swollen

Five days after I banged my forehead on a glass wall at the company party, I could still feel it slightly swollen. I was way too drunk to recognize who laughed at my booboo. I didn’t care, really. If it had happened to any of them, I would’ve guffawed more boisterously. All I knew was that I hit the damned glass wall too hard because when I turned, all of them were looking at me. And possibly laughing, too. I wasn’t sure. At any rate, it was a swell party that left my forehead swollen. Funny, but that’s exactly the image that flashes in my mind when I think about that party: swollen.

It started docilely like a prayer meeting as people arrived dressed in black, white, or both at the hall decorated with black and white balloons. Obviously, it’s a black and white party. But I love stating the obvious, so there. The chandeliers were deliberately not turned on. Only tiny downlights provided soft, sleepy incandescent glow to the whole place, which, at that time, seemed more like a fund-raising event in the country club of botoxed matrons. Anyone can look like a botox image model without booze. At that time, wine wasn’t overflowing yet, it was merely trickling, droplet after seductive droplet.

A chocolate fondue fountain was flowing by the entrance, which was flanked by two buffet tables laden with miso soup, sushi, sashimi, tempura, and some other Japanese mutations, blueberry cheesecake, some really tasty noodle thingie, and fish, I think, and some shit, hell, you can’t expect me to remember what the heck they served there. I puked them all out five hours later in the restroom at Starbucks, after having asked for directions from four unbelievably sober officemates at the other table, who, seeing that I was as bloated with booze as a lactating cow’s udder (wouldn’t it be nice if udders squirted tequila instead of milk?), coaxed me to speak French. The American goaded me to speak Tagalog. Freak show mode. But I digress. Where was I, oh yes, the party. At dinner, my wine glass magically filled itself up every time I emptied it. I made a mental note to remember who catered this party. If ever I would throw a party, I want my guests to do the backstroke in a pool of wine. Later on, somebody from HR passed around vodka in a funky bottle that looked like a dildo. I just gulped whatever was handed to me and continued to dance like a hippopotamus with a bad case of hernia. Did I mention I had colleagues who are part of bands that have regular gigs? There, now I did. So there, I danced, hernia and all, and I only have a vague recollection of who exactly I danced with. All I remember is that they were either in black or white. I dragged one of them up the stage where we danced some more, and yeah, there were cameras all around. I whored for the cam whenever I saw one. I borrowed a white, feathery halo from one of the organizers and wore it the whole night. Horns would’ve looked better on me but I don’t want to be a walking cliché. When everybody else was losing all their inhibitions, I decided to keep mine intact and pretended that I was holy. One wore a stuffed panda on her arm, one wore a white wig, and the big boss had a huge Afro. And I mean nest-of-a-fucking-ostrich huge! By this time, I had no idea what songs were being sung by the performers. All I knew was that I was dancing and camera-whoring. I grabbed the camera from a friend, went up the stage, and photographed the singer’s bare foot. I don’t know what else I took photos of. For a while I felt the place was bobbing up and down. That was the time when I was jumping. Or was I? Maybe everybody else was, except me. I gulped some more wine and downed the fresh glass of vodka given to me. Yup, the place was really moving. This was the swollen part of the event, I guess. From there on, it was pretty much downhill. Some people were already leaving to continue the party at some club. I caught the managers line-dancing onstage. I was too wasted to notice the other wasted people around. I hugged some coworkers goodbye and headed out to Starbucks to puke. At the coffeeshop, I was the only one who was that drunk so I shut up and dozed off as they took pictures of me, which are now plastered all over the Net. At some point, I remember having said that I would never drink wine again, ever! But of course, we say stupid, nonsensical things when we’re drunk. And that’s my standard line whenever I feel like puking. At least, I’ve learned my lesson. And I’ve learned it hard. Glass doors and alcohol don’t mix.

drink while you work

Contrary to what some of you might have surmised, I am not closing down this blog. No way. And I didn't die of cancer of the toenails or anything as dramatic as that. I'm very much alive, thank you very much. Work just got in the way. You know how it goes: you quit your job, find a new one, go through all that adjustment shit and you get so busy you finally forget about the stuff that once kept you alive. Well, I didn't actually forget it. I just, sort of, like, well, yeah OK, maybe I did forget about it. I've been so engrossed with the new job that I didn't, couldn't possibly keep log of my exploits, much less keep my lanky body in bed for more than five hours every night—or morning (god, my circadian rhythm is so screwed up already I don't know if it is day or night).

