Windows of opportunity

Apologies for not updating as often as I should. PLDT has basically given me the shoddiest DSL ever and it's become nigh-impossible to catch it working at home.

I am in a fascinating time. There are so many opportunities and activities opening up for me that I can't help but get excited at all the potential I'm smelling.

For three weeks now Mav and I have been jogging at Bonifacio High Street. We basically thought of turning to running as a way of keeping ourselves fit and maybe lose some weight, but so far we've been enjoying ourselves pounding away at the hard-packed concrete sidewalks. Mav is steadily getting better as she gets used to the demands of jogging.

Team Flat Out also invited me to Don Pastor's plan of making what they call a "gentlemen's racing series" - basically an open wheel-to-wheel racing class for daily driven cars and amateur drivers who have no racing licenses. If you can imagine what Keiichi Tsuchiya and his fellow race-driver co-hosts do on every episode of "Best Motoring" around Tsukuba Circuit, I reckon you wouldn't be far off.

Also when I try figuring out what I want to do with my life, it seems everything points to the direction of cars. Summit Media, that publishing giant with its offices just three floors down from mine, had a number of job vacancies, and Mav encouraged me to send in my application. Sadly there was no opening for "Top Gear Philippines" but maybe I could start elsewhere with that dream of being an automotive journalist in mind.

My only reservations revolve around leaving my comfort zone, I suppose. For better or worse I've adapted to my current situation pretty well, and there's a part of me that's fearful of leaving something that's already pretty secure. Then again I seem to have hit a wall and have stopped growing...perhaps because I've grown tired of my daily work grind.

So many opportunities, yet so many insecurities as well. It's an exciting time to be alive.

Signs

The week before last, I met Pao, a fellow poster from JACU and JDMUnderground Philippines. He happened to work at the same building as I did. When I asked what kind of work he did, he said he was from the Human Resources department of Summit Media, publishers of "Top Gear Philippines."

Last Thursday, on my way to the grocery I walked into Botchi Santos, one of Top Gear Philippines' more popular writers from his "Wrong Car Right Car" section where each month he helps someone pick out the vehicle they like, with pros and cons. No doubt Botchi had come from the studios of the radio station Jam 88.3, as he hosts an hour-long radio segment there about cars.

On the way back to work, after buying oatmeal, I happened to share the elevator with a guy holding a contract for Summit Media. Curious guy that I am, I looked over and saw the usual details: performance evaluation, regularization policy, etc.

These are probably signs that I should move on from my present post. I feel like I've lost my groove here. Sure I'm a certified software test engineer but that hasn't really spelled the difference for me. I haven't had a bigger paycheck; heck I didn't even get promoted, and those that did were disappointed with their raises. Ever since I left Barclays I haven't been enjoying work either.

My dad was always egging me on since my latter days in college that I should try to work as a writer in the automotive industry, since that's what I really like. Lately I've taken his words seriously. You never know, perhaps my professional bliss resides just four floors down from my present location.

I don't know where to start though. My portfolio as a writer is pretty much zero for now, if you don't count my blog, my mecha reviews at MAHQ and the thousands of posts I've made on car forum websites. Mav was kind enough to do a little research for me and said Summit Media didn't have any writer openings for Top Gear Philippines. Maybe I should just get out and do my own writing for now, just to build up my credibility, until that opening arrives.

Fingers crossed.

Diligence?

It's officially a holiday today but because my office is part of the BPO and Electronics segment, we're exempt from it. My lead was so diligent in letting me know over the weekend that yes there's work on Monday. So, scuppered long weekend plans and all, I did the morning bit, drove Aibo to work, and arrived at 7:45 am.

As of this writing I've been rotting in my seat for two and a half hours with nothing to do. Something's definitely wrong somewhere when your lead and all of your teammates are still not in when almost everybody else is, when there should be no traffic to worry about.

Hrmpf.

Take me back!

On my final month with my current client I am beginning to miss working for Barclays.

Work has been in shambles lately, with overzealous, arrogant developers biting off more than they can chew, a process that's frankly worthless, test data so fragile it breaks down with one ill-advised action, and test scripts that are too damn long for their own good.

