E-mails

if sleep is a lover,
then she has avoided me so well,
she has packed her suitcase
and left me for good.

Title: If Sleep Is A Lover
Date: December 14, 1995 (apparently, i just found out when I retrieved this the poem that the previous entry's poem-intro was written on the same day If Sleep Is A Lover was written and "in"-completed, ha ha)

I just thought of introducing today's entry with something about lack of sleep. This weekend I had a lot of sleep. So on the night before first day of shift this week (which is today), I wasn't able to get a decent sleep.

Today was my first day answering e-mails for customers. I had 11 emails answered and certified today. Not bad for a 7.5 hour shift. Yup, for cyberesponse representatives in transition, 11 is actually a good number. All e-mails (force of habit, we get mark down if we forget to hyphenate e-mails) need to be read and approved by a Mentor before actually being sent to the customer. So with 16 transition cyberesponse reps, and five mentors certifying and e-mail, you'd be lucky to get past 20 on your first day (just like Oca/Dino 1 who had 23 today!).

I'm actually enjoying it. And for all the things I said here in this blog about missing taking in calls, I take it back! The first wave had to take in calls so as not to use up the day's supply of email inquiries from customers. So I don't envy them at all. Although calls nowadays are so few teams are being asked to log out from the phone! For 3-4 hours a day.

I just miss my old team and since the two waves in the Cyberesponse came from different teams and be that as it may, we bring our different team cultures. And I haven't been broken in.. he he he.. I don't think they'll understand my humor here! He he he!

On the topic of e-mails. Before I wrote today's entry, I had a chance to have a YM chat with an ex of a long lost friend. The topic went to chain mails and "forwarded" messages. I just thought that if someone actually had the time to read through those long and winding e-mails, and still found the time to include you in the CC or the To: field, then they surely have the time to just type in "Hi! How are you? Just thought of saying I miss you!" or things like that.

I mean, I have former teammates who I never had the chance to talk to in the past 15 months, who suddenly had a virtual resurrection sending an e-mail about a very great picture and that if you don't send it back and to 7 other people, then I don't consider them as friends. Well, hey, the very fact you never took the time to say hi in your very first communication in 15 months means something about our supposed "friendship", right?

- I'm sorry about the pictures on the entries. I should be at least giving you ideas on what it's all about. The photo here is Matits and good friend Joan. Taken when we had to log out because no calls were coming in because of the Taiwan earthquake late last year affecting the incoming calls from our US customers. Taken from my rusty but dependable phone!

Of One-Topic Friends and Foretelling the Future, NOT!

 people are not characters
from your favorite comic strip;
feeding funnies every morning,
for breakfast, to remind you that 
the next hours wouldn't be that bad,

the same way memories of
happy days are not episodes
of feel-good sit-coms that
provide down-to-earth wisdom,

they are past…
no more but past.

Title: People Are Not Episodes of Feel Good Sit-coms
Date: No date indicated, probably c. 1989

I had a dream last night, that i recently received an email saying that i passed the cyberesponse application and that i need not go to work today as my shift will start tomorrow.

Problem is, I am with the cyberesponse team now and have started training. Got the news a couple of weeks ago. And same thing happened, i went to work one night only to be told i don't have a shift for that night and my shift with the cyberesponse team starts the very next day.

.. i think i have a gift of foretelling the future… i just need to work on the timing.~ hee hee!

Anyway, as i was about ready to go home from work yesterday, I saw a colleague who was also getting ready to leave. He's actually from another team I had a chance of talking to one midnight last year regarding going to Batangas. As my partner is from Batangas, I find affinity with people or topic about the province (except of course, showbusiness in the province. I mean, politics in the province!). I think we became "friends" because of that topic, Batangas, but we actually started out talking about our respective schedules. I was in the 4-day/10 hour grind, they were in the midnight shift at that time.