After two months of silence, I'm coming back from my hibernation. Not wiser, not better. Just a bit less sober. I should have my blood tested for alcohol content. Or rather, I should have my alcohol tested for blood content.

I won't be coming up with any Coehlhean crap about my long absence. No words of wisdom either. I was just, well, absent. And in my absence, I didn't write anything. And that's that. End of story.

I've acquired some new habits, though. Like drinking beer while having breakfast, which, one time caused me to accidentally sprinkle brown sugar instead of pepper into my bowl of lugaw (rice porridge). The damned thing looked so much like pepper, for crying out loud. They should label their condiments properly or else some customer would one day sue them for condiment misrepresentation or something. Stupid restaurant.

There were also times when I would sip red wine while at work. Believe me, in my line of work, having a little alcohol in your system helps you do your job better. And management's lenient on this. When our CEO came over from our main office in Europe last December to see how operations were running here, he walked around the place carrying a beer and sporting a dorky Santa hat. Shortly after, all administrative personnel, including our big boss, followed suit. They all started wearing Santa hats everyday until our Christmas break. One look at them and I knew that this is THE company!

Just imagine the reaction of applicants, all dressed to the nines for their interviews, as they enter our office and are greeted with two huge plastic King Kong fists that growl when punched and a stuffed Mickey Mouse with his right hand in his briefs, fondling his crotch.
The fridge in the pantry is teeming with bottles of beer, Sol de Chile, Absolut vodka, flavored lambanog (local wine that kicks ass) and, on lucky days, even Jägermeister. Even the carpet is stained with dried up wine (and Buddha knows what else), remnants of wild office parties whose highlights were animated discussions on sexual perversities.

With a very young workforce (our CEO's only 31 years old and our country manager is two years younger than I am), the company is understandably given to drunken celebrations at the least provocation.

What's good about it is that these people know how to draw the line. Business is still business. The company may seem one whole big party but when the work shift starts grinding, everyone means business. In fact, one employee, who was hired two weeks after I had gotten in, has just recently been fired because of poor performance. Which caused paranoia levels to soar, especially among new recruits like me.

On that fateful day, the clueless guy reported for work only to find that his schedule for the day had already been wiped clean. Then the manager called him to the conference room to give him the axe. He requested if he could stay for a few hours just so he could clear his desk but the boss said it would not be a wise idea. He had to leave immediately. Minutes after he went out of the execution, er, conference room, his proximity ID was already deactivated and could no longer be read by the door scanner. Thus, he had to stand there and wait for another employee to tap her ID onto the proximity scanner and open the electromagnetic locks for him. When he finally got to his workstation, he just took his stuff and left. No weepy farewells.

That's a bit harsh, I know. But it's part of the contract. That's why I'm thinking of other options now, just in case I get axed, too. I don't really mind getting fired. But I've started to love this job already. I may not have found friends here yet (I'm a natural snob) but I do love it here. It's such a small company and everyone does not seem to have egos at all. Everyone has their own eccentricities and nobody seems to give a hoot about it. For a weirdo like me, that's quite an ideal workplace.

Also, the big bosses sneer at hierarchical shit. They all make you feel that you are at the same level with them. But once you screw up, well, you pretty much know where your ass will end up.
So, while I try to adjust to this new job, I'm always on my toes, always on the lookout for the looming axe. But I'll just enjoy this while it lasts. I can't see the fun in getting anxious over something that might not even happen at all. I'd just surf the waves and see where the tides will bring me.

This blog is now officially alive again. I just don't when the next entry will be.