I'm not saying Barclays was without problems, but we were vastly better equipped to handle and avoid the shenanigans we're experiencing now.

According to friends I know, there's a chance Barclays might take us in again. Personally I'd jump at the chance if it meant returning to Internet Channels.

"Internet Channels was here 2004-2009"

Every time someone got rolled off from Barclays, or resigned from Accenture entirely, it used to merit a stoppage of work and at least thirty minutes of drama, saying farewells and looking back on the good times. For my first couple of years there that used to be the case.

When people started to leave en masse however, that drama went away. Everyone just bit the bullet and accepted the hard truth: that the recession was taking its toll on our client and there just wasn't any work coming our way. I used to think getting rolled off at Barclays meant that someone had screwed up, or someone didn't perform up to par. This time that just wasn't the case. We didn't fail the client. The client failed us.

For the longest time I had imagined how my own final day at Barclays would turn out like. I imagined that instead of going through the dramatic rituals, I'd just disappear in the background with only the leads knowing that I had indeed rolled off from the project. Hahaha. How prophetic. I never thought that's how I ended up leaving Barclays. One difference though: Everyone knew.

Looking back, I don't think I'd have done my final day any differently. It was in effect also the final day of the Internet Channels test team as we knew it. So few of us would remain behind. I decided to make a "shrine" out of the old nameplates that we still had lying around and slap them onto an unused whiteboard. Those with missing nameplates we just filled in with a felt-tip pen.

Jona told us there was a glimmer of hope for our team, though. We might just go back to Barclays by October if everything goes to plan. We'll see. I'm not really keeping my hopes up. I figure three years in Barclays is enough. I needed a change anyway.

It was fun while it lasted. Thanks, my friends.

Final days with Barclays

I haven't been blogging as frequently as I should. A lot of developments have happened over the past couple weeks.

The biggest and most important one is this: After three years, I am now parting with the friends I've made at the Accenture Barclays Unit. Due to the recession, there just hasn't been much work for the Internet Channels team and so the decision was made to split the team in half. The bigger half will no longer be working with Barclays but for other clients.

Well, I guess it was just a matter of time. I suppose this was also for the best too. It is not good for me and my fellow leavers to stagnate in the specialized knowledge we have. Moving to other clients will ultimately work out better for us and broaden our horizons. We don't know where we're going to yet but two possibilities have surfaced: either we stay in the Cybergate area or move to Union Bank Plaza (UBP) in Ortigas.

My seatmate Joebelle and I were wondering how this development would affect us. If we move to UBP, our problems would include parking space and looking for a gym. There's no gym inside UBP. We might have to bite the bullet and plunk down cash to work out at Gold's Gym in Robinsons Galleria or Fitness First in SM Megamall, both of which are quite a distance from UBP.

Trivalities aside...this is my final week with Barclays. My last day with them is on June 3. I'm still waiting for that email containing the details of my next gig, along with the other leavers. Just a minor shame that my good friends PJ, Paolo Cruz and Joel were part of the lucky (?) ones that will be staying with Barclays.

We'll see.

Answered prayer

I thought it would never come, but I got a pleasant surprise at 7 am Tuesday morning with nobody else in the office.

Software Certifications sent me the e-mail I had been waiting for throughout the holidays. I was expecting it to arrive in time as a Christmas gift, but I guess even they have to take a holiday break sometimes.

I opened the link embedded in the e-mail...and punched my fist in the air with delight. I am now a Certified Software Test Engineer.

The certificate will come in the mail in the future, but knowing that I passed the CSTE examination with flying colors and a smashing score was perhaps Santa's way-overdue Christmas present this year.

Thank you Mav, for reviewing and quizzing me despite my horrible head cold. Thank you Sharon, for giving me the opportunity to step forward unhindered with this exam. Thank you Eric, Marie and Aileen, for facilitating the review classes and making sure we learned what we could. Thank you Ian, for being a great partner. Thank you to my classmates for the insights.

Thank you all!

