Nov 07
ErinGarbage, Top of my head Garbage, house, musings
Since we moved to Pasig to cut down our daily commute time we have decided to offer our house in Binangonan for rent. Most if not all who inquires keeps on asking if we want to sell it instead.
My wife says its the aura. Some houses have this light and welcoming aura while some would imbibe a dark and heavy feeling. Ours belong to the first category but I think it also has something to do with the people who live there. 🙂
More “as-is” pictures here.
Sep 14
ErinWork humor, Work
Copyright still retained by Scott Adams and original image can be found here
One more inevitable thing that cannot be helped. My joining the brood doesnt help elevate my previous position. 😐
Aug 15
ErinTop of my head Garbage, Work
I hail from a middle-class family but I was able to play in the houses and offices of our more well-off relatives. During those times I always associated the “table” as a symbol of power and success. My mother is a public school teacher and I attributed her position with her photo clippings and plastic covered wooden table. I dreamed that someday I would have a table of my own that would bear the title of supervisor, manager, or simply put a boss.
In the childish view of somebody who have observed how hard it is to do manual labor, the “table” espouses a position of power; a capacity to make other people follow my whim. I would sometimes pantomime signing papers and giving people tongue lashings. It seemed like an easy life wherein my job entails sitting on a chair and transforming pieces of paper to near priceless artifacts with the simple flick of the pen in my hand.
Fast forward 25 years or so later and I can only shake my head on the foolishness of that dream. I could say that I am a supervisor but my work has not gone lighter than when I started. I am writing this piece after taking a break on my 15th hour since I started working. Those who are higher than me work more hours than I do as they seemingly take on a lot of tasks and projects. If I could talk to my past self I would have said: your dream is good my so innocent friend, but you do not understand the gravity of the responsibility that comes with that luxurious job. Tasks do not come easier as you progress your career. On second thought, jobs worth keeping become more complex and more frustrating.
Salut to all who thinks moving up the ranks mean less work. Cherish your innocence while it lasts.
Btw, I heard CEO jobs are actually easier… 😉
Jul 22
ErinGarbage Garbage
Hailing from a rural area, my family never had a credit card. In fact hearing all the horror stories with its abuse, our view of its use borders in calling it as the spawn of the devil. After I graduated in college and started working I pretty much stuck with the “cash only” principle. That principle could not go wrong as it forces one to live by one’s own means, dispensing only cash that is available to you. That in itself is a fallacy that I will touch on later.
The company I worked for issued me an American Express gold card when I was assigned to Finland. The card remained largely unused as charging something on a plastic is a very alien principle to me. I even made it a sport heckling those call center agents who hawked pre-approved cards. However a couple of years ago I gave in and got my own credit card (with an extension to my wife who also dislikes using credit cards because of her own personal reasons).
What happened? My reasons were actually simple when you think about it:
- The argument of keeping within the “cash only” transactions will result to living within your means is definitely not true. It can help if you don’t have the necessary willpower to known when you can and cannot afford an item but its not enough. Even without credit cards one can easily fall into deep debts. I have seen that happen. Any vice and addiction can turn around one’s fortune as quick as a stock market crash.
- Living within your means can extend to credit card use, with the bonus of having the convenience of plastic. I don’t charge anything to my card that I cannot pay the next day. The next day, not the next payday. This is where willpower comes into play.
- Credit card allows me to pay the exact amount. Unlike in the US where every penny counts, the Philippine centavo has fallen away into obscurity. How many people today can say they still have seen what a centavo looks like (yes the one with Lapu-lapu). Groceries and department stores are rampant in specifying amounts to the lowly centavo but does not have any change to spare that they round off the amount to the nearest 25 centavos. My credit card is from my bank so I can pay the exact amount down to the centavo when I settle my bills online. Every centavo counts, right?
- Ease of accounting. My online statement allows me to keep track of my expenditures. I use Budget Pulse to keep track of my liquid finances and even if I miss entering my expenses daily I can always fall back on the bank statements to keep my accounting sane.
