The 5 Truths About The Awesome Jay

Jay P, my awesome-st writer who has been with us for three years and more left  the company effective yesterday to pursue another career path. We miss him tremendously today. Like it's not a regular work day without his awesome presence.

And why is Jay so awesome? What makes him awesome?

#1 He Is Mr. Congeniality of the Universe 

It doesn't matter whether you belong to Content Team or not. He's just that friendly, he hangs out with everybody, especially when one has food. 

#2 He Is The Ultimate Eye Candy

I once told the team that I  need to hire an eye candy to inspire me more. He volunteered himself. I was left with no other option. I was cornered.

#3 He Has Wits All Over the Wall

 Only Jay can come up with come back lines that would make you question your sanity. Yep, that's him.

#4 He's Cool As Cool Can Be

Despite being constantly picked on for his brain-damaging wit, Jay remains cool and awesome. And that's why we love him a lot.

#5 He Is Best Friends To Great Cooks

Have I already mentioned that he's best friends with anyone who has food to spare? He's tight with the great cooks in the office. He sure does know how to pick his allies.

Kidding aside, I will miss Jay.

He was a fresh grad when he joined the company. It was like I gave birth to his career. I am so proud of what he has become. He has the ambition, the drive and the right wit to get where he wanna be. I will always be honored to have worked with him.

*Sob*

Hashtag Separation Anxiety

"But I remember those simple things
I remember 'til I cry..."

I haven't written anything for a long, long time.

The last entry here was about my son graduating from college. Since then, I've gone through the 9 cycles of depression, stress and pressure; I barely have time to comb my hair, let alone blog and update any of my social media account on a regular basis.

I found one good reason to blog this weekend. I miss a dear colleague - our Marketing Director.

He's gone for good. That left me devastated (as you all probably have guessed by now that I have this separation anxiety thingy. Which makes me think that I might have been separated and exiled from my loved ones during my first life).

Anyhow, I was so sad I would cry myself to sleep since we had this little farewell party for him. Maybe I was crying for a different reason. But anyway, I find his leaving a really good excuse to cry. He and I, we were never close, but I must admit that there were several instances he saved me from my self-destruction weapon: tactlessness.

Among the people I've worked with, I found him to be free of any pretension, as he knows anyway that I could see past through him when he's trying to be civil or not, nice or evil, etc. Some would say he's a pretentious jerk; I thought otherwise. Maybe he just doesn't like it when people hate him, or think he's not cool. You  know, Americans. They gotta be cool always. 

I kind of miss taunting and annoying him every chance I get.

Hold my hand and I will have all blogs you need written asap.
Go away, Mj. 

And his childish bickerings whenever I let him.

You're such a drama queen, Mj. 
And you're the king!
Whatever! 

So we used to hate each other on a daily basis; there's no knowing when WWWIII would erupt in the office. But as time went by, he started to just let go of his prejudices against my Korean upbringing. (You're North Korean. Are you sure you're not adopted?).

One of the things that I miss the most is his dry sense of humor. I am not sure if  he really is an American. He is actually more British in the humor department.

Hi, I sent you an email. Could you please check it? 
You're an email courier, do you know that?

If you insist on having those 200 pages of content written in one week, I am going to jump off this building!!! 
Fine. 

Now, who wouldn't miss such an adorable person like that?

Project MJ - Secret Life Revealed

This week has been full of surprises. And I couldn't thank enough the wonderful people who gone the extra mile to surprise me on my __th birthday (age is a fill-in-the-blank thingy).

1. My son gifted me with  a favorite-- rocky road cake-- for the first time ever. From his pocket. From his first earning. Made me so damn proud. So grown up and generous and all.

2. Got wonderful wishes, greetings, and gifts from family, friends, and co-workers (past and present). Wines, roses, perfume and fashion accessories. You guys know me so well. Even  the scroog-iest person I know was generous enough to give me a really cool gift. Thank you! 

3. And the bestest gift I got this year is the surprise birthday party from my Truelogic Family. 

Complete with  18 roses from the guys in the office. I nearly cried at this point because I never had a formal debut party. Years ago, before iPhone was invented, I celebrated my 18th birthday in a Billy Idol Slam Dance/New Wave themed party shared with a church friend.

My former eldest son in the office, Mike, joined in and so did Ed, my ex-boss. The surprise party would have been more authentic had I not blown up my son's supposed participation. He didn't join anyway. Said he was too shy. Truth be told, he hates parties. I dunno. Don't ask me. 

The surprise didn't stop there. 

The writers and editors, HR, and some of the OPs people prepared a mini-film.

The video, a hilarious rendition of what my life "used to be", cracked me up so much/moved me to pieces. These are the people that I drive to wits end every single day, and they even had time to convince the big boss to be silly? How cool is that.

The celebration was capped with beers, Mojitos, chips and refills of nonstop laughing with the awesomest people from work. 

