tales of a professional bum

i seriously have a bad case of work attitude problem. i'm not proud. it's just that, when you say things aloud, the realization gets clearer.

my present job isn't my first. i was an english tutor on year 2006 (i was a deloaded/irregular student, i had more than enough time, thus applied for that job and got good pay). i worked for Han Guk/Bae Um Teo English Academy from june to october 2006. i stayed (roughly) for 4 months. not bad right? yet in between that time period, there were times when i just didn't feel like going to work.

here's my weekly schedule then:
monday-friday: 8am-12nn, 6pm-8pm (english tutor)
monday-tuesday, friday: 1pm-5pm (paulinian student)
saturday: 10am-5pm ("yaya" to the korean kids)
sunday: church, lunch, shopping (family woman. chos.)

you can just imagine how stressful it is for a lazy girl like me. (hehe)

there were also times when i had to go to late night practices for humanities presentations so i had to be off from work at 8 pm, head for a classmate's house right after and go home past midnight. then the next morning, wake up early at 6 am and go to work again. of course, with a good pay, sometimes right after work, i'd still drop by hangout places and have a drink or two with my friends. same goes with saturday nights.

daw hapuon na ko manumdom.

so sometimes, i'd make up flimsy excuses just to miss work. i had to pretend that i was sick or i have important school activities to attend or school projects to do. nevermind that my salary's deducted. i just needed to take a break. (and i end up going out with my friends man gyapon. hahaha.)

***

july 2008, i was hired as an online english tutor (again) at Now Talking. this time, the need for money is greater because i'm a post nursing graduate and awaiting the NLE results which we thought would be released after 2 months. aside from applying as an english tutor, we (nino and pingping) also applied for call center jobs. however, the companies didn't respond immediately so i took the first offered job.

my schedule's like this every weekdays: monday to friday, 1pm to 10pm (tapos may dako-dako na vacant time in between. bale indi xa dire-diretso na ubra). let's say, i have 2 students whom i talk to over video phone for 20 minutes from 1-2 pm (that's 40 minutes). my next class is at 4pm until 6.30 pm. then the next is at 9pm to 10 pm straight.

notice that there are 2 to 3 hours interval between one class to the next. however, i work at molo. if i wanted to take a break, the farthest i could go to is molo supermart or starmart. so what nino and i do is we just kill time talking to each other during our vacant time. (lala pa gid kaso ni nino kay wala gid xa ya klasi. iya lang ubra, pang arrange schedule kag himo reports and he also has to stay until 10pm!) at 10 pm, we needed to take a cab to go home since there aren't PUJs anymore, what with the remote location of our office. yeah, our food is free where we work but the taxi fare consumes 3/4 of my daily allowance (sa jaro pa ko gapuli kag 100 lang allowance ko everyday. ang 20 na subra, pang load. puraot gid). and all we get every 15th is a thousand bucks. which is not fair considering the amount that we spend on our fare every day. (everyday, mga 80 pesos for taxi x 10-15 days. DO THE MATH.)

july 24th, NLE result was released and everybody in the workplace knew about it. even if they haven't said it aloud, we felt obliged to treat them. so with the little money that we have, we pitched in 200 each to buy a cake for everybody. yet, at the back of our minds, we really didn't want to because if there are people who are supposed to treat us, it should be them because they earn greater than we do. (mga wala huya!) but because we are "paulinian registered nurses" now, we just faked our smiles and told each other that we're not staying forever in that damned place anyway.

july 29th, nino and i both got phone calls from Ventus. we were asked if it was possible for us to report there the next day for the products training. we said yes (although we weren't sure). afterwhich, we brainstormed on possible excuses to make to the Now Talking people. we both agreed that we have to use our being RNs in this situation. we told our filipino manager that we'll be absent for the whole day on the next day because we had to attend to our prc license and all the stuff needed for our oath taking ceremony. the manager told us that we could be absent in the afternoon but not at night (PRC closes at 5pm. hello?) although we still had doubts with what's going to take place the next day, we just took the manager's decision as it is. bahala na.

july 30th, nino and i reported to ePLDT ventus at 8 am for the contract signing. of course we were very doubtful at that time because we still were currently employed at Now Talking. but we didn't know what to do, so we signed anyway. after the contract signing, we proceeded with the products training. the day lasted at 5pm. now's the time for us to make the decision. should we go back to Now Talking, continue working there? or should we just tell them that we're quiting?

we went to Now Talking armed with our only defense and reason, we needed to complete our requirements for PRC license and the oath taking. the manager didn't take it well, she was unconvinced. (kun ikaw man b, ma kumbinsi ka?) she bargained for me to stay for a week or 2 more until they find a replacement for me. but i didn't because it'll go on just like that for 2 weeks, me absent every 1pm-5pm. pila na lang tu b sweldo ko karon? 300? hahaha. so i just told her that it'll be difficult for me and that i have no choice. so she walked out on us. then arrived a car and ervinn, a coworker at Now Talking's boyfriend got out. shitt. we didn't see this coming. ervinn was our products trainer in ventus!