How much is enough? part deux

The past couple of weeks have practically depleted the time I planned to spend on studying for the CSTE certification exam. Due to "magical events" out of my control (and I meant that very, very sarcastically), no matter how perfect my attendance record had been, I am forced to render overtime just to earn the right to take time off. Some anonymous, unknown idiot had mucked up the computation of that now-kingly figure, chargeability, that had left us all with a bitter taste in the mouth and an inability to take vacation leave.

Fast forward to today. I have now clocked 16 hours of overtime, and my body has started to complain by succumbing to colds. Add to that my inborn inability to sleep on time and I've found myself over-fatigued yet again, barely a month after I last succumbed to flu.

At least some help has come over to my side. I'd been given Tuesday off because I would be stuck at work with nothing to do---perfect timing for Wednesday's CSTE exam. Yesterday, Mav also volunteered to quiz me on my grasp of the CSTE Common Body of Knowledge, over cups of coffee and so many snot-riddled pieces of tissue from my overly sneezy, runny nose. (Thank you, beyb.)

The same title question I dedicate to my efforts to save money...and the expenditures that seem to grow along with them at a discouraging pace. As mentioned, the Jazz's 40,000-km tuneup, new tires and the A/C compressor are big woes, but now I've had the misfortune to discover my brand-new rear hatch has grown a thin rusty crust on its bottom edge, too. Any attempt to budget money for the modifications I want just gets put aside by the expense of basic maintenance. While I've managed to save up an impressive amount of money in just a few months, I get the feeling it's never going to be quite enough for the things I want to do.

So, how much is enough?

A lot of long faces this holiday season...

Things at work have left a bad taste in my mouth and everyone else's.

The vacation leave applications for November and December we filed in advance so many months ago have been summarily disapproved. Not everyone has been as vocal as PJ, but everyone is pissed off at this development. Upper management is blaming the global recession and chargeability for this disagreeable turn of events. They never even talked to us before they hacked away all those leaves. They're even asking us to make up the time we spent on taking certification exams!

We don't even understand why they're doing this when traditionally there's no work at all at the end of the year. Yet they seem hell-bent on keeping us shackled to the office like a child would stubbornly refuse to let go of a favorite toy. Or is that all that we are to them, toys?

My peers and I are disgruntled, but we don't have much of a choice. And frankly, it stinks.

One more farewell...

My developer friend Adrian Ayala has decided to throw in the towel. In the tradition of my good work friends leaving me, he's decided to follow his own path outside Accenture...after he takes a one- or two-month sabbatical with his brother in Minnesota.

The guy is one of the funniest people I've ever met---but don't let that fool you because he's also very well read. He's also got a very keen eye for photography. I joked that he was leaving Accenture because he couldn't sufficiently finance his "vice" and get better lenses and equipment for his Nikon D50.

Godspeed, my friend. You will be missed. I'll see you around. :)

Hitting the spot

Perhaps I may have been wrong about people not appreciating me and my efforts at work. If the results of the recent "secret encourager" activity are anything to go by...apparently sometimes I know just how exactly to hit the spot.

My encouragee holds a special place in my photos of my colleagues for never smiling in them, save for one. Basically I compiled all of them and showed her how important smiling is. I kept at the "smile" theme the whole time. I left her a chicken empanada pie this morning because its half-moon shape can look like a toothy grin. I reminded her to smile because for all she knows she could be on candid camera.

Winning at this game meant your encouragee would have to be able to guess whom he/she was. I purposely downplayed winning at this event. To me this activity was a golden opportunity to do something nice for someone I didn't know very well. Turning it into a game was besmirching the good will. Then again, perhaps an incentive had to be in place for people to actually get around to doing it.

I won; she managed to guess who I was without me leaving blatant clues as to who I was. But winning felt strangely empty. I felt more of a winner when I got feedback from her a couple of days ago, that she was actually feeling encouraged by what I was doing.

That was a bigger victory for me.

Who says Brits have no humor?

This weekly blog email from one of my UK counterparts, Ismail Amla, just made my day.