To Mafe, who wrote a fabulous blog about me and to everyone else who made my birthday this year truly memorable, thank you ever so much. You have no idea how happy you guys made me. *Sniff* 

May God bless you always that you continue to be a blessing to others.

Dia de Muertos

Or Day of the Dead, All Hallows' Eve  or Halloween is one of the biggest holidays here in the Philippines (and in some parts of the globe). Other than Christmas Day, from October 31 to November 2, Filipinos prepare (a lot!) to honor their departed loved ones.

Our office had a little Halloween party last October 31st. I said little because it was not as extravagant as it was last  year. Considering the short span of time to prepare, HR peeps pulled it off. I volunteered to be one of the judges.When asked why I wanted to be a judge, I couldn't admit that I have already told everyone that I'm a judge and I've accepted bribes, right?

As always, the creativity of Truelogic members is amazing. Look at these photos!

Ops Night Shit - Plants Vs. Zombies theme. Had there been more time to prepare, I'm sure they would've done better.

Elmo is a friggin perve and here's the proof!

Ops Day Shift won second place. 

Even the OJTs had a lot of fun! 

The boss attempted a selfie with me. Looks like he loved the kitty cat ears Ciara lent us.

More photos in FJ's album.

I think people took a bunch  of photos during the party. Everywhere I go, there are groups taking photos. Never a shortage of photos. I am sure the Halloween party is just one excuse to take photos of themselves in fancy costumes. Just my theory. You can always prove me wrong.

The following day, we visited my daughter's grave. She passed away on All Hallow's Eve 16 years ago. Sucks huh? You left her all smiling and giggling that morning. Then  in the afternoon, you find yourself holding her tiny hand in the ICU while she drew her last breath.

They say time heals all wounds but this one is definitely not  healing at all. Never.

We brought her pretty flowers and had a picnic. The nieces and nephews ran around. There were so many people in the cemetery, with some even playing loud music, probably enticing the dead to wake up. 

It was all good. But Hallowen will always be a sad sad day for me no matter what...

The Morong Experience

Last Saturday, October 19, our company went to the Phi Phi Beach Resort in Morong Bataan. It was a tad late for a company summer outing, but the wait was all worth it.

After an almost 6-hour drive from Makati, we arrived at the place exhausted, hungry, but definitely looking forward to a fun-filled weekend. And we were not disappointed. The organizers, the HR team, made sure of that.

The Boss decided to sit beside me, but told me to keep quiet. It was the longest ride ever... 

The Triad: Itamar, the CEO; Clayton, the Marketing Director; and Bernard, the Ops Manager, were the Kings (team captains), while Gaia, Zhai, Carla and I were the princesses. Hell yeah I got to be a princess for a few hours, how fab is that?!!!. I picked Bernard's team. I knew I was in good hands! Yay! Bernard’s misery was just about to begin.

The first game is Sandcastle Building. Each team needs to create the sandcastle within 15 minutes, with the company logo properly included. I tried to sabotage the other team's castles, but the Game Marshalls were too strict!

Next is Amazing Race inspired. Each princess and a pawn have to find the sticks with the King’s picture, scattered all over the shore. I chose one of the Onpage guys, Jojo, and made him search for all the sticks. I didn't know that I had to find the sticks with him. I just hopped and jumped all over the place and realized we were losing. I tried to cheat and convinced the other players to give me their sticks, but they were all so sticking to the rules and didn’t give me any.

The third game is finding those plastic spiders, centipedes and rats. Each item has an equivalent point and the team with the most number of points, wins. Again, I tried to cheat and steal one of the other team’s loot, but was booed instead.

The fourth game - The Voice spin-off - was the best seller and had everyone screaming -  boys and girls alike. Each king had to sing and the one with the loudest  applause (or scream) wins the game. Clayton sang an NSYNC song, which had those girls screaming their lungs out. What?!!! It’s your first time to hear a white guy sing?! Duh!!!

Itamar sang My Way (he played it safe, but the girls were also screaming like it was Justin Timberlake singing, huh?!!) Our King, Bernard -- Oh gawd, I can't remember what he sang, but we cheered for him anyway because he's our King! According to Karen, it's a Kris Allen song, "Live Like We're Dying".

After the screamin' comes the grossin'. Inspired by Fear Factor, the players need to gobble up all those gummy worms placed in a baby's diaper. I wanted to join and decided against it coz I don't really like the idea of eating something from a diaper. Like hellooo!!! My 19-year old son was once a baby. Yuck!

And the last game, where I did my team shame, was called "Coke Sakto." There were 3 pitchers of coffee or chocolate (can't remember) and 3 meters away were 3 empty bottles of coke. We need to transfer the coffee to the empty bottle using either our hands or mouth or both. I thought we were going to drink up the coffee once transferred to the coke bottle and thought it would be so gross, I decided to just use my hands and failed miserably. I tried to cheat, like pour the pitcher directly to the coke bottle, but got disqualified.