Thanks for all your greetings, comments, messages, and violent reactions. I've missed you all. God, I'm starting to sound like some phoney actor receiving an Oscar.

This crappy post will do for now.

Ciao!

digging another hole

Like a wide-eyed virgin, I started working for this institute three years ago. From television scripts measured in minutes, grouchy TV directors who throw tantrums, and location shoots in the best and worst sites of the country, I shifted gears to accommodate tripartism, globalization, international labor conventions, and economic issues into my staple diet. I knew I sashayed into something totally alien when I found myself draining the blood out of my writing to make it look like a corpse that has just been embalmed, like what nice technical writing should be.

The work was not as bland as I had imagined, though. If my stint as a media practitioner involved risking life and limb, this job had its fair share of attractions too. I learned to enjoy working while incensed chants of an irate mob outside the office calmed my nerves every afternoon. Last song syndrome, for me, included catchy leftist songs and tacky slogans sweetly borne by the air from the mob that jammed the street down below. During lucky days, I got to see abstract works of art on our office walls, left by rallyists who had hurled cans of red paint at us.

The office bustles with life at lunchtime, when manangs with plastic-wrapped food go up and shout “Lunch” like true-blooded Divisoria divas. That’s the clarion call for my colleagues to stop anything they’re doing and congregate on the corridor like convicts claiming their rationed grub. It’s sheer joy to watch various characters streaming out of their cubicles to check out the food with the same curiosity hagglers rummage through used underwear in a flea market. These were the same characters that I worked with during research projects that required us to comb the whole country and jump from one island to another. I got to interview a lot of people—from rosy-cheeked child laborers up in the chilly Cordilliera Mountains to dignified ministers in the posh presidential palace of Indonesia. Honestly, I prefer the candor of the former.

During peak seasons, work came in truckloads. Articles for publication, speeches for some idiotic hotshot, PowerPoint presentations that needed some tweaking, books that required meticulous lay-out in Pagemaker, Senate bills that had to be commented on, and all the usual shit. One time—that was when my fever chased the mercury out of the thermometer—I was asked to co-write a speech for the highest official of the Republic. It was nothing much, really. I was just assigned to write a portion of it; the rest would be written by two other people. I was told to complete it in an hour. So, with my neurons broiling and my hands shaking, I feverishly pounded on my keyboard to produce whatever shit my wrung-up mind was still capable of producing. My boss was checking on me every five minutes, and that’s not an exaggeration. The Palace was already badgering us to submit it immediately. I think I came up with just two pages of crap that my boss edited in a jiffy and hurriedly emailed to the Palace to be further butchered and mangled and twisted according to Her Excellency’s whims. I spent the whole day in bed the following day, languishing in bad-tempered reveries. I was never asked to write a speech for her again.

Lean seasons gave us more leeway to enjoy the finer things in life. An elderly masseuse, who was as regular as our old, horny Xerox guy, would come strolling about, peddling her services. Shiatsu or Thai? Efficascent oil or Ilog Maria essences? One by one, my co-workers would book her. And then the whole office would swell with the fragrance of an old, dying matriarch in comatose.

Management favored harmony of work and family responsibilities, a concept that made the whole office a veritable nursery with whining babies and running kids. It’s not unusual to hear a scandalous wail or a shriek of delight while you’re writing something about the impact of trade liberalization on Philippine economy. Times like that, you wish you were writing something on overpopulation and the best way to control couples’ horniness so they would stop making damn babies that would wail like lunatic assholes at the workplace.

Don’t get me wrong. I love kids, especially those that can already talk. I just can’t stand infants and toddlers. There was this boy at the office, the son of a co-worker, who constantly visited my cubicle to chat about his latest videogame. He would hang around my workstation and sometimes play with my plastic action figures of Shrek and the Dragon. I didn’t mind it, really. Because, as I said, I enjoy being with kids. But one time, when I had to finish editing some articles, he decided to hang out longer and watch my picture-album screen saver. He saw a picture of me standing in front of the Notre Dame de Paris.

“What church is that?” he asked.

“That’s Quiapo Church,” I replied, without looking up from the article I was working on.