Anyway, the topic veered towards Batangas as he was discussing going there with another agent who happened to be there as well, smoking. When I joined in, saying that I too go to Batangas, he began asking how to go there by car. As I don't drive at all, I simply get on the bus, take a nap, and hope to wake up on my stop. He was asking a lot of question about the fastest way going there and since I couldn't offer any information, he talked about making a promise to his mother in law to visit Batangas.

I thought that ended there. Unfortunately, over the next few months, although the encounter was not that frequent, every time he would meet me, he'd talk about still not learning about the fastest route. And so after 5 months (again, the encounter is not that frequent, but just the same…), and that's yesterday, as I was getting ready to go home, this colleague saw me and we just nodded as a greeting, very Filipino, and walked our separate ways. I went to the locker, he, I don't know. I was organizing my things when a voice came from behind…

"Pare, alam ko na pala ang fastest way to Batangas…"

So how about you, do you have a one-topic friend? Someone you only get to talk with on just one, solitary, sad topic in this world???

I wish I never knew you

and leave the world as is,
and leave the world as is,
and leave the world like a cigarette butt,
burning still, unextinguished, on a pavement
damp from the day's piss.

I wish I never knew you,
I wish I never have known you;
Van Gogh and Pope is in a pointless rut,
bended and unmended by the late night swinging,
swigging beer and then a few.

and see you burn brilliance,
and see you burn with defiance,
and then put words and words together,
solving equations, knowing solutions, and
providing conclusions in a stoic stance.

and throw it all away?
and throw it all away?
this lighted cigar I give you, you throw it all
away; you leave the world as is, unchanged,
because,…now you choose to play.

Title: I wish I never knew you so I wouldn't have to see you throw it all away.
Date: June 1998

Toni read my blog last night and said she's getting the general feeling of sadness in my entries. Five entries, feeling of sadness… how transparent can one get? But that's just the way I am these days. And what's so surprising is I am really affected by that recent application for a promotion. Although I told my Supervisor that "I would like to believe I have a very good mental hygiene to consider this failure as just that, failure, and nothing that could put me down as a genuine person willing to stick my neck out for my teammates," I still allowed myself to, well, grieve! I invested so much on this last try.

Anyway, this blog is not really about that missed opportunity again. It's all about how I am feeling right now with my new designation as a Cyberesponse rep. So little laughter is shared among the new team members and right now, I'm cozy with Tippi and Jen. I thought I would like my new job, or assignment, but I am now missing taking in calls!! Imagine that!

But in that 15 minute jeepney ride home, I realized, I want to be in a new environment. I want to be in a place where nobody would ask me why I am sad or why I am not the usual Dom. I just want to be the faceless Dom for a while…  Well this is the usual Dom! The past so many months, they were seeing someone so rarely given the chance to come out! I am usually melancholic. No, really, I have bi-polar! Either I am acerbic-tongue-long-winding-sarcastic or mockingly quiet!

But lately,..

I

just

want

to

go

away

!!!!

– Although the above poem was published June 1998 in the now defunct "9 to 5" magazine, it was written a couple of months before that. The line was inspired by a line spoken by a professor to Will Hunting in the film, "Good Will Hunting".

Free Dumb

Detached -
exorcised past,
- free?

Title: Free Dumb
Date: c. 1995

Just started training for email program in my account. This will be my official working day after the mugging incident of my partner and the failure to get the promotion, again! I made a couple of acquaintances, Tippy and Jen. Still have to know their humor-threshold. But they seem okay and nice and intelligent. Tippy is 42 but she really looks like just 32. Amazing!

I was a little- somber? - during the whole day. After all these are new faces and I am still feeling my way around and even trying to check if my decision to move out of my team is the best decision. Well, my operations manager feels it is the best decision given my, well, grieving. Anyway, I hope to excel in the new task, training will end this saturday and certification begins next week. The good thing about this is the shift: no more graveyard shift. I can come home not absolutely beat, still have time for blogging and net surfing.

But i'm beginning to miss Steven, Monique (in photo) and Martha and Say….