I dunno why they take games seriously. I mean, hello, games always have cheats. How else do you explain those cheat websites for Dota, Angry Bird and Candy Crush?!!

After the games, we went back to our villas and Mike (who, along with Sam, did a great job hosting the games) decided we have one more little game before dinner. Like they didn’t have enough games already! While everybody else was busy swimming, taking pictures, playing frisbee or volleyball, some of the Content Boys, SEO guys, and I were busy getting drunk.

There was a little program before dinner for the 3-year anniversaries of 3 employees: Jonas, Mica and Clayton. I kinda missed the program because I got busy puking my guts out (imagine drinking on an empty stomach) and waiting for the heater to turn really cold water to hot.

After what seemed to be an eternity waiting for the dinner to be served, Content Team and I went back to the boy's villa and continued Pik-Pak-Boom and got drunk again. The guys were kinda pissed that I rarely made a mistake so they sort of it made it a mission to make sure I will get the game wrong and get a penalty (drink one straight shot of rum). It was so much fun, we consumed about 5 bottles of Emperador. I decided to go to bed at 10:30. No way I'm going to stay up and drink side by side with those kids. This old woman knows when to stop.

I tried to wake up early the following morning, but having just 3 hours of sleep the night before that, I woke up at about 6:30 and missed the sunrise. After coffee, I joined the winners of the game (Team Clayton) to Turtle Island. The boat ride was fun and boring. Fun because I got to see some salt water (I love the sea) again, boring because the boat was too slow. Had a blast having photo-ops at the island though. My chance to be an ANTM model was fulfilled.

Here, see how fab my shot is:

Thanks Mafe!

After Turtle Island, it was brunch and prep time. I didn't want the day to end. It's one of those badly needed weekend. But all good things come to an end. The bus ride home was faster than I anticipated. No heavy traffic.

The  best part of the outing? We had a really great weather. While it’s  been raining consistently this past few weeks, that weekend, there was not even a hint of rain! Just sun, pure glorious sun to let us enjoy.

As always, bonding with co-workers is always a blast. Memories like this are forever treasured. Hopefully next year, it will be this awesome again!

5 Awesome Ways to Pretend You're Doing a Great Job!

I've worked for like almost 25 years now. Yeah read that. A couple of decades and a half. I know a hard worker when I see one. And I can tell right off the bat a pretentious-lying-stupid-son-of-a-moron as soon as they open their mouths.

These assuming  turds amaze me so much, I just have to blog about them:

1. You ask them a question about a process and they  give you a blank look. Like for a couple of minutes, wait, count that, a couple of hours. They stand there in front of you, trying to be hip en cool, but actually looking like you just asked them how to create the universe in 5 seconds.

2. You ask a solution about something you emailed a few hours ago, hoping that this person will enlighten  you. She fumbles about her e-mail and tells you, "Sorry, I was so busy sucking my toe in the toilet. And it was so darn hard, I had to spend about half a day figuring out how to reach it without bending over. I mean, if that's not a major dilemma; I don't know what is." The story was so dramatically delivered, you'd offer to solve the problem yourself.

3. They always blabber about their accomplishment, even if it's limited to arranging the  papers in the work station. Awww, come on!  Who can beat that? Seriously!

4. They take credit for just everything under the sun. Dude, don't be surprised when this person starts telling everyone that he's responsible for the creation of post-its. I mean, seriously. Really.

5. They send out a  mass email asking for an action plan about a  matter that has been resolved eons of years ago. "Uhm...we had a meeting about that. And you were there..." Wait, was it really you? Or you sent in your doppelganger while you sneaked out to watch GI Joe! Shame on you!

I could write more. Trust me. It's just I need to go back pretending I'm working hard.

Duh.

CEO For a Day

We have this  Holy Week contest in our company. It's so fun, I've been having sleepless nights already. Ha! 


The winner will get to be a CEO at least for a day. And to top it all our CEO will be assisting the winner. How fab is that?

I've told everyone that I wanna win the game. I mean, I am not dying to be a CEO or anything like that, I just wanna experience the feeling. LOL. No. I wanna know how hard it is to be  CEO. Is it fun? I doubt that since our dear CEO seldom smile. I dunno. 

Anyway, don't get me wrong, but I don't plan to do any power tripping. Like hello! Power tripping is so Bonaparte. You get to be a CEO for a day, you should seize the moment and do something monumental! 

This is what I'm planning to do: 

Have the CEO write 5 SEO articles, 3 blogs, 1 press release and 1 magazine feature. If he doesn't finish those within 8 hours, my stint as the CEO will be extended for a week.

I know! I'm so brilliant, right?

And when I get to  be the CEO of the company for a week... I'm going to write about it when the result comes out. 

In the meantime, I should start drafting the company's fabulous new mission/vision. Yay!