“Oh, I see. How about that? What place is this?” he was referring to some park in Europe.

“That’s the Quiapo Park.”

“Oh, and this one looks really nice. Where is this?”

“That’s the other side of the Quiapo church.”

“How about this tall tower? Where is this?”

“That’s the Quiapo Tower.”

“You’re pulling my leg. How come you are wearing a thick jacket and mufflers here? I don’t think Quiapo is this cold!”

“Well, it must’ve been cold as hell when I went there.”

Exasperated by my standard Quiapo answers, he left me alone, probably thinking that Quiapo was a wintry place with grand palaces and courtyards filled with friendly pigeons.

But these kids are minor distractions compared to the accounting and administrative guys. They have the exceptional talent of chatting among themselves and making it appear like they’re haranguing ten thousand people in an open-air stadium. They upgrade a couple of decibels higher during birthday parties, when the standard pancit (sautéed Chinese noodles with vegetables and bits of chicken), pan de sal (little pieces of breakfast buns), and Coke litter the conference room table.

Which brings me to our crazy Christmas parties that required everyone to come in costume. We’ve dressed up as ethnic tribespeople and Animé characters. One Christmas, we even had a bedroom party in which one co-worker showed up with rollers on her hair, night cream plastered on her face, and a big teddy bear in her arms. These parties, with their wanton craziness and brazen crassness, did provide me with respite from the drab looks of my little blue cubicle beside the ancient air-conditioning unit that freezes my balls into some spermatic black hole. I have worked zealously, lazily, and haphazardly. At times I felt that I was already a captive of this cubicle. Other times, it seemed like I was the master of it. Even as I hear unabashed gossiping floating around like smog, I still felt that I belonged here. That I dug a hole here, safe and secure. This was my office. And for three years, this has been my life.

A contract with another company now bears my signature. Another blue cubicle is waiting to ensnare me like a wide-eyed virgin. With shovel in hand, I’m all set to dig yet another hole.

and then the factory starts grinding

It feels good to be in the thick of things again. It helps to have, of course, people who are willing to help, like our librarian who suddenly found a higher calling in collating photocopied executive summaries and filing them in neat folders, euphemistically called participants’ kits. You painstakingly badger paper presenters for their respective papers’ summaries or Powerpoint presentations, reproduce them, compile them in a folder, and then distribute them to participants so they could have one more addition to their ever-expanding collection of unread photocopied thingies. Maybe we should put a large sign on the cover: “Note: this can also be read.”

Amid the flurry of calling up paper reactors and researchers, our most trusted clerk decided to file a two-week sex leave because her seaman boyfriend just docked here. Now he's docked somewhere deeper and danker. She didn’t leave me hanging, though. She made sure the nitty-gritty of clerical shit had already been ironed out before she darted toward the brine-drenched arms of her beau. Even the reclusive creature in our Data Bank, who is usually holed up in between musty shelves that irritatingly smell like stale sweat, got out and did some faxing and coordinating for me. She still required that the task be spelled out to her in detail, but what the heck, at least, she’s out of her burrow now, and made herself useful to the human race.

I paused to munch on my tuna sandwich and to chat with a visiting friend, Gail. In between bites, I managed to squeeze in a photo shoot featuring Adie’s barely-there boobs and butt. I wanted to do “before” and “after” shots but I needed to rush back to work. Only the “before” shots were taken. Besides, I don’t think Adie brought enough rolled up socks for the “after” pictures. They wouldn’t have fitted in her bra anyway.

Back to work. Phone call here. Document there. Lay-out design on Adobe Pagemaker. Last minute printing and photocopying of stuff. And we’re all set. The roundtable discussion will be held this afternoon. It will last for approximately five hours. Great. Five hours of sleep. That’s not bad at all.

the perfect workplace

I wrote this piece when I was so bored and irritated with my office. It was the height of that wonderful Kris and Joey marital brouhaha that suddenly became a national concern (I was actually surprised that our most honorable and idiotic legislators didn’t jump at the opportunity to conduct one of their lame senate investigations). Everyone at the office was talking about it, which really made me sick. Actually, even ordinary office gossip makes me sick. I mean, I don’t see the point! Why do they need to talk about who’s fucking who? What the hell do they care about other people’s lives? Why can’t they just live and let live?


