Nearly one month on

Autumn is here, some trees are turning a pretty reddish brown and there are others that are well on their way to winter baldness. The weather is getting cooler and although we’ve had a few chilly days and a couple of freezing rainy ones, we’re still experiencing sunny days in the 20s. Still very nice weather, apparently uncommon at this time. In preparation for the imminent coldness, I’ve already bought a number of warm clothes and even a pair of sturdy warm shoes. So nono I’m not going to freeze my fingers and toes off this winter!

I’ve also settled in some more and am finally more comfortable and familiar with the area. Initially it felt like the middle of nowhere and I didn’t even know the way to the bus stop or tram. I’ve got a bank account set up, a registered tax number and even a couple of library cards. I’ve got two libraries which I visit quite enthusiastically for the free wifi.

I have gone out and met new people and had a few good experiences and some groan-inducing ones. I’m inherently an antisocial person but because of a past job that required me to talk to all kinds of people, I’ve developed a part of me that can be socially pleasant and intriguing for an entire evening. A social animal that switches on and off at will, if you will. Too bad for me that my social best seems to give out all the wrong signals here. I’m beginning to discover massive differences between men in their mid 20s and men in their early 30s. The older ones are kind of keener to get in my pants and are less romantic about it. A bit worrying, I want to make friends, not contract herpes.

I’m also becoming an AFL enthusiast, which is a cross between rugby and football. It’s also called football or “footy” and European football is referred to as soccer or “that girly sport.”

So I could head in two directions here. On one hand, I could become a beer-guzzling footy hooligan (which I already am sometimes at home, it seems like there’s a game going on every day). On the other hand, I could be the lucky Asian dream girl to a single 30-year-old professional who’s looking for the one who “gets” what he’s all about.

First week back in Melbourne

It’s around the same time my plane landed at Tullamarine airport a week ago. It’s been busy busy busy. I’ve been fortunate enough to have had beautiful weather so far. Sunny and mild weather yay! It’s autumn and I half-expected it to be colder. I’m happy it’s not!

I’ve been nursing a wrist injury for about two weeks now. I played soccer a few days before I flew out and I had sooo much fun. But I’m not very good at it, or maybe I am because I prevented the opponent from scoring a goal, but anyway a player plowed into me and I fell on the ground hard. I stuck my arm out to steady myself (wrong wrong wrong) and my wrist bore the brunt of the impact. Pain.

Luckily I didn’t break anything but it was very very sore and swollen after that. And it was my left wrist too, which is my main. I did very well looking after it, cold compress, then warm compress then keeping it immobile and bandaging it nice and secure (thanks to boxing, I am excellent at wrapping bandages).

So yeah it was healing oh so nicely and was nearly back to its tip top shape when I totally strained it while travelling. With my 7kg handcarry and 2 luggages AND a tennis racket. Haha. It’s a miracle I didn’t tear the damn thing off. Ruined my french tips too, bastards. I know it’s not a very sensible thing to get a french manicure just before travelling but it’s going to be a while before I can afford beauty services here so just leave me alone!

It’s much better now though and it should be okay very soon. It better be. I don’t want to think I’m too fragile to do any sports! First my elbow and now this!

I’ve been busy with a number of things. We are moving house this weekend and I’ve been helping them out with a garage sale, which took place last weekend and was a smashing success, and packing packing packing.

I have also started another blog, one that keeps track of my study progress. I thought it best to keep that separate from this more general rambleness one. I took some books out from the library and have been reading a lot on typography, VERY good stuff.

I’ve sent out heaps of job applications and will eventually go back to volunteering. Didn’t think my 2007 productivity here would come in so handy. I’ve been reconnecting with friends I made here, it’s been good. I need mates! One of the places I volunteered at (a gallery of contemporary art) is wonderfully situated; it’s a block down from my school. How very convenient. And there is a theatre next to it that serves a good flat white and I enjoyed one immensely after my school visit (more on that later).

English Breakfast or Earl Grey.. occasional Boh tea YUM. Oh Lychee Rose where are you! Black tea with LOTS of honey. Probably my favorite food next to pizza and cereal.

I have discovered the Wii and today will be my fourth day doing yoga. Man, I can really feel those “deep” muscles. At the rate I’m injuring myself, it’s probably a good thing I’m enjoying it more than I thought I would. I’ve always thought it was boring. I’ve also come close to tearing my shoulder off playing bowling and I did a few rounds of boxing that made me realise how much I miss it.

