stating I have been promoted to Premium Status!
Surely, my hard work and patience paid off!
I didn't get a raise or anything monetary,
I just got the privilege of taking orders without admin approval.
And that's really cool...

Destitute no more.

For the past three months I have been living in extreme poverty.
I swear, pag aalis ako, kelangan ko pang humingi sa mommy ko.
Super nakakahiya talaga.

Buti na nga lang, andyan si Joel. He pays for ALL of our dates. He even took me shopping last Christmas.
My sugar daddy. J

Anyway, a few days ago, I got paid!

Of course I had to wait for like a million years for it. May technical difficulties daw kasi. Sabi naman ni mommy, baka daw na-scam na ko. Syet. Wag naman sana. Promise, a little part of me ay natakot.
But then again, it wasn’t a scam. I got paid. It’s not much though, tas andami pang bawas for bank charges.

It’s barya if you compare it to the salary I can get in a law firm.
Pero naman, I don’t have to leave the house. I don’t have to pay for lunch or transpo.

Anyway, the point is, di na ko ma-guiguilty umalis. Coz I don’t have to ask my mommy for money anymore. YEHEY TALAGA!

Oh! The first time na I knew na I had money na, nag flash sa utak ko ang aking shopping list: bikini, shades, eyeliner, bag, wallet, flip-flops…

Whoa. Sa Shopping list ko palang, kulang na yun.

Breathe…

I reminded myself that I don’t need all these stuff.

Haay… swear… I have shopaholic tendencies.

Weekdays of March

so this is how it goes. every single day:

9am - breakfast while watching 10 year old cheesy cartoons at abs-cbn or Q-tv. I swear, I think abs believes that no one watch them during those hours. They just do whatever they want: repeat the same episode as yesterday, put a different show in the middle of the series... and feel that no one would notice. From Sarah, Cedie, Remi... walang natapos. So I switched to GMA. Doraemon. Kagaguhan in the morning. Sarap. (No, we do not have cable. We have something better: DSL and Utorrent.)

10-ish - mom finishes her daily e-mailing so it's my turn. will be working on orders

1030 to 11 - joel will be online so we will chat a little. lie-low muna on the orders. haven't perfected the art of multi-tasking yet.

1230 - game-ka-na-ba finishes so it's time for lunch.

2pm - work on orders again. joel would probably be in a meeting or will be working too, so I get more things done.

6pm - will either be finished or too tired to work. will chat with joel, shel or mon (depending on their availability) or will surf the net, or write blog entries such as this.

730 - dinner time.

after dinner - hate this time of the day. Faye's turn in the PC so I have NOTHING to do. I'd probably read, watch dvd... but definitely will not do anything useful. my responsible mode only lasts from 10 to 6. no overtime.

it's not much, i know. but i love it. extremely routinary with minimal if not inexistent pressure.

Reward Zero

So I was assigned a paper on animal sociology. I thought: kaya ko to. I’m from law school, studied gender, minorities… Di naman masyadong scientific. And true enough, with a little nose bleed, natapos ko sya.

Then 3 days after nag reklamo yung customer, it was unacceptable daw. I didn’t gave enough analysis, just quoted… blah… blah… Syempre na hurt ako. I’m like miss analyzer kaya! Analyzing is my past time!

So I had to let the order go. I did the best I could in that paper. I didn’t know what else to do. And I’m sorry, hindi ako pupunta sa Manila Zoo para mag observe ng mga unggoy.

Then I was notified that a ‘reward’ was taken from me.

Ganto kasi yun, in the site where I write, may point system in which they’ll base the upgrade of your status as a writer. A point is taken for severe negative feedback and a point given for positive. Since I was new, wala pa kong points. So because of this order, from ‘Reward : 0’ naging ‘Reward : -1’ Ang saklap no?

I got so upset over it that for the next 3 days, di ako makakuha ng bagong order. Feeling ko, I’m incapable of doing anything. So I just put all my energies to the other paper I was working on. Inisip ko nalang na babangon ako at dudurugin kita. Hayup ka, may araw ka rin.

A few days later, I saw the same order. Available na naman sya. Turns out, nag give up yung next writer. Masyado daw picky yung customer. Di maintindihan yung gusto. See! It’s not my fault! So I felt so much better.

Anyway, I got positive feedback from the paper I made while I was upset. Super natuwa sya and I’m his/her favorite writer daw. Whoopee!

So from ‘Reward : -1’ naging ‘Reward : 0’ na ulit. And kanina, naging ‘Reward : 1’ na! yehey!

Fictionally Working as a Freelance Writer

I got it! I got the job that I applied for. Well, it's not really that glamorous. I just get out of my bed and open the computer. No fancy office attire, no lunch outs. But the good thing is: I can do it in my own time. I can choose my possible tasks. I can even choose not to get tasks.

Oh. I don't earn that much yet. The pay's on result basis so until I get the hang of it, I won't be assigned to write on big works. I have to be patient, diligent, hardworking and all that BS. Hehe. I don’t really mind. I know we have to start somewhere.

Actually, all this is new to me. I’m used to the office setting: aching feet, annoying boss, lengthy travel time. So working thru the net seemed so… fictional? I mean I researched, wrote an essay, someone commented, I edited it for approval and passed it. I did my work, I see my earnings (which are meager still) But it still doesn’t feel real. Until those numbers transform to paper bills in my hand, I’d still feel like a bum.

But overall, despite everything, I am not disappointed. I’m extremely happy, and hopeful. This is what I’ve wished for.