Anyway, this piece arose out of sheer boredom and irritation. And it includes some of the things i hate about this office. Jaybee, this is for you!

THE PERFECT WORKPLACE
8 October 2003
Wednesday
3:45 p. m.

For most part of the afternoon, the cubicles buzz with the dry clicking of computer keyboards. The drab, white light filtering through an equally drab aluminum diffuser glorifies my particle-board desk into an exquisite piece of furniture worthy of exhibition in the august halls of a hospital’s billing office.

I stare at my computer screen with rapture. How responsive are the keys to my bony fingers, how fast do words flow from the tips of my hands to the screen! What wonders have human beings achieved, indeed. Just imagine, I could lend form to my thoughts simply by keying them in through an ergonomically incorrect keyboard. And this is the same technology the powers-that-be use. The shit that our esteemed politicians churn out in congress pass through the same highly-advanced process of…uh…Word Processing. Wow, it’s just, wow.

Imagine the infinite possibilities—I could make my crap look like professional documents. Oh my god, the whole concept excites me so much I could cum in my pants right now!

Employees incessantly walk around as if they were actually loaded with work. With focused eyes, bent bodies, and hurried gait, they briskly stride with determination, thinking perhaps about significant implications on the world economy of the Kris and Joey split-up, and the former’s decision to withdraw formal charges. Their brows are knitted in consternation and their immense foreheads more wrinkled and convoluted than their brains. They have such laudable insights and never-before-heard ideas that would boggle Sartre and baffle Kant. You can see in their eyes the urgency of focused thought, you can read on their lips the unspoken realities of the universe, to which they will decline to give utterance at the moment. All they can manage to reveal about the secrets of our existence are golden, cryptic snippets that would keep you thinking for days on end: “Don’t judge my brother; he’s not a book!”

An empty cubicle has been transformed into a massage parlor cum chismis hub, where a wearied clerk, tired from half a day’s worth of faxing and answering calls, is being given a Swedish, shiatsu, zen-style, body massage by a wandering manang who is as regular as any permanent employee here. The heavenly scent of Vicks Vapor Rub tinges the air with nostalgia as it wafts reminiscences of those times you spent in bed with the flu—complete with headache, backache, assache, or what have you. It reminds you of the time when your mother lovingly massaged your arched back while bawling curses and expletives at you for having played in the rain naked. Oh yes, you still remember that soothing day. You can still taste the puke in your mouth. You can still feel your insides gurgling. You can still remember how your ass went “to shit or not to shit” as your elusive crap decided to play hide-and-seek in your intestines. And it’s all because of Manang the Masseuse’s Vicks Vapor Rub.

Oh yes, this office can be a haven of memories, a bastion of intellectual thought, and a sauna parlor. I feel inspired to push the limits of my intellect here. I dive into the unknown every time I come here. I plunge into important labor policy issues with the constant reminder of my childhood courtesy of hollering babies brought by colleagues who think that this office is an asylum for kids with vocal chord diarrhea.

I observe first-hand the interplay of free trade, tariff reduction, and globalization on the world market here whenever the manongs and the manangs arrive shouting “Merienda!” or “Lunch!” to which everyone scuttles, and the place is instantly transformed into a flea market that can rival even the night markets of Mongkok and Changmai.

Working here does not alienate me from my artistic inclinations. Here, I hone my acting skills by trying to look interested in what I do. I sit upright and look at the computer screen earnestly as I hurriedly switch from one internet window to the other. Here, I pretend that I’m working on a very important article for our News Digest when all I’m doing is write this stupid piece.

I become a whole person here. I reach the summit of my being in this sanctuary. Now, I can proceed to attend to more pressing matters of national importance, and ask ontological questions to decipher the meaning of life. Why is the merienda vendor called Daddy even by employees older than he is? Why can’t senior officials make their own freaking speeches? Why do we always eat the same boring pancit every birthday celebration? And most especially, why can’t that damned baby keep his blasted mouth shut?

Wow, I didn’t know that I was capable of asking such profound questions. I know I may never find the answers to my queries. So I’ll just continue on living, nurturing my existentialist angst and nourishing my Nietzschean ego while listening to the sweet crescendo of a baby’s wailings from a nearby cubicle. I’ll stay in front of this computer and ponder on life’s complexities as I sniff and go high on the scent of Manang the Masseuse’s Vick’s Vapor Rub that still clings on the air long after she’s gone. Ahh, life is so beautiful. I couldn’t ask for a better workplace.

Now where the hell did that manang go? I think I need a massage.

silence of an elevator girl

I forgot to buy chocolate for that elevator girl again.

I’ve been wanting to buy her Choclet, a tiny, one-peso chocolate bar that Tonette sells at the office. It might cheer her up. I know how it feels to be bored out of your wits. I can only imagine how it would be like to be bored out of your wits inside an ancient, rickety, ghost-infested elevator from the Paleolithic Age. For that, she deserves a tiny piece of chocolate.

But hey, she sure does take her job seriously. She knows exactly which floor every employee will go. You don’t need to tell her where you’re going. You just have to show your face and she could read it like a bar code scanner. There are times when I would catch her reading The Daily Bread or some Christian book (or was it the Bible? Hell, I don’t remember. It’s been so long since I last held a bible—take note, I said ‘held’ not ‘read’). Sometimes she would be singing her favorite Christian song (oh yes, once upon a time, all I sang were Christian songs, no, I breathed Christian songs; all else, I considered rubbish or devilish. That’s what too much church does to you, it kinda warps your mind a bit).

Our only interaction came when, I—late as ever—came sprinting into her little antique elevator with the original London cast recording of The Phantom of the Opera playing in my walkman (I was excited over the prospect of watching the movie version that night only to realize that my excitement was not worth it; but that’s another story) I didn’t realize that I was actually singing along Michael Crawford’s “Point of No Return” a wee bit too loud.

“Nice voice,” she commented when the elevator doors creaked opened on the fifth floor. I just smiled and walked off.

Too bad I was in a hurry. If I wasn’t facing the threat of suspension due to too much tardiness, I would’ve stayed and chatted a bit.

That conversation could’ve been the start of something profound. I could’ve drawn much from her. Like, what goes on in her mind when the elevator starts its rusty grind up and down the chute. What psychological warfare does she undergo to keep her sanity while silly office gossip wafts her way through loud-mouthed employees who ride the elevator? How does she fight boredom? How many sheep can she count in one day? How does she shoo away mindless chatter about the weather? What does she think about life? About being in a cell? About life in a cell? What kind of maddening silence does she have to endure when no one enters the elevator? Or what kind of silence does she need to maintain to be non-obtrusive?

When I was under Prof. Randy David in his master’s class (for which I got a whopping INCOMPLETE; I did not submit the final paper, I think), he told us that he was working on a book about silence. He was going around town interviewing all sorts of people on their views on silence. A loner’s silence can be different from the silence of a criminal being led to the lethal injection chamber. We all have our own versions of silence. And more often than not, it is this silence that speaks volumes about who we are. The unspoken reveals much of what the soul tries to hide. (Reminder: check if Randy actually finished the book, if he did, go buy it).

My silence is the silence of an observer. I may not speak that much, but I do see. I try to see beyond what other people say. I’m more focused on what they would rather not say. There’s always something there that is held back, no matter how frank and brutally honest a person claims to be. And sometimes, this silence gives me the creator-watching-over-his-creation kind of feeling. I’m there and yet I’m not. I’m very much part of the scene but I am not within the scene. I simply observe. And take down notes in my head.

Silence would never be maddening for me. It is a very welcome companion. I could work as a security guard in an abandoned building and enjoy its creepy silence while reading books or writing my own book.

But for now, I might break my silence inside the elevator and try to talk to that girl. She needs a bar of chocolate.