Ok I’m going to finish my tea and look for my center of gravity.

Raising hell

(Warning: Long post, a bit rambling)

On packing: My last day of work has been eventful so far. I woke up early as usual and hung around the house, started sorting out my preliminary packing and ended up nearly finalising everything. I usually have a couple of packing rehearsals before fixing the locks on the luggage and calling it done but I’ve been dragging my feet for a week now. I take packing very seriously. All that’s left to do is double checking on Sunday night, ideal so I can keep Monday and Tuesday for last minute errands and arranging final meetups with people.

I may have overpacked since I’m wearing a previously worn and currently unwashed shirt today and the jumper I’ll be wearing on my flying day. I’ve also been wearing the same pjs for quite some time now. I’ve been blessed with sweat that doesn’t smell straight away (it’s probably all the gallons of water I drink daily) and I admit I am sometimes guilty of reusing clothing. My motto is “till it starts to make me itch”. Except panties. Ok maybe I have done that once or twice, but that was during backpack travelling and it was the norm.

Bank issue: So I set off for work at noon and headed to Unionbank Ortigas, where my payroll account is handled. I realised yesterday when I was trying to clean out my account that I had a loose Php 67.61 in the balance. I remember the finance department inform me awhile back that our ATM account has a lot of limitations, including inability to make transactions over the counter. Apparently it’s a remittance account and I don’t have the option to deposit money into it,  it doesn’t even earn interest. I wondered hmm how could I get that money out if the lowest unit of money ATMs dispense are 100 peso notes? I grew worried and decided I needed help in damning the man. So I relayed my concerns to my finance department and I consulted them for half an hour. They were not able to assuage any of my fears! Basically they said I wouldn’t be able to withdraw that amount and that I would have to forget about it. Huhu! Of course this piece of news vexed me greatly and made me feel very alone. The Man is in cahoots with the finance department. But I couldn’t give up. I wouldn’t. There was no way I was giving that 67 pesos and 61 cents to Unionbank.

Filled with grim determination, I headed over to the bank and politely explained my concerns with a jolly teller. He suggested that the bank deposit 33 pesos (or rather 32.39) to round the account balance off to a hundred and that I give him the money to square things off. I was heartened by this bit of news and was happy I wouldn’t have to and so I happily waited while he spoke with his manager. Upon his return however, he seemed a bit more subdued and informed me that because there were restrictions imposed on my stupid remittance account, he would not be able to help me. I expected this so I wasn’t the least bit ruffled and asked him what I could do and he directed me to another dude, this one was seated and had a desk. This guy, let’s call him Bon Christian Belleza, seemed distracted and wasn’t too interested in my tale of woe. He waited for me to finish and repeated what Jolly had told me, that there was nothing they could do. I got all dramatic about it and said, “Your bank is stealing my money, do you know that this is a criminal offense?” He just stared at me and said that there was a contractual agreement between my company and the bank and that he could not help me any more in the matter. So I said, thanks a lot, Sales and Service Officer Bon Christian Belleza, it’s been a pleasure, may I read this contractual agreement? Keeping my feelings of anger and helplessness under control, I asked to speak with someone else and to his credit, he directed me to customer service.

So off I went to the 31st floor in the same building and quickly found someone who would listen to my problem. He was infinitely better than Bon and he listened patiently and after I’d finished, he said he would look into it. He returned 10 minutes later and said that the only way around the problem is to have my company ring the bank to authorise the Php 32.39 deposit, thus enabling me to withdraw all of the money. I said what a great idea, and I shook his hand and said, thanks Val Deem of Customer Care for a very satisfactory service.

On last day of work: Finally I could go to work but before that, I bought some pizzas (Pizzas!) and told them to deliver to the office. I’m going to miss my team! Once I got settled in, I went to my accounting girls and tried to sort everything out with them. At first they thought I was joking but I was quick to correct them and said nonono I actually did go to the bank and complained about my unfortunate situation, now you must help me. They agreed to deposit the Php 32.39 into my account and include that in my back pay computation. All in all, I’m pretty satisfied and it was well worth the hour. I’m sure they find me ridiculous and countingey but I’m pleased as punch about having made a point and perhaps having passed on the backbone tradition. Feeding them pizza softened them up and I think we’re still cool. Otherwise, concluding my back pay will take a looooong time.

On the Replacement: I stopped working properly since last Friday to give the new guy some space and let him do his own thing, only offering assistance when he needs it. I’ve been chilling, redditing, transferring files and eating pizza since. Well worth that bank fee, I might add.