Honesty #1

No goodbyes, I pleaded,
And was met with farewells.
I have yet to see the seriousness of life
When it comes to reason.
There have been so many faces,
So many names, yet so little life
Begotten from the countless conversations
And the many verses exchanged.

And when nighttime lingers
And sleeplessness threatens,
What more can a lifeless poet
Do but do. For good-byes took
Away his capacity to be.

Title: Honesty #1
Date: April 6, 2000

I'm with another team now. It is so painful to leave friends who have stuck with you throughout the creases and the downside of life for so many months. All the call center companies I have joined, I am fortunate to have been assigned to teams with people I am proud to call friends, but it is only now that I have the chance to have really stuck out for my team, refusing even to join another company for a higher position and hefty salary. I feel guilty for deciding to move to another team (after all I was given 3 chances to decide) as for the most part it was for convenience. Day shift and no calls. Mostly emails. But I simply had to make this move as it was one way of protecting the team from my performance.

I was turned down - again! - on my application for promotion and among all the applications I've sent to date, the reason for being turned down this time takes the cake! "Agent failed to think out of the box!"

I don't usually take these rejections personally. I have always believed that these tries, the performance and the outcome, are mostly self-driven. You present yourself as a product, make your pitch, if they don't like you, then come again another day! But this recent try is really disappointing. I am not blaming any one for this failure, I just feel frustrated. I remember my previous applications, areas of improvement said, "not confident enough." Next try, no deal again, and they said, "confident but lacked classroom management." The next try, I was actually half expecting the reason would be, "the agent was not wearing green."

I'm frustrated because I can't seem to get it right! Anyway, what the company thought I could be good at would be to join the Cyber Response Team. So now I have to leave my very treasured friends, most especially Alex, Beth and Tess and recent confidantes Joan and Jem (both tried out for promotion the same time I did, both were turned down too. Didn't think out of the box, too?) . It also meant leaving Matits and Lot, two of the relatively new agents assigned to me for coaching - who have surpassed my stats, ha! - who I've watched as nervous wrecks to stat drivers of the team (imagine two straight months of excellent ratings in customer satisfaction, three months of perfect credits, and two months of perfect quality monits!). I have always thought i'd stay with the team but because of the recent development (or utter lack of development), I felt I lost the drive to do well in my work. I know that's unprofessional but I feel burnt out. And with this feeling I might be a liability to the team.

So to my teammates, more importantly friends, sorry if I have to leave. I'm pretty sure, my new team will pale in comparison (but am hoping to make new friends).

Was it Richard Bach who said, Goodbyes are necessary for us to say Hello again?

Lucky

Lucky the man whose car speeds up the aimless high-way
And find no humps, nor holes, nor traffic aides along the way.
Lucky he who drives a car, though with a passenger beside,
And find no accidents, like love along the way, seeking a ride.

Title: Honesty #2
Date: April 6, 2000 (revision done June 27, 2001)

For several days now I have been designated as a nurse (which is ironic, explanation will be given later on) to my partner who was mugged at Espana by a lone 30-ish stocky man with an accent ("Akin na ang silpun mo!"). My partner, for some odd reason, did not bring his cellphone that night and when he admitted this to his attacker, the man did not believe him. Who doesn't have a cellphone these days, he seemed to say! The stupid man, well, I just have to say he's stupid, because my partner offered his cash just to get rid of him. The man refused and if he did accept my partner's offer, he could have bought a new cellphone and that would have been the end of it.

Anyway, I was at work that night. Well, to be exact, I was having my first 15 minute break at the time he arrived at the office bloodied and in shock. A total of five people, 2 receptionists and 3 guards had given a barrage of questions to my partner all wanting to have a scoop. After all, he isn't an employee and they would obviously want to have the story. After telling the receptionist who he was looking for, no one bothered to get him first aid, a glass of water or anything that could have made him feel at least relieved to be in a safe place.

