Much Ado About Nothing... Part II

Sat in the office today… surfed the net… typed the letter… surfed the net… ate lunch… looked at boat/ yatch prices… watched a movie, downloaded songs from p2p, synching my iphone to the itunes… adding songs… that was pretty much it today…. Why?

1. Twenty two of my original master planned sites in SORSOGON area has been reduced to 6 sites because of the rebel demands. After much political bickering with customers and management, those sites will be reduced.
2. TIGAON was supposed to have tower erection today, however, opposition operator demanded for a work stoppage because of fear that frequencies might crash… what a whole lot of bollocks… but what can we do? It’s all on paper.
3. CALABANGA lot owners weren’t satisfied with the E91, E71s and IPhone we gave them. Some even claimed that the IPhones we gave them were fake. Total of 20 cell phones given out for free just to pacify them and they came back wanting for more. Now they filed a petition against us.
4. OCAMPOCMRS towers are still sailing… with 14 more days to the month end, my towers are still somewhere along the ocean enroute to Philippines. Nice…
   

Now you know why I am free?... somewhere along the fine thin line, its not hard to see that corruption is rampant here. Red tapes are just hollow blocks to corruption. On the other front…

1. A long lost friend has arrived in the Philippines under Ericsson
2. Another friend coming to Philippines at the end of the month… its been almost 6 months since I last saw him
3. I have started my handover to my Asst Manager but he seems to be quite defiant on the idea and put it straight to me that, if I am transferred, the whole team will go with me. He kept on telling me about the ‘All for one, one for all’ thingy that I preached since the beginning of the project to the team. I will continue to explain to him that heroics won’t work here.
4. Heard news from a friend that he met with an accident with the Sultan’s car… hahahahaha… that is one in a million!
5. I have been given the task last week to be YET, another bestman to one of my best friends. This will be the third time… hmmpphh…

Well... so much for the day... more to come this week....

Weekend Frustration: Much Ado About Nothing II

You know, its been quite a long while that I haven’t really enjoyed my Saturday’s and Sundays fully and given that fact I have earned that right, I still miss work. For the past 2 weekends, I have told my guys to stay off work and just rest. Last week was a disaster… not long before the clock even crossed the afternoon mark, my guys were calling me up, ‘Sir, can I go to the site? I need to see the conditions there….’…. I reiterated ‘No’ from every phone call I answered and added.. ‘hey, you guys are supposed to be glad you are on vacation on the weekends (because for the past 6 months… weekends were work)…’

All my engineers felt so restless that they were raring to go on Monday. And so, I had a meeting with them on Monday and they told me:

‘Sir, please don’t let us stay in the hotel during weekends…’ I said bro… I have to because I am not going to pay you during weekends now because there are no more sites to work on and I cannot justify my cost of letting you go to the site and claim your OT….

They pleaded again to me… ‘Sir, I wont claim for OT… I just want to work for free… I just want to get out of this boredom…’ ….. I replied… ‘boredom or not, you guys are staying put… no one’s going to the site… I am letting you rest’.


You see… the thing is, they will use the car when they go to the site and gasoline these days aren’t cheap by the way…. Its not just about paying their OT… its about the gas as well. I too need to control my cost because I cannot justify the escalating costs vs progress anymore. It’s my duty as a PM.

But it’s a relief to know that my guys have been trained well. partially also because, there’s absolutely nothing to do here in the BICOL… no cinemas (there is in fact, but substandard conditions), no bowling alleys, no form of entertainment known to 20th century mankind, nothing, zit… wala… mei you… end of story.


Hence, over the weekend, I managed myself quite decently in front of my television watching reruns of CNN, Discovery Channel, Star Movies and HBO (Gladiator, Hot Fuzz, Ocean’s Thirteen, Fly Boys, etc).