A few remarks I have:

1. He is a terrible speller. While that’s really kind of okay in our line of work, the tendency to misspell words makes one seem just a little bit incompetent. Pagination not Paganation, spread is not spreed and for Strunk and White’s sake, learn how to use quotations properly.

2. He enjoys giving out instructions but is rather bad at following them.

3. He gets defensive when corrected or reminded.

I know he’s only been at it for two weeks and he will probably get better in time but I’m just incredibly bothered by his lack of attentiveness. Yesterday, projects nearly blew up and the UK dude raised hell, apparently telling my bosses that he was surprised that a new project manager would be taking over my responsibilities. What a dick. Fortunately for me, I don’t delete emails, I just archive them and I still have the email introducing the new guy and saying that he would be in charge starting this week. It is also because NG didn’t do as I had said. I said the UK guy might be a prick but he’s a client and he likes his own status update email and it doesn’t take a large amount of time to do that. I also told him that keeping him happy gets the bosses off your back. I suppose he wanted to learn this lesson on his own.

This month has been tremendously trying at work. It’s been good though, initially I had misgivings about resigning early and flying to Melbourne a month before classes start but I have pretty much adjusted to my newfound status as unemployed and eagerly await my studenting years.

Last week of work

Woohoo! 7 days to March 18.

The new guy (NG) started last Friday and we’ve been busy with the turnover. We’ve got lots of ongoing projects but I’m hoping to complete most of them before next Wednesday, otherwise known as MY LAST DAY OF WORK. Hihihi.

I’ve also started introducing him to our regular clients, my favorite French client was sniffly but dignified about it and said I was embarking on a wonderful journey and that she was happy for me. We bonded in 2008 over long email threads regarding shiatsu massages, Parisian weather, her son who is constantly ill and how lucky I am to be living in a tropical paradise (’tis true). My bubbly Aussie clients, who are notoriously clueless about all things digital, were a little bit wackier in their reactions ranging from ‘Nooooooooooooo! You can’t leave us!’ to ‘We’ll be devastated!!!!!!!!’ to ‘Alright I guess we’ll let you go’. The Dutch one has been the most shy about it, wondering what I will be doing after leaving the company, asking timidly if I have taken a position elsewhere. I haven’t informed zee Germans and the uptight UK main guy ignored my email.

Anyway a few new mini projects came in and I’ve started NG on the correspondence with the clients and helping him see through the life cycle of a couple of them. He’s slowly learning the ropes, he’s a bright guy, asks a lot of questions and I think he’ll get along with my team. It’s been fun training him and getting him to bond with the guys but  I’ve been super exhausted since he arrived and it doesn’t help that clients have been extra lively with projects for some reason. I don’t want to think negatively but sometimes I get the feeling that he’s the type that likes to delegate all tasks and has the tendency to get lazy and complacent. Me, I like to get hands-on about things. But I’m being snap-judgmental, okay I’ll give him some slack, he’s just starting out and he’ll get the hang of it pretty soon. But he did ask if there’s a proofreader on board and I’m like, yo man that’s gonna be your job! Hihihi. He also asked who does the code cleanup (he will!) and the combining of the newly exported PDFs (he will!) and is it absolutely necessary to send a book to the client and keep the new page creations separate (the clients love it and some don’t know how to extract pages) and now he’s on chat preaching about how proofreading and fixing files are no laughing matter. I’m now thinking HELLZ YEAH BITCH you get to do it all!

I’m getting nostalgic just thinking about all the fun I’ll miss. Hehe.

And he’s asking about revision limits and here I must agree that the company’s love for unlimited revision rounds is ridiculous and counter productive. I tried to revolutionise the system but it ate me up. I did learn to work even faster though. Sooo thanks [insert company name here], I owe you my mad multi-tasking skillz!

But anyway all whining aside, I think he’ll do a stellar job eventually. Probably not as well as I have done but then nobody’s perfect hihihihi.

Music break #3

Julien Doré – Les limites

Awesome eyebrow dancing. Awesome all around.

Friday night at home

I was meant to be out tonight but I’ve been feeling ill since Tuesday night. I had been working through two days of full-on work with flu-like symptoms. Last Wednesday I left the office close to midnight and just my luck it was drizzling and I didn’t have an umbrella. It got even more fun when I discovered I didn’t even have enough cash for a taxi. How wonderful. Anyway I left the office early today and went home to sleep the entire afternoon off. I had to skip one of my last few social nights here and it had to be a wine tasting event. It would have been my first time to use my brand new Wine Depot member card. Maybe I can buy wine with it before I leave, just to use it. Or maybe I’ll just sign the back of the card. Hmph.

