clearing messes

photo by shanquiao

Third week of October, I had a minor altercation with one of my managers regarding the MFC Bar which he was handling. At the time, I did not want to write about it because he was one of the few Korean Managers I had that I actually cared for. Well, that was until true colors were shown.

At the time, I decided in front of the two managers that I would be the one to directly handle the MFC Bar since I was there every night anyway. And the case laid to rest... for a day at least. The next day, after supposedly coming to his senses (or perhaps after being lambasted by his peers), he goes up to my office to both apologize and ask for the management of the bar. He said that it would be inappropriate of my position to directly handle the bar. So I gave in and handed the management of the bar back to him. Things of course were never the same again between the two of us.

Less than a week later, the Chairman decides to make us implement salary cuts and work schedule adjustments on ourselves and the employees due to the hard economic situation. One dilemma he had was the bar attendant's time and cut since we would need her to be there during operation hours. He asked me if he could instead give a commission on every bottle sold and I promptly said yes since it was a good idea and that the amount was up to him as long as it is reasonable. So he decides on a price of commission per bottle and told the bar attendant about it.

Yesterday afternoon, he calls me up and tells me that he has a problem with the commission because it was too big. I said, of course, because the amount was not reasonable because it was too big. So yesterday, he could not give the commission to the bar attendant because it was way bigger than her salary...

The math to it was very simple. What was apparent is that for more than a month, he did not even bother to review sales, compute for the projected commission and he made the bar attendant believe that she was getting this much amount as commission.

So last night, like my usual part of the job, I had to advance damage control measures to at least make my bar attendant feel that she was not robbed.

DUH...

trip to palawan video

Pictures

Here's three pageants I've attended in the past two months...

Mica Villarosa - Teardrops on my Guitar

As a father, there are some obligations that I'd need to attend to specially those involving school activities. When my daughter was younger, I was quite active in her school as part of the PTA but work soon overwhelmed my schedule so I had to content myself with the occasional attendance of some school functions.

But fact is, getting up early in the morning is really quite difficult for me. My daughter, my son and myself are all night persons and are most active in the night time. Maybe my daughter fancies herself as part of the twilight saga. So for bonding purposes and to set Mica towards a goal, I support her endeavor in her liking to music. I appreciate the fact that at least when I pass on, she'll be a happy owner of a home recording studio and ten guitars.

One time, we went to the memorial park where my parents have been laid to rest and we shot some scenes for this video. It was suppose to be another simple video but it turned into a mini production since Black Pipe offered that they back up my daughter on a live jam. Joey Pamiloza, Black Pipe's drummer wasn't around so i ended up playing the drums.

I was pretty awesome doing these things with my daughter. Not all fathers could say that they played in a band together with their daughters. I hope that my daughter finds it awesome too, playing with her Dad.

Here's the jam with Black Pipe. You'll have to excuse us as this was the first time we played this song and Mica's first time to play with a band.



And here's the finished music video of the same song.

Sad Stories...

(senseless rants from nowhere)

Everybody has one… a dying family member, a tragic loss of property due to Ondoy or Pepeng, broken families, a kin in jail or whatever… Point is, probably everyone has a sad story to tell.

A friend of mine once said that it’s rather irritating when he goes to clubs and someone whom he has just met and who is apparently there to entertain him starts talking about “sad stories”. He figures that with the significant amount of expenses he’d incur for the night in order for him to enjoy himself and forget his own “sad story”, spending his hard-earned money and time listening to a poor soul spill their guts out is not exactly his idea of a good time. But of course, it would be different strokes for different folks… I mean, whatever rings your bell.

In the course of my employment in this company, I’ve had the privilege (?) of being manager, guidance counselor, psychologist, and judge to many people. And true enough, the number of “sad stories” I hear would be enough for a good number of screen plays for an indie film I’d like to venture on next year.

I’d like to believe however, that like my friend, some people should refrain from openly griping, simply because it becomes a negative element in the workplace. Like I always say, when my house becomes better looking than my office, then I’ll stay home. Same reasoning that if the people you work with makes you feel comfortable, then you would be looking forward to going to the work place. Much like my belief that a person who doesn’t drink has probably something to hide; an employee who doesn’t make his workplace as “homey” as possible probably has no real intention of staying on the job.

The reason I started this blog entry is because there are some people around me who wishes that they be understood with regards to their personal problems. Don’t get me wrong, I am the master of understanding. Hell, that’s why I meet a lot of opportunists on this world, but my experiences have already led me to the path of pragmatism. Most of the time, you are only as good as what you can offer or give.

The other day, one employee calls me begging that I help her brother who was in detention. I simply asked my employee what the charges were and when he said “robbery” I simply shrugged the issue of and told him that if it was a simple traffic altercation, then it would be no problem. Robbery!? Damn, that’s out of the question. I don’t even know his brother. If it was him, then I’d probably ask for details… then decide.

My relative once asked me if I knew the commanding officer of a certain unit, when I said yes, he asked if I could probably check on his brother-in-law’s case. I checked, and it was dismaying to know that it was illegal drug-related. I called him back and said that he should not have even thought of wasting my time.

There was this incident about one Korean who decided that he was too much in a rush to go thru a police check point so he squeezed his way out of the check line and was apprehended. He calls me and asks for help, I talked to the officer and he said, “Sir, we could have shot him for running away”. Agreed! They should have shot him.

You know that I’ve been burned by so many idiots who would ask for my help and later on I’d end up regretting having spent my time and reputation on their behalf. There are just a lot of people who don’t deserve help… they need rehabilitation.

So forgive me for this senseless rant… I just needed to gripe since I can’t gripe at work.

mica villarosa - should've said no

bumming around in the studio trying to record another song when she sang this one in one take. no fuzz, no hassles and a single cam shoot which made it even better. that day, I bugged a lot of people to finish mica's "teardrops on my guitar" cover version including a live performance of the song with Black Pipe bassist August Gamo, guitarist Kenneth Tutor and myself playing drums. We did two takes and it was quite difficult not being that familiar with the song but it caught on in the editing.

for you mica, daddy can't buy you a bmw, but i can sure as hell make you music videos.

XXX

It was a pleasure watching ABS-CBN's XXX a while ago. One of the topic was about the scam group I was talking about the other day in this blogspot.

http://casieplanet.blogspot.com/2009/11/flinched-not-at-all.html

It felt good seeing them slowly get what they deserve.