Young Underpaid Professionals

Posted by Rio S.

It’s 2 AM and I can’t sleep. It’s too damned hot, even with all my windows thrown open and with the fan going full blast. I hate summer. It’s only March 4 today. Summer should only be rearing its scalding head at me, but it looks like it decided to put in an early appearance this year.

I hate summer mainly because of two things: the blasted heat that seems to like working hand in hand with my insomnia like tonight; and the blasted warm air that causes my lungs to go on strike. (Let me tell you something, asthma is more of a bitch during summer; some nights I have to sleep sitting up on a baking night so I don’t wake up at 4 in the morning gasping for air.)

Back when I didn’t have asthma (I got asthma only three or four years back), I rather liked summer. I didn’t do so bad in school and never had to spend a day in summer class. I used to spend my summers in Bulacan where there were always rivers to swim in, fields to fly kites in, and ponds to catch fish from. Back then, I didn’t hate the heat so much; I left it to the adults to worry about how sweaty I got or how dark my skin became.

See what summer has gotten me doing now? It has got me remembering. Read the rest of this entry »

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FICTION posted by Rio S.

Sometimes, it’s hard to pretend to be strong all the time.
You’re strong, sure, but not always.
Everybody has limits, a breaking point.
Sometimes, things just keep piling up.
Every little thing goes wrong.
You’re keeping the blasted dike together.
And sometimes, you wish you can just let it fall apart.
Sometimes, it gets tiring.
Fighting alone. A losing battle.
Sometimes, you ask why you’re even there in the first place.
When you could’ve chosen to be somewhere else.
Somewhere peaceful, somewhere safe.
Then you remember what you’re fighting for.
You pick yourself up and go up against your monsters.
But sometimes… You don’t.

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Posted by Rio S.

Nico, an ex-colleague who shares my love for anime, recommended Toradora about a few months back. I was otherwise immersed in all things D Grayman back then and so the recommendation was buried under tons of other things. I came across Toradora (officially Toradora!) again while trolling for Japanese light novels and BAM! I’m hopelessly hooked.

Toradora is a series set in a high school and naturally, the characters are high school students. Ah, high school.

If you’re anything like me, most of your high school memories have been properly repressed in the deepest darkest pit of your mind. Come to think of it, maybe this repression is the reason behind the fact that I love high school anime: I want to replace my own memories with somebody else’s. Who wants to remember real life zits and angst brought about by hormonal imbalance anyway? Some parts were good though, maybe good enough for you to remember what you were wearing at the time. In my case, I remember the most horrible. JS Prom, anyone? Anyway, I digress. Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by Rio S.

If you are an average young underpaid professional – meaning carless – you have been and continue to trek through the First Circle of Yuppie Hell: commuting to and from work. Commuting is a long and treacherous experience in itself, as well as wrought with irony. In my experience, defying the laws of physics (specifically the one that states that only one body can occupy one space at one time) on a daily basis, never mind the drivers who were kamikaze pilots in their past lives, is a bit trying on my patience.

Now, on a really unlucky day, you might find yourself face to face with bastards who can’t seem to keep their hands to themselves. Thankfully, that type of scum has kept their distance from me, but a couple of my friends were not so lucky. Actually, I think the unluckier ones were the bastards themselves.

One morning, I dragged my carcass to the office and a colleague came up to me as soon as I open the door, “Have you heard about Mai’s two-hit combo?”

Me: Two-hit combo? Nope, what’s that?

Colleague, whom we shall henceforth call Ahorney recounts: Well, a barker at the bus stop touched her inappropriately and well, she gave him a one-two.

(He demonstrated what a “one-two” was.) It was a knee to the barker’s ouchie area and when he doubled over, she delivered an elbow to the back of said barker’s neck. Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by Rio S.

A few months back, I realized that if I didn’t get an office job soon, I was going to starve (that and run out of money to buy cigarettes and pay for my internet – my priorities, go figure). Off I went to find somebody willing to pay me a steady income and maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to freelance during hours when I’m supposed to sleep. So anyway, during my search of employment I was invited to a PR agency to take their writers’ exam.

I like taking exams, what I hate is filling out application forms as they keep asking during what years I was in high school (high school has been properly repressed, dammit). On the same day Rica had her interview and subsequent run in with the HR person, I had to drag my ass off bed to Makati. Mercifully, I was scheduled for a 2pm appointment as it usually takes two hours and two mugs of coffee to wake my brain up.

I get to their office; after a little wait, I was presented with the questionnaire and an answer sheet. The HR person explains the test to me and to the other girl taking the exam, then he leaves the room. I’m sure he wasn’t worried we’d copy off each other, because the test was – tadaaaah! – a creative marathon. Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by Rio S.

Face it, you’re screwed. Your presentation (for the company’s biggest client, no less) was torn to smithereens; your report-slash-plan (that was supposed to be your company’s panacea to survive the recession) was a Hindenburg. Everything was peachy for a while and a split second later, everything’s ablaze and everybody’s running for the exits. You’ve kissed your raise – which was due three months ago – goodbye. Or if you’re a freelance writer like myself, your article was flamed to hell and back. Get my drift?

