Occasional Ramblings

I was in a restaurant jotting down stuff for my blog on my PDA when one of the crewmembers approached me with a hefty looking logbook. For a minute there I thought I already overstayed my welcome given the fact that the salmon teriyaki I ordered was already finished and digested probably hours ago. She was looking at me so intently with the logbook in her hands that she looked ready to beat me with it. Well, as it turns out the logbook was a customer feedback record. I quickly answered the questionnaire and jotted down some generic comments about how good the food and service was and that I will be coming back again just to get it over with. What I found strange however was the type of personal information it was asking. Normally a feedback form of this sort would be concerned with the basic demographical questions like age group, sex, probably household income bracket, and the like. But in this case, it was very specific. It asked for my name, address, even contact number, and actual

Antipolo Church - Dress Code

Antipolo Church - Dress Code Originally uploaded by Jepster This is a sign prominently displayed in the front of a local church in Antipolo, Rizal. Apparently, women should never wear red clothes. Orange and green are acceptable. Likewise, men wearing light blue clothes are frowned upon by the church but they really dig parishoners who wear a darker shade of blue :P

The problem with red Mulberries

Mulberry Originally uploaded by Jepster Right before the mulberries ripen into a deep purple, they first turn into this very bright shade of red. I saw my colleague the other day poking around beneath a mulberry tree. He looked a little pissed so I decided to ask him what is wrong. "What's wrong??! What's wrong you ask?? Look at this and tell me what you see," he said while pointing to the tree in front of us. All I saw were red and not quite so ripe mulberries on the tree. "Exactly! Those damn grasscutters and gardeners are eating all the ripe ones."

Of mobile phones and work-life balance at the office

A recent activity at work made it necessary to give out my mobile number to my colleagues so they could contact me in case I am needed at the office. At first, I was a little hesitant. I wasn't too keen on people from work calling me at night or on the weekends, but they assured me that it would be used for emergency purposes only. There was an impending strike at work and they wanted a quick way to "call me in." That's when I started to get "work spam" on my mobile phone. I would get an SMS (text messages) about an after-office singing contest I have no intention of watching, much less participating in. Reminders from people at work about non-work related things. Ironically, the singing contest thing was part of an initiative of the company to promote "work-life balance" at the office. The idea is that employees need stress-relieving activities after work. My idea of work-life balance however is - does not have to do with anything remotely associ

Making the most out of family and friends

Our company just launched an exciting program designed to attract mature talents into its workforce. They plan to do this by offering rewards to employees with successful referrals from our friends and family (yep including family). The reason why it is so exciting is that the company will give us lots of freebies and wads of cash in exchange for these talents. There are certain conditions however before you can get that reward. The applicant should stick to the company for several months and the employee should still be employed with the company at the end of that period. The offer is limited only to technical positions in the company (engineers, geologists, chemists, etc.) and not other positions such as Human Resources, Marketing, Accountants, and IT. Apparently, IT professionals and Marketing staff are a dime a dozen these days. Clever huh? The HR department found a way to make the employees do their job for them and the employees are all buzzing with excitement. Of course, the

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