Quoting verbatim:

I went home on Tuesday night this week to son number 2 putting the fear of death into his younger brother and sister. He was telling them how the world was going to end at 8.30 on Wednesday morning when the 'time machine' was to be turned on. He was talking about the most powerful particle collider on the planet where I am told, the plan is to crash together subatomic particles with enough energy to re-create the intense conditions that existed one trillionth of a second after the Big Bang. Son number 2 had convinced his siblings that the black hole was going to swallow everything and they might as well give him their PSP (mobile playstation) that he has been trying to get his hands on for a couple of days. My timely intervention saved them from handing over the PSP but we did have some trouble getting them to bed that night! I have yet to come up with a suitable punishment for the trouble maker.

Hahaha! Cheeky little bugger...

Career crossroads

My friend Angiela is leaving for Washington D.C. at the end of the month. We hadn't seen each other in a long, long while, so she asked me to dinner at Robinsons Galleria last Friday.

While we were talking I found myself getting jealous of her position. She'll be earning ten times her old salary at her previous firm over there, and she'll find it a lot easier compared to her overworked/underpaid days here. She's even getting a car once she gets there, too.

I felt happy for her. But compared to all that, I felt a little sorry for myself. I have nowhere near the toxicity of her workload, but I do have to admit I'm not paid enough for the kind of work I'm doing. My eyes turned green with envy for the better part of a weekend.

I work in an industry I don't exactly love. I work in a company that pays its employees peanuts compared to other companies...at least until I work my ass off and get at least 4 promotions, at which point the pay becomes merely "livable." I'm not getting any younger.

But I'm not willing to leave the Philippines, either.

I'm free of any extra-contractual obligations now. At this point I'm not quite sure what I should be doing. At least thanks to PJ, I know that I'm not really in as bad a position as I had thought. I guess the best thing I could do is do well in my current assignment, and tough it out.

It's Jack's turn to say goodbye.

Jacklyn Competente is undoubtedly Miss Congeniality personified. She could get along with everyone and anyone. She's got a bubbly personality and a genuine knack for getting people's affections.

She joined Accenture because she thought she'd have a chance to learn about her capability of choice, SAP. Not a day went by without her ballyhooing her desire for SAP and all its merits. It was unfortunate for that objective then that she landed in software testing. In her entire stay with Accenture she didn't have the chance to move toward what she wanted, and that triggered her resignation...much as she wanted to stay.

I'm pretty sure everyone who knew her in the company wants her to stay as well. Jack is infamous for her many, many, many candid and stolen shots taken on my cellphone's camera. But all we can do is wish her the best of luck wherever the winds of fate take her.

Independence? Hah!

It is ironic that on the day we Pinoys commemorate our independence, my colleagues and I find ourselves forced into overtime by a client from overseas...through no fault of our own.

Happy independence day...but I doubt nowadays there's anything to be happy about.

Beach trip? No thanks.

I gave up joining the Barclays summer outing to Cavite this year because it coincided with a long-planned outing my family and relatives had planned for about a month already. The plan was to go to Pangasinan.

So why am I still in Manila?

My dad decided to cancel the night before. Apparently, Nanay and Tita Hedwig were already there and it was definitely not worth the effort. After a long six-hour drive, they arrived at a resort that had so many people on a teambuilding event from some company that didn't have the common sense to just reserve the venue exclusively. They felt like gatecrashers. Add to that a beach that couldn't hold high tide in the afternoon, and with barnacles and sea urchins left in the tide's wake, and you have, in Tita Hedwig's words, "a vacation from hell."

I'm okay with that, to be honest. It's not as if the Barclays Cavite trip is anything to look forward to, anyway. Unlike the previous two outings, this wasn't even an overnight stay. Funny how the office summer outings just keep on going downhill year after year.

Fire sobers us all

No matter what sort of bullshit I encounter every day, certain sobering events come along to make me realize just how much of a lucky bastard I really am.

Today marks the week after my friend Paolo Jaucian's house in Pasay burned down. It started at 4 am last Friday morning. The blaze had started from an electrical fault in an adjoining house's wiring, setting the wooden house on fire and sparking an inferno that spread to six other houses. Six hours later, Jenny, Joel, Chielou and I were awestruck when PJ called us up at the office with the news. Apparently he and his pregnant wife Jasmine made it out okay, although they failed to salvage anything from their burnt home except important paperwork and clothes.