nino and i didn't feel good about our decision. (actually, daw ako gid ang utak behind the decision. scheming bitch.) we were silent as we were on our way home. then i got a message from the manager: "tani nag prangka na lang kamo na sa ventus kamo masaylo. makitanay man ta gyapon. lapitanay man lang ang now talking kag ventus :)" yup. with the sarcastic smile. i even felt worse that i didn't want to come to ventus the next day para la na gamo.

but the girl's got to make a living. so nino and i reported again to ventus the next day for the training. ervinn was eyeing us with meaningful stares. we know that he knows something BIG. we pretended it was nothing anyway. afterall, we have courteously asked permission from our previous employer.

***

here starts my 3rd job, a call center agent. specifically, a transcriber. we didn't need to have phone-friendly voices, all we needed is an intact acoustic nerve (in lay man's term, good sense of hearing). nino and i attended the training for 2 days. then the bad news: kinanglan pa gid kami sala-on to make it (finally) to the job. so even though we've already signed our contracts, it's not a guarantee pa that we would be regular agents. we will be having a series of transcribing drills for the next few days which will be evaluated by the QA (quality assurance) people in ventus and also the clients in US.

here's what we do: we receive voice mails (from the US), transcribe those (meaning, itype ang every word sa voice mail, in different accents pa na nga sakayudipoga), and send it as a text message to the client. actually, our job description's not that bad. we didn't have to deal with foul-mouthed, demanding clients nga mapatas man sa pasensya mo. we didn't need to talk for 8 hours. we just needed to listen and type.

nino didn't go on training because of the bad news. (tinamadan na gid guro kay indi pa xa assured nga may sure job na xa. kag indi gid xa kasaho mag work graveyard shifts). so i was left with the many strangers na ka batch ko. good thing damo man mga new RNs from other schools so i didn't feel too left out. actually, i've made wonderful friendships with them somehow.

from 50 of us who signed our contracts, only 26 have succesfully passed the evaluation and QA series. at mid august, i was officially a call center agent slash transcriber.

i enjoyed my job. really. every week we were evaluated for our performance. (i'm not boasting but) i was one of the top agents. my QA's were beyond average. my salary was more than enough. i didn't have to ask for a daily 100 peso bill from my parents. i could say that being a transcriber was what i really wanted to do (the graveyard shift, the daily doses of coffee, the corporate attires!) if not for a teeny-weeny bit of a problem.

i got sick. i knew it was coming, sooner or later. after 2 months, i seriously got sick. (ginsukot sang dako2 sa pang abuso sa lawas).

after 2 months of the UN-constant and weekly changes in schedule (like this week, akun shift b 10am to 7pm. next week, 2am to 11am. next week 9pm to 6am), my already "down" immune system finally went further down with my body. i visited my wawa at the hospital and got all sorts of flu/cold virus and consecutively got sick too. i was too sick to call-in-sick at ventus that i stopped calling. why, everyday kinanglan gid manawag? don't you get it? namasakit gani ang tawo!

then notices and warnings were mailed at home. that time, nobody's looking after wawa at the hospital so i had to volunteer. (HAD TO?!) i am a nurse and i have no choice. i didn't notice the mails from ventus. i didn't know that i was being asked to report at the office. i only got hold of my mails when wawa was discharged and i was already "fired" from my job. ang gwa, daw nag AWOL ko. bad record, right? i'm not proud. i could have done the courtesy of going there and tell them that i'm quitting but it was too late. mmm.. somehow, it's my fault. i should have found time to do that but i didn't exert any effort.

***

now i'm an english tutor, AGAIN. i've started working the monday after dinagyang 2009. (i'm too lazy to check the calendar.) and i am dragging myself again to go on each day. the pay is sooo good and i get it every fridays. (i feel rich during the weekends. haha.) however, i have negative what-abouts with the korean students there. they're soooo ANGHIT/BAHO (i can't find the exact word to describe their odor, but for sure it's sooo bad i am holding my breath everytime i get near them.) also, the adults are really bad bullies. i feel sorry for the younger ones because they are demanded for money or gapa libre pagkaon, etc. to make myself feel better, i told one adult SHAME ON YOU. he didn't understand, of course. otherwise, fired na ko guro sbng. hehehe. and there's this other student who is abtik kamot. she always slaps me and bites me or basta, physical ang tira. i just pretend it's okay and do mental revenge na lang. natak-an naman ko sg gamo. so gina program ko na that i'll quit working after march, with tina.


as i've said, i have a serious work attitude problem and this worries me with the future. what if i present this attitude when i'm at other countries? what if i'll never get over this laziness and sloth? i don't know what will happen to me but for sure, it would greatly affect my life. i don't know what the problem is, but i know that i need help, professional help even.

arrrgh! i'm too lazy to think about the future! i don't want to worry but i know i have to.

what do you think?