Anyway I’m feeling much better now even though I can breathe only through one nostril. I’m probably going to sleep again soon as I seem to have bored myself to tears. I spent a great deal of the evening working on my CV, sooooo dull and so necessary. Although I am very grateful that I’ve learned to update it every couple of months. I was at my first job for nearly 4 years and I saw no reason to update my resumé. I was 3 years into it when I decided I wanted a new one. A job, that is. It’s hell enough trying to sell one’s self on a page or two, it’s even worse when you can’t remember anything worth writing about. I think I’ve got most of what I need this time, though I’m still not exactly sure what CVs look like in Australia.

Resignation tips

You could always disappear for a few days and then text your friend at HR (or not) that you’re not returning to work, ever. That’s real classy.

Seriously, it may be a bit of an effort but believe me it’s so much better to leave the company with a smile on your face. You’re already moving on to better things, you don’t need to get all gloaty and vindictive. Some companies are okay with a two-week notice but if you think it’ll be better to serve 30 days, submit your resignation earlier. You do have to plan it a little bit so you don’t come off as an ungrateful and inconsiderate person. Someday you might need to call on your former colleagues to give glowing recommendations. 

Next, write a nice little letter and print a few copies for your immediate supervisor, the CEO and the HR department. Don’t just send an email. Keep it short, simple and professional. I put mine in letter envelopes. 

First paragraph. This should contain the purpose of your letter (i.e. your resignation) and when it is effective. Optional to include your position. You might also like to mention a quick explanation why you have decided to tender your resignation. It could be another job offer, or you’re simply taking some time off. My reason is that I am leaving Manila. Sniff sniff.

This is to inform you that I am resigning from my position as xxxxxx from xxxx company, effective xxxx.

Second paragraph. A nice little thank you for the things you learned during your employment and what a blast it’s been but make sure not to overdo it. You may want to wish them more success but you don’t want to seem insincere so it’s okay if you don’t. Never say or write anything negative about the company to either the HR or the management, no matter how badly you want to. That’s what your friends and family are for. Any of the following, or a combination of the three even, should be okay:

Thank you so much for the rewarding employment I’ve had with xxxx.

I have enjoyed the time that I have spent with the company.

I have learned a great deal and am truly grateful for having been a part of such a talented team. 

Third paragraph. Time to sign off gracefully. You may also want to offer help with training your replacement, or not, it’s up to you really, but just remember to be polite.

I’ll continue to work on my current projects till my last day. Please let me know if I can be of assistance during the transition. You may reach me on my mobile or personal email address if you have any questions. 

And that’s how easy it is. My last day is supposed to be on the 18th of March but HR spoke to me last Friday and asked if I can stay longer and if there was any way they could change my mind. Maybe a salary increase will help? I pretended to mull this over a few seconds then said, well I’m already booked on a flight and everything’s pretty much all set but if you can find someone to take over, I’m more than willing to show him/her the ropes so we can ensure that operation runs smoothly and clients stay happy. I was quite good about it I think. My dad suggests I stay on and finish the week (March 18 falls on a Wednesday). I’m not so sure though, I don’t want to leave them hanging but from the 18th I only have a week before I have to fly out and I have a LOT of things to do.

My friends threw me a surprise birthday party last weekend. Not sure if that will serve as a farewell party as well. I hope not, I want to see them again! They managed to get most of everyone to come, everything was organised, it was impressive. I had such a fantastic time and even though a lot of them had met each other for the first time, they were really nice and friendly. Awesome people.

I will miss my parents and my sister here.

I will miss my friends.

I will miss my paycheck.

But then again, exciting times are still ahead.

About SSS and Pag-Ibig contributions: 2009 update

So things have changed since I posted about checking your SSS contribution summary. The process in finding out has gotten a tad complicated.

1. Go to www.sss.gov.ph

2. Mouse over to My.SSS in the navigation bar somewhere on top of the page

3. Click Register

All of that will lead you to another page where you will be asked to identify yourself, whether you’re an Employer or a Member.

There’s also a link to the registration FAQ provided beneath the dialog, it would be a good idea to read that before you proceed so you don’t ask dumbass questions (see dumbass example all the way at the bottom of this post).

