My 2010 Billboard of the Year

Have you seen the coolest billboard at C5? It's Pepe Smith posing for Mental, astig pare!

My 2010 Commercial of the Year "Bangon"

Winner ang commercial na'to..it reminds me of why I wake up in the morning to work my ass off everyday.

Routine

There’s this illness that Germaine was telling me about. It’s what she called headache weather and it hit me yesterday in uncomfortable pain. It was when you’re experiencing hot and humid Sunday morning and later at noon the weather changed giving you cold windy rain that hits your window pane. It was the pressure, she explained. I hated the word pressure in every sense, whether it was used in a sentence or a paragraph. The word can even be used alone. It was always associated with the word stress.

So there, I am so unhappy waking at 4:55 Monday morning where I wasted my whole Sunday off by popping headache pills and sleeping. I did not accomplish anything. I feel that I wasted one day of my human time. I didn’t have the chance to do what was planned which I hated the most. I didn’t get the chance to go home to Makati where both of my parents lived. I didn’t get to see my niece where she’s on a stage na nagingilala. You know how babies are, they grow so fast. I just wanted to be part of everything.

I am tempted to excuse myself from work today but every penny counts nowadays. That’s where my other least favorite word comes in, responsibility.

Anyway, waking up at four in the morning every Monday was how I begin my weekday. I woke up with my dog, Mio. I boiled water for an instant coffee and booted on the laptap for some writing. Then I get bored and watched some shows from the six-inched black and white spare TV while playing some computer games. Then I prepare breakfast while waiting for the manicurist. Then at noon, I will force myself to sleep because I need to go to work in the evening. My dog will wake me up at exactly 6:00 pm whether I like it or not and starting to get ready for work.

In an hour, I find myself driving along Commonwealth Avenue where tragic death is always nearby.

At work, I immediately turn on the computer to log in because that’s where my salary lies. I only have thirty to twenty minutes before I will be tagged as late. The system takes forever to upload.

I will wait for my buddy to log in, then we’ll go down to have a chat and coffee. As soon as we reached our stations, we try to hit the daily quotas up until 6:00 am and occasionally extending some hours.

I will go home experiencing stress again by driving along Commonwealth Avenue where drivers raced with each other like they were in Timezone and people crossing the wide highway as if their lives are worth nothing. These people are either lazy to use the government provided footbridge or as usual, these facilities are just not strategically located.

As soon as I reached home, I will do what was written in paragraph four. It is all routinary. That’s why I wanted to do something different every weekends. I’m not asking for something extreme, but moving and breathing on a different environment with different people, especially people you care about the most makes it worthwhile.

Of Music, Mondays and Adobo

It was the music; the coolness of the voice that blends well with different musical instruments that filled the air this Monday morning. Maybe it was the busted TV, or the spare six-inch TV in black and white, or the nonsense TV shows that made me open the forgotten old dusty radio and put it in a not too soft, not too loud volume.

It was tuned in to 106.7 Dream FM. I hardly recommend anything over the internet since I don’t get paid for the free advertisement, but the music was calming. It made me feel the atmosphere of a Friday night at a high-rise condo; preparing a simple dinner with friends or loved ones, setting the table with flowers and candles and a bottle of champagne or red wine while watching the city lights and traffic on the highway from a floor to ceiling glass window. God, sounds like heaven - how it melts your stress away, how you tend to smile every now and then knowing how relaxed and content you are.

But reality sets in. It’s Monday and I have to go to work later tonight. I am residing at a low-cost condo complex, renting a unit at the second floor with a view of an apricot-colored building similar to ours that can be seen from a window with curtains tied up haphazardly. The atmosphere is occasionally broken by vehicle noises and children coming out of school buses. It was almost noon and the sun’s rays were inching their way into our living room, quite unwelcome because it will surely cause an indoor heat wave again. I have a little dog that messes up the house. He stinks up the house and is bent on “destroying” the furniture.

I’m in the middle of cooking Chicken Adobo - Chinese style for lunch. Like how Joey Herrera described his flatmates’ cooking style, I’m multi-tasking. I am reading a book, playing Burger Rush on the laptop, texting to schedule an appointment with the manicurist, violently commenting every now and then to Germaine about the book she’s reading, smoking and cooking. I just threw in all the ingredients in a pot; the chicken parts I bought from the supermarket, the soy sauce, vinegar, salt, sugar, crushed peppercorn, bay leaf and anise with no exact measurements, all just by instinct.

This is the fun part. I simply cover the pot and forget about the dish altogether. After a long, long while doing other chores and activities, I run back to the pot to check if the chicken has burned. Then I discover that Voila! Chicken Adobo Chinese Style is done to perfection!

Meanwhile, the music was so good it made me drink cheap local red wine straight from the bottle. So what’s your favorite radio station?

In Memory of You

Dear Potchi,

Last year when I was at nesting, I saw you at the intranet, the staff’s website. We were browsing, checking the possible supervisor that we will be under. Your posing in the photos were always slightly sideways, just like Mega Star Sharon Cuneta. Bookie told me once that it was your best angle.

You were almost my supervisor, do you know that? I was the first one to pick the schedule because I was top of my class. I understand that your team was always on top because you get the nicest schedule with Saturdays and Sundays off. Lazy as I was I picked Teejay’s schedule instead with three days off.

Who cannot recognize you on the floor? You’re one of the liveliest people I’ve met and the funniest presiding officer during cluster meetings. You made us all laugh.

I remember one time when I had one of those stressful calls. I was talking to an American idiot who wanted me to perform magic on his reservations. We were talking for almost an hour and I was banging my mouse, typing at the keyboard with great force and cursing under my breath. I was clearly irate. You walked behind me and tap me at my shoulder. You startled me when I saw you, and you asked me, “Are you okay? Can you still handle the call?” I was tomato red. I was so ashamed of myself that it took me awhile to regain my composure. “Yes. Thank you for asking.” That was my only reply. At least you made me give extra patience to the person I was talking to on the phone.

I know we were not close. We were merely acquaintances, but somehow you’re one particular person from Expedia I will remember for the rest of my life. You will always be part of the PeopleSupport family and the “call center stories” that I will tell my friends and family for generations to come.

Potchi, you will be missed, especially the people who loved you so much.