After failure of epic proportions, what’s the next step?

Take it with grace. Do not go into the light – at least, not just yet. You still have a job, unless of course the plodding creature that is your boss fired your ass on the spot. And no, keep that pointer finger down, looking for a scapegoat is not only cowardly; it’s also a vile, vile practice done by people with no backbones (i.e. single celled organisms like amoeba and your ex-boyfriend). Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by Rio S.

There are times when keeping your mouth shut is the best way to go – especially when somebody says, “Maybe you should handle the team building.” and your life becomes a living hell afterwards. Now, the folks featured in this new wave of Yuppie Humor stories shouldn’t have just kept their mouths shut, but their voices down too.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by Rio S.

Okay, so another hell week’s coming to a close and you’re probably gagging from the toxic office week by now. When things are bad, when it’s a miracle you haven’t succumbed to the temptation of coming to the office armed with a semi-automatic and with the intention of mowing down everybody in sight (including the sneering guy who occupies a cubicle beside yours), it’s important to laugh. That said here’s another round of Office Humor stories.

My friend Elaine tells this funny overheard from her former office:

Agent: Sir, that’s Emerson. E like in Egg, M like in Emerson… Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by Rio S.

During my first call center stint, I was a tech support agent for a couple of consumer electronics companies. For your entertainment (and mine), let me share a couple of my stories. Whether it’s funny or sad (or both) purely depends on how you look at them. Here goes.

Somebody calls and I run her through the routine questions. I ask for the model number of the unit:

Caller: Where can I find the model number on my refrigerator?
Me: But ma’am, Aiwa deals only in consumer electronics. We don’t have refrigerators.
Caller: But my refrigerator is an Aiwa.
Me: Are you sure ma’am? Check the refrigerator door and see if it says A-I-W-A, Aiwa.

The line promptly goes dead.

Now, I’d like to think that that was an honest mistake, but this second story just takes the cake. Read the rest of this entry »

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FICTION posted by Rio S.

The door chimes sounded softly. The shopkeeper looked up from her ledger and watched as the man peeked warily into the store.

“May I help you, sir?” she asked tentatively. Many people looked into her store but never bought anything. She smiled at the thought. She doubted those people would be willing to pay the price for her wares.

The man did not appear to have heard her. “Sir?”

He clutched at his heart. He thought the store was empty. Aside from the Open sign at the door, the shop did not indicate any sort of activity; it looked out of place in between a shoe store and a mini-mart. He looked at the lady behind the counter and blurted out, “You surprised me.”

“My apologies.” She smiled at him. She knew a sale when she saw one. “How may I be of assistance?” Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by Rio S.

While trolling the internet, I found a very interesting idea. In one of her movie reviews, Jessica Zafra said, “… true love is itself a suspension of disbelief.” Enter into the equation Valentine’s season and my apparent ineptitude for relationships and you’ve got an interesting topic – I don’t know where to start.

(The willing suspension of disbelief is basically a theory describing people’s “relationship to art”. You know how when watching a zombie flick, you accept the universe of the movie where an evil super corporation creates a virus that turns the infected into zombies that won’t die unless you shoot them in the head? That’s the willing suspension of disbelief. The theory is, people accept the unbelievable to appreciate the art.)

I’m smart, funny (or at least, I think I am), capable of social interaction, and I obviously don’t have problems with my self esteem. If I was a guy, theoretically, women would want to have children with me. But seeing as I’m a girl, I scare off most guys like the words “commitment” and “fidelity” do. (Most days, I don’t really mind being single, but then Valentine’s Day rolls along and boom! I’m miserable.) Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by Rio S.

Back when I was still living the hell that was Corpo, I learned a couple of stuff that helped me live through all the bull crap in the office. Of course, corpo’s not all bull crap but you know what I mean. So anyway, here are the things I learned in Corpo:

Thou shalt not shit where you eat.
This is something I learned late in my stay in corpo and let’s just say it’s something that still comes rearing its ugly head and biting me in the ass. Sure, it was good to have something to look forward to as you can see your (in)significant other at the workplace you fantasize burning to the ground. But those kinds of things rarely ever go smoothly and so in the long run, you might find yourself left holding a bag of shit. It becomes especially nightmarish right after the break up since people you work with might have a tendency of (mis)interpreting everything you do as an effect of the said break up. Read: Everything you do is because of HIM. That’s annoying, unless you ARE doing things because of HIM.

It can get ugly too. Imagine crying scenes at the office and – let’s not go there. Plus, the “motivation” you previously had would turn into a great glob of the opposite. Don’t shit where you eat. It’s not only disgusting, it’s unsanitary.

Thou shall keep your friends close, enemies closer.
That’s a general rule anywhere (coming from either Sun Tzu’s Art of War or Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince) but it is useful in corpo for obvious reasons. Also, one of the not-so-apparent reasons is that you might find that you can actually get along with some people who appear to be dickwads inside the office. I think the lesson is, most people just find themselves displaying different characteristics in the workplace. I say most because some are just plain dickwads. Read the rest of this entry »

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