When typing in your SSS number, don’t add any dashes — just write the digits. There are ten digits in mine, I’m assuming it’s the same for everyone. Towards the end of the registration process, you will be asked to provide either an SBR NO. (the site says it’s found on the RS5 Receipt Form of SSS and it should be paid at least 6 months prior to the current date). You may also provide your employer’s ID, just ask your HR or whoever is in charge of your salary. If they don’t know, ask them who does and direct your inquiries to that person.

Make sure you read everything carefully and that there are no typos in the details you provide. Also keep in mind that the only special character they allow you to use in your password is the underscore and they prefer that you start the password with an alphabet letter.

For some reason, they also prefer that you provide a Yahoo email address, I guess they have issues with spam filters of other email accounts. I was tempted to provide my Gmail one, since I use Yahoo only for subscriptions, but why give it a reason to malfunction?

When you’re done filling in all the required fields, hit submit and if they’re satisfied with the information you’ve typed in, you’ll be directed to this awkwardly phrased message:

You have successfully sent your registration information to SSS. Please wait for the e-mail if your registration is successful together with the password.

Then you wait. It’s been over an hour and I still haven’t gotten the email with my computer generated password. I have a sinking feeling that I won’t get that email. I wish you all the best.

I used Chrome to do all this but the Feedback link (found on the homepage, at the bottom) doesn’t seem to work properly. Tried it on Firefox and even IE6 (death to IE6!) and the javascript function is shit there as well. What a horrible website. Alternatively, there’s a SSS Hotline (I haven’t tried this) and you may call numbers 920-6446-55 for assistance. I am thinking this will get me nowhere closer to finding out my contribution summary, but then that’s just me. Any brave soul out there, let me know when you manage to sort out your SSS stuff.

Bring on the dumb questions. Let me help you.

My name is so and so, can you please tell me what my SSS balance is, thank you, more power and God bless.

UPDATE: Whoa! I’m such an impatient pessimist! I just got my password and I was able to log onto My.SSS and see my contribution summary. Awesome!

The search for the best text editor (for me) continues

I started out with TextEdit, which comes bundled with the mac I bought last year. I never warmed up to it. I don’t like that the default settings is rich text. Each time I want to paste text in, I keep thinking it’ll strip all formatting (like Notepad). But it doesn’t and it took me ages to even get around to changing it manually. If I wanted to keep the formatting, I’ll use Word for heaven’s sake. Even after I changed the settings, sometimes it wouldn’t import different accents and symbols properly. No I don’t like it at all.  In fact, the first thing I’m going to do when I get home will be to finally uninstall it off my machine. I should’ve done that a long time ago.

After spending the greater part of last year frustrated with text editing on…TextEdit, I did a half-hearted search for a better editor and came across TextWrangler. It was a breath of fresh air but because I’d gotten used to Notepad ++ on the work computer, I couldn’t really work up to liking it enough.

Of course, DW has a text editor but I always feel like it’s too much when all I want to do is experiment. I use it for actual email blasts for work but I can’t imagine using it for practice. It’s like driving a BMW to the talipapa.

So I kept looking. BBEdit is cool and this is what I’ve been using at home but I don’t like how the logo looks (I know it’s shallow but it’s not pretty) and it’s almost like TextWrangler anyway. It does have more features but I don’t really use those yet. Anyway it’s expensive.

I’ve had a look at CSSEdit and it looks alright. I installed it a week ago but haven’t really gotten around to testing it yet. I don’t think it’s free either. It’s not horribly expensive but anyway I’ll take a look at it. Then there’s Espresso, which is created by the same people. I think I installed that too but it was probably during the week I got all software crazy and downloaded too much. I got so overwhelmed that I ended up installing everything and then going to sleep straight after.

There are dozens more out there and several look really great and all that but a lot of them are more suited to actual programming like Java and PHP, I don’t think I’ll need anything like that anytime soon so it’s best to leave that for now.

Komodo Edit is probably the closest I’ve come to enjoying the text editor experience but it feels a bit heavy, loads up more slowly than the others. It’s possible that I’m just overloading the computer with a couple of Adobe apps open and maybe I’m torrenting too. Maybe. I’m currently testing it here in the office and so far it’s cool, it’s pretty and I’m liking it a lot. I can’t believe it’s free haha. Big plus. I’ll install it at home and play a bit this weekend to see how I like it.

Another one I’m looking at is NVU which is a WYSIWYG editor. Looks promising, I’ll see how that one goes.

I may write about my FTP client software adventure.

Australian Open Final (men’s singles)

Oh it is on.

Photo from official site.