Without any further contact with PJ (his cellphone melted in the blaze), Chielou and I worried about him. The blaze happened at just about the worst time imaginable: PJ was restoring the house, Jasmine was pregnant, and they had a lot of bills to pay from their marriage last year.

Our hopes came back when PJ came back to the office yesterday afternoon, albeit in a shirt, denim jeans and slippers. He came to secure his share of fire contribution and settle a few things. Work in our cube literally stopped for 45 minutes as we all gathered around to welcome him and ask about the event.

It turns out PJ's house was an unnecessary casualty. Infuriatingly, the city firemen stationed nearby refused to put out the blazes as they ate at all adjoining property for almost two hours. Only the Chinese-Filipino volunteer firefighters, straight from relatively faraway Binondo, put in the effort to quell the fire. The city firemen did not raise a finger until the media came along to film the blazes! Had they sprung into action faster, PJ would most likely still have his house. What incredible bullshit! Only in the Philippines, folks...

Still, PJ was lucky he did not share the same fate of the father and his son who went back into the flames...and never came out alive. Their lives and bodies got snuffed out, leaving a horrid smell that only the overeager looters seem to be able to withstand.

PJ thanked me for visiting and surveying the damage the night after the fire. Me? I'm just thankful my good friend is still alive and well.

Glam rock and blues on the road

For this quarter's teambuilding event, my colleagues decided to try something new. Instead of going out to a restaurant to yet again eat our guts out, we tried going out of town to Tagaytay on a Saturday.

We went to hilly Picnic Grove to trek, Leslie's for lunch, Mushroomburger and Sonya's Kitchen to pick up snacks, and then headed to Caleruega's Veritas Hall for our activities. All the while, I had Beng, Paolo C. and Albert to keep me company while Queen, The Darkness and the Pinoy blues bands of "Blueskrieg" rocked out inside my car.

The changing-lanes-and-pop-up-barriers chaos of the SLEX didn't do me any favors, nor did the Sta. Rosa and Carmona traffic, nor the hideously huge rut that caught my poor Jazz out on the Sta. Rosa SLEX entry on the way back home. (Luckily, the damage was mostly cosmetic and concerned nothing vital.)

In the inclement conditions, however, the four of us had a grand time discussing the greatness of Queen, the merits of blues music, and Beng's advice for courting women. None of us fell asleep on the entire trip, even though we made it back 30 minutes after everyone else did.

Many thanks guys. If you decide to tag along on our summer outing I'd be honored to have all of you as my passengers once again.

A somber Valentine's Day

It is with sorrow that I report the passing of my colleague, Ray Poso.

He was part of the ESDS PAT test team, and while I never really knew him well, he was a big jolly guy. He succumbed last night to multiple organ failure, including kidney damage, and did not even make it to Valentine's Day. He left behind a wife, a kid, and the family of his brother whom he was also supporting.

The sad thing about this is he's my equal in rank, yet he was the sole breadwinner for so many people. I can only wonder how he makes do with his financial situation. Well, that's moot and academic now, really.

Rest in peace, Ray. I will pray for your soul.

Friday night barhopping

The past couple of Fridays, I've been going out drinking with work friends Mao, Anne, Candice, Tri, Beng, Adrian, PJ and Robert. I guess that's nothing special to most of you guys, but these are my first drinking sessions where I've had to actively monitor my state of inebriation. We all know we shouldn't be driving when we're tipsy or drunk.

So far, so good. I admit to a low tolerance for alcohol compared to many people my age, but I've managed to piss most of it out without the remainder affecting my driving. I had my first mojito last night and it was actually pretty good, although a little heavy on the head due to the gin content.

Worrying aside though, hanging out with these guys was fun. It was nice seeing Tri again after her resignation last year, and she had most of the stories last night. Last week we were arguably more animated, vocally laughing our guts out when Adrian and Beng cracked jokes.

This is an expensive habit, but it's great if done once in a while I guess.