- Freebies. My credit card has some nifty freebies every 3 months; may it be free pizza, frozen delights, pulvoron or fast food goodies. The amounts needed to avail these have gone up but if I total all the freebies my wife and I have availed then they would have already paid for the yearly membership fee of our credit card. Which brings us to…
- Almost free membership. Well I still need to pay Php1500 per year but for the last 2 of the 3 years I have been using the points earned by my credit card to pay for that yearly membership fee. This year the rep waived the membership fee and reversed the charge on my credit card because of my good standing, and also because I called. 🙂
I only maintain 2 credit cards: the one from the company which I dont use and the one I have now. Overall its a good deal as long I keep on minding how I use our credit cards.
ciao!
Jul 01
ErinTop of my head housebandry, humor, kitchen
Remember that foolish game played by female teens wherein they pluck the petals of roses while alternating between “He loves me” and “He loves me not”? I found a healthy alternative when we had to trim the Malunggay (moringa) sapling in our driveway and found myself delegated to “pluck the leaves” duty. 🙂
I gave up after the fifth or sixth branch. We already had enough for the Monggo guisado as well as have some extra for the other dishes that dont usually get the Malunggay treatment.
And of course she loves me. 😉
Jun 25
ErinTop of my head gadget, humor
It breaks my heart but you we will have to wait a little bit longer. 🙁
Leo is ecstatic. He gets to be my b*tch slave for a while longer.
I wish I can go home early tomorrow and setup Ybi. 🙂
NOTE: Aybi (I-vy) is short for Aybarra. All of my machines are male. My wife already has to contend being second fiddle to my machines, giving them female names would just be adding salt to the wound. 😉
Jun 12
ErinTop of my head Garbage
That feeling of waking up after a short afternoon nap, alone and with the light of the room slowly being rescinded as day turns to night.
Jun 07
ErinTop of my head Garbage, Tech
I spent 5 minutes explaining a scripting issue with a junior member of my team when he asked what the CR and LF characters in the comments section was.
I briefly explained that it stands for Carriage Return and Line Feed but I saw the still puzzled look on his face, the type that was trying to digest something very unfamiliar. I decided to explain further, with matching actions, that those were based in the activities in the typewriter that you need to go to the starting of the line (carriage return) and pushing a lever to add a new line (line feed).
I looked at my young grasshopper and saw the puzzled look became a perplexed one. It was then that I realized the mistake that I made so I asked the next probable question which is “have you had the chance to use a manual typewriter before? ” The answer was a quick No.
I had to laugh since he is basically a fresh grad and in his early twenties. I am on my early thirties and am amazed at what a decade of difference would make in terms of technology.
I wonder how soon it would be before the future graduates are unable to grasp the concepts used as basis for ubiquitous things in technology such as using one or two characters to go to the next line on the document. 🙂
May 14
ErinTop of my head
Testing the MHL adapter that Nanang Lucille sent over.
When upright, the display only uses the center with large black spaces on both sides.
Rotate it sideways and the magic happens…
Unfortunately the device will only be detected if power is supplied via the micro-usb input port. Not bad for a $10 MHL device. The device works beautifully for the purpose why I wanted it in the first place: to watch video clips that I have already cached in my phone memory if the TV is available. 🙂
Thanks Nanang. 🙂
Clarification: the unit is the only one bundled for that price. The HDMI switch and cables are from CDRKing. The power adapter is the one that came with the SGS2 unit.
May 08
ErinHumor humor, Work
The image below was posted in a yammer group and I felt inspired to write a parody. All resemblance to real life are imaginary. It is not meant to reflect my place of work. Now with the legalese out of the way…
There is work and there is your life-at-work.
The kind of work that has your and your team's fingerprints all over it as documented in the metrics you worked all night and submitted 1 day late.
The kind of work that you'd never compromise on, except with that tiny incident one that we don't really like to talk about as the metrics doesn't agree with it.
That we don't expect you to sacrifice your weekend but expect you to do it anyway because we over committed and under-estimated.
You can do that kind of work here. People here think safety first, where CYA is the norm and security, as we defined it, is the top most priority.
People come here to swim in the deep end but you need a swimmer and diving certification before you can do that. And you need to sign a waiver. Afterwards we still don't let you do it because it is risky and it wasn't an activity approved by HR.
They want their work to add up to something. We don't know yet but the laws of physics say that energy is not lost so it must go somewhere. I think it becomes a paycheck or something.
Something big, at least as was stated in the executive memos. Something that couldn't happen anywhere else except for Dilbert cartoons.
Welcome to the place where dreams meet the pavement of reality. In the wipe out kind of way.
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