I asked to be excused from work. My partner has no relatives here in Manila, he being from Batangas. As my direct supervisor was on leave, I had to ask someone who could decide on this. Two female supervisors said if they were to be asked, they would let me go, but since we were assigned to another supervisor for that day, I had to ask his permission. I told my story, and he was quiet for a good 5 minutes, typing something on his keyboard, calling an agent's attention on her after-call-work, before telling me that I have to contact my own supervisor and ask for permission. In short, it was a good 30 minutes before I was able to leave and get medical attention for my partner.

Now I said ironic -  well when my partner was recuperating at home from four stitches on his palate, a broken nasal bridge and a very bad black eye, I was stricken with flu. In the end, it was my partner who was giving me a sponge bath, making sure I had taken my medicine on time, and that I was getting well.

 I just had to tell this story because I want to tell everybody who is presently on a relationship to never neglect what brought you together. Before all these happened, my partner and I had a little spat. He said he needed to get away first and have some space (really, when there's a problem on the love front, all they want to be is an astronaut - they want SPACE!) and be free to be melancholic. I told him, well at least be safe so I can have the chance to make him happy again. And this happened!

When I saw him that night, bloodied, all I could think of was that candle I lit and the prayer I whispered a couple of hours before the incident. I said to myself, I don't care about the past prayers I felt were not answered, I'm just grateful the Lord heard that one prayer!

My partner is still in pain, and in shock. Way back in his college days he was convinced that he'll never want to work in Manila because of the peace and order and safety issues. This one puts a nail on that conviction! End of story! But he is getting medical attention. Good thing his brother is a nurse and would get excellent care back in Batangas. As for me, I am recuperating as well. But in shock again, I failed in my 5th try for a promotion.

That's another blog altogether!

Resolution No. 1

I am tired of saying
my hands are cold;
and then heat myself
up with it.

Title: Resolution No. 1
Date: March 6, 1995

So exaclty what do I intend to accomplish with this blog?

I would like to answer it this way: No one goes into a one-night stand thinking of marriage. My point being? Let's not ruin something we have barely started by thinking of the end. It's not a project, after all, that we need to measure the results.

What I do want to do is to introduce every blog with a carefully kept poem written so many years back. Just like the one above. It may or may not have something to do with the whole entry of the blog. So there! Resolution No. 1 is barely even a poem but what's stopping us from calling a rose a vegetable, right? Somewhere in the forest is an animal who eats it as its vegetable fare!

I will try to make this blog work for me. I have a Friendster Blog (add me up: dom_yannique@yahoo.com) and a Wordpress Blog, both work related - bloopers in the call center industry - but this blog here I plan to be an honest portrayal of my mental intestines! (Aha! Trying to be a pompous ass!!!)

Years back, when I was in the seminary, I kept a journal. For some time it served simply as virtual blow by blow account of what happened during the day. It lacked bite! During a spiritual direction with a priest, I mentioned in passing that my journal entries are so dry you can "scratch the word dry" on it (remember that commercial in the 80s?). Then the priest said don't edit your feelings or emotions!

Sheesh! All the while I was so cautious that someone might stumble on my journal and begin reading on the entries about repressed sexual desires, a crush on a fellow seminarian, spiritual aridity and things saints used to wrestle with - nyahaha - that I was writing non-sense on my journal. Since then, I wrote so honestly that I sometimes thought, "This couldn't be me!"

So there! I will be honest, and that's scary sometimes…

Rocking with Calliope… Finally!

After so many tries, after all the conceivable cusses had been spat, I was finally able to decide what to do with the over-all look of this blog. Sure, I have a blog in Friendster, another in Wordpress, and so you're asking, how's this going to be different from the others? Well, I'm going to try to re-discover the melancholy-flavored, cynical baby that I was (am?) which used to hate not having a PC to write and edit poems — and when I finally got a PC - was not able to write one single poem. How's that for irony? Anyway, I gave too much time on the look of the page that I lost energy to come up with a good opening salvo.

By the way, Lizette, thanks.. will join the community and try to get to know more of the people around here. Will also read up on your blogs!