The Big Boss Viewed My Blog

Some of us have probably read by now a number of articles about bosses, recruiters, or interviewers who are now using social media footprints to learn more about an employee or an applicant. But how many of us know someone who has experienced this, or, more awkwardly, see their own blog being opened right in front of them, in a cubicle, by their own boss. Guess what, it happened to me.

In my attempt to participate in other company activities I applied to be a part of a group involved in employee engagement. One of the qualifications is for one to be creative and during the interview I mentioned that I can write and in fact I have a blog. And as if under hypnosis, I soon found myself staring at our manager’s desktop as he types marcuscanblog.com on his internet browser’s URL address field.  For the very first time, I was browsing my blog site alongside someone whose impression of it could make or break my quest to be part of a new challenge. Well, I’ll know soon.

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After the interview, I tried to recall if my current blog still contains posts that are relevant to the call center industry as I accidentally wiped out years worth of blog posts just last year. Thanks to Feedfabrik I was able to save more than a thousand pages of post since I started in 2006. And as I approach my second year in the industry, I will try to re-post those under the call center tag so please do drop by every now and then to read my archives. Yes, including you boss.

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Mood: 3/10 Honks! (Laundry’s drying, done running–again, and now channel surfing. Will see wifey and Marcus later.)

Warning: Unlimited Hotdog and Burger

This should serve as a warning to everyone out there on a diet. There is a restaurant somewhere at SM By The Bay that you should stay away from. It is called the Movie Stars Cafe which is a place that will put to shame a burger store’s “have it your way” promise. Last Friday we were there to have a simple celebration for our son’s birthday but it was only then when I learned that the place my wife has described to me as having hundred plus TV screens actually serves buffet. That very moment I heard the word buffet my focus shifted from counting the LCD TVs on the wall to finding the start of the buffet line.

As the resto’s name suggests, I soon discovered upon getting a clear view of food at the buffet area, the restaurant’s menu are moviegoers’ favorites. Set along the buffet table where a huge head of a seemingly hungry T-Rex hangs overhead, are dishes anyone will find hard to ignore. The queue starts strategically with hotdog rolls and burger buns followed by–to name a few–a variety of juicy sausages, hot off the pan burger patties, chunky fries, chicken teriyaki, and desserts. Everything’s just so irresistible that the glutton in me reared its ugly head and by the time I reached the end of the line, I had so much on my plate that I swear the sharp-toothed dinosaur would have considered me a real threat to his food chain if it were alive.

Diners in this place are also in for other treats. The place has lots of movie mementos including picture frames of Hollywood celebrities and life-size figures of movie characters like the Stormtrooper, Spider-Man, Batman, and Iron Man. Movie Stars’ waiters and waitresses likewise complete the cinematic details as they too are in character with their costumes identifiable with those we see in the big screen. But wait, there’s more! There are a couple of shows which include mask dancers with someone in Darth Vader costume but one who is rather graceful than intimidating. If someone plans a second trip to the buffet table, these shows are best ways to buy time to let that stuffed feeling go away.

(Clockwise) From top right: V for very naughty; Marcus’ shot of Iron Man; Trust me, this batmobile is to die for; Three of us.

Worry not, however. Despite its ambiance that will remind people of Hard Rock Cafe, Planet Hollywood and other similar movie-themed restos, patrons of Movie Stars Cafe won’t have a tragic ending to their movie dining experience.For the price of about P700/pax, everyone will leave with still enough budget to enjoy the other attractions along the the stretch of SM By The Bay. Expect though to walk out the door with the realization that you are far from fitting inside one of Iron Man’s armors. And so once again, you have been warned.

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Mood: 2/10 Honks! (On HBO…without the unlimited burger. Reality.)

Birthday Poem Only For You

A stork was high in the sky,
’twas years ago.
It circled, then swooped very low.
In a humble home, it dropped by.

“Aha! It’s a boy, however tiny.”
He stared, he smiled,
The couple, overjoyed, almost cried.
“Thank heavens, finally, our baby!”

Now he turns five,
What a boy he has become.
Ever so active, so full of life.
This poem is for him, from dad and mom.

***

Happy Birthday Marcus!

We Catholics Have Become Stubborn

“The great city split into three parts, and the cities of the nations collapsed. God remembered Babylon the Great and gave her the cup filled with the wine of the fury of his wrath.” — Revelation 16:19

Recent survey shows that Catholic mass attendance continues to decline. Based on the survey conducted by SWS (as read from ANC), among the things that discourage the respondents from attending the Holy Mass are sloppy homilies, the relentless opposition of the church on the issue of the Reproductive Health Bill, and just because some have already gotten tired of being preached at. While I wasn’t part of the sample who responded to this survey, I seem to agree.

“There was once a man who went to a hotel and upon entering the room where he is booked, he saw a lady lying on the bed. Outraged, he hurriedly made his way back to the hotel’s front desk. “I think we have a problem here. There is a woman in my bed,” he confronted the reservation officer. “Sir, in this hotel we don’t have problems. All we have are opportunities,” the man behind the desk answered calmly.”

Believe it or not, that is a story I did not expect to hear during a mass especially one that is watched by hundreds of thousands on live TV on a Sunday morning. I don’t know what was on the priest’s mind that time but his story left me questioning his integrity—and to think that he isn’t a rookie priest made me a lot more uneasy.

Lousy homilies also don’t necessarily mean boring. Sometimes, information overload kills it. Take for example this other priