Must One Really Be a Bitch to Get What She Wants?

Sure seems like it.

Over the past few years, I’ve seen myself get more bitchy at malls, restaurants, and wherever — sometimes even over the phone. Whenever I am the consumer/client, I expect to get quality products or services. Maybe it all began when Globe Broadband was giving me shoddy service. Or maybe it began before that.

But whatever. It seems that I always have to be stern when I ask for certain things that should, I think, really go without saying.

The latest recipient of my irate-customerness was SM North Edsa. But they well deserved it, however I wish I could have let more of upper management feel my wrath versus some poor, nobody employee.

Recently, they formed a department to specifically attend to making their facilities more friendly to differently-abled customers. I know this because I still had one foot in PR (and another heading in another direction). The man in charge, I shook the guy’s hand at an event for people with autism. Unfortunately, I didn’t have his card.

Papa is in Manila with us (Ate and P who are here from the US, and me) and we want bring him to the IMAX-3D screening of Avatar. Although Papa is more agile and able since his stroke, he still cannot walk too far, which means a wheelchair would be most helpful.

Given this handicap-accessibility thing that seems to be the trend now for malls, see SM and Ayala Malls, you’d think it would be fairly simple to book a wheelchair, right?

Wrong.

I spent two days trying to get through SM’s main line. By day two (today), I was irate and I was this short of shouting at whoever was on the line. Had I not made my irritation audible, I would not have squeezed a direct line out of the poor lady at the ticket office. She gave me the direct line to the mall administration, who consequently had to hear my “comment and suggestion.”

I went something like, “I know that SM has a thrust towards making the facilities more accessible for differently-abled people. I know this because I wrote one of your press releases. But how can you be serious about this goal if one cannot even get through your phone line?!

If you’re serious about this, then there should be a dedicated phone line for wheelchair service. Make a system for it. …….”

I doubt my mini-lecture will make a dent, so I should write a formal letter to the administration.

Whatever with the tag-line “SM cares.” A wise lit teacher of mine once described how one can write effectively. In writing, and in most everything in life, I believe it applies: “Show, not tell.”

Resolution #2

Resolution #1 is written on my skin. Three paper cranes in hope of (and in efforts toward) peace, on which MisterD commented, “Now all you need is 997 more to end the threat of nuclear war forever.” (Oh, thy dear wit.)

Tat No. 2

I have been calmer and kinder towards my mother. It is too early to tell, and we have met but thrice since she came back, both times with relatives as buffers. But I can feel it, the genuine desire and effort not to get into a shouting match, just as the same desire and effort to NOT be cold — our usual alternative to the shouting match.

Resolution #2 is: “To take my job srsly.”

We’re pretty laid-back as an organization, just three of us meeting regularly, really, although there is a fourth person. But if I am not careful and focused, it really can be Sunday everyday — and I’ve had more than a few “Sundays.”

My boss is pretty awesome — cool and laid-back, trusting, and easy to deal with. Talking to him over the phone tonight about current and pending work, it didn’t feel like I was talking to my boss at all.

I called him “bastos” for wanting to snub certain departments and called him, “mayabang” for the same reason. But I also am able to negotiate with him on what I want … and I seem to usually get what I want, or some semblance of it. And this makes me happy. It also proves that my boss listens to what I’ve to say and considers it. (And he’s also very generous.)

All things considered, I really am in a very good place. What luck that I scored on this job, and I’d be damned if I f’d it up.

My task now is to not only NOT eff it up, but to actually be really good at this. I never took a unit of management in college, but it’s high time I learn on the job right. now.

I remember how, growing up, I was very careful to come home right on time. My curfews kept getting later and later — 11pm, 12pm, 1pm — and I was careful to really make it back at the time I said I would. I realized then that trust was a very precious gift just as it is now.

Mondays Are Always the Toughest

I been doing random nothins since morning! Even took a bath and gussied up so I could feel like working. But agh, still no motivation.

My Bags for Bataan

I packed a lot of shit to bring to Bataan for my December 26 to January 1 sojourn. I’ve a separate maleta for my books.

But I’ve done little to no reading. … Just a lot of eating and sleeping!

Oh, What Glee!

So I finally know and understand what all this Glee is all about!

I waited for the dibidi to come out, 22 episodes worth. The first season is 22 episodes, right?

So, like, now I know!

I started Episode One in the afternoon and just watched and watched and watched until a little after midnight. Could. Not. Stop. And was texting with Meanots the whole time!

It was so weird to be salivating over these high school boys. High school boys ARE NOT built like that, are you kidding me?! Well … actually, in Holland where I studied for a year (sophomore high), there WERE hot high school boys built like that … especially the Western European ones! (Case in point, Lukacz, the Polish boy.)

In any case, Meanots rubbed my back, “Take comfort in the fact that in real life, they are near our age.” And PRAISED BE THE LORD, HALLELUJAH! The two objects of my raging hormones confusion — Puck and Finn — were both actually born in 1982! Yahoo! A one-year buffer. Makes me SO not a cougar … because I was feeling so cougarly, watching the whole thing.

Can’t wait for Season Two. I smile just thinking about the series.

Below, Recipe for Hotness. Mohawk + Glasses. Roar!

Mark Salling (Puck)

Ilan Hall (Top Chef, Season 2)

I Owned Only One Camera

Dyip sa Sabang 1 (in B&W)

I have owned only one camera in my life. It was given to me by my dad as my college graduation gift. It was a Canon PowerShot A4 which he paid for by installment, around PhP 1,200.00 each month.

My Canon PowerShot took its last photo earlier this year, or was it the year before? I miss taking pictures.

My glasses have warped

and it makes me really sad. :’(

I want these Carolina Herrera ones, but they are terribly, terribly expensive.

Janssen is Here!

Yay!

I didn’t expect to be so glad at his arrival … truth be told, I felt kinda ill-prepared because I had just driven back late tonight from an Alabang ocular inspection. So all I managed was to turn the couch futon over, bring out a towel and sheets, and put on fresh cases on two pillows.

I was trying to sleep (and still kinda am), but my ears kept on twitching at every sound, wondering if he had already arrived. I had kept the light on and the door open for him downstairs. Finally, the calling came, “Annette!!!” And then slight clanging of my rusty gate as one lifted the hook and pushed the little gate door open.

It’s nice to have visitors from time to time, good friends at that. Since we started becoming occasional roomies in … April or so this year, I’ve realized how much fun J can be. (Although there also was a time when I felt weird and a bit cramped, just because I had become so used to living alone.)

These past few weeks, I have been down. And the sad heaviness (or heavy sadness) comes and goes. There are days when I wake up only to go back to sleep again. And wake, then sleep, sleep, and sleep more. And it scares me sometimes because wanting to sleep all day can be a sign of depression.

V, in an email I’ve yet to respond to, says that solitude is good, but it can also become overwhelming. For the past few weeks, it has been more of the latter. And I am glad, excited, and somewhat relieved even that J is now here, even if only for a few days.

There is something about living and working with other people — I believe I have always enjoyed being “seen.” I have come to love solitude, now nearly two years of being (98%) on my own. But I also do miss just being around people. Some days, I feel it is so important for me to be seen, for someone to be my witness, to simply not be alone.

Chicken!

 

http://nataliedee.com

 

 

My Job is Fun!

Mukha na akong bazaar. But it’s ok. It feels like a mano-mano way to make money, but it’s how one learns.

My boss checks up on me every now and then to see how we’re doing on sales and stuff in general. It occurs to me now, I think we have some of the funniest exchanges on the phone.

“O, kumusta ka na diyan?”

“Ok lang. Tatlo pa lang nabebenta.”

“O, ok na yun! Sulit na.”

“Erm, if you say so. Ang saket na ng pwet ko! Ang saket na ng pwet ko sa kakaupo!“

“Kaya nga magdadala ka ng gagawin mo diyan. Teka, tapos mo na ba yung librong pinahiram ko sa iyo?” referring to his books on social entrepreneurship and selling art.

“Erm … nakakatamad e! Yung [The Chronicles of] Narnia, malapit ko nang matapos!”

“Ha?! Eh hindi naman ako ang nagbigay sa iyo niyan eh.”

Hehehehe.

- – -

Using free Wi-Fi on Marmaduke who is at 11% battery level, Greenbelt 3. Books and Arts Fest, 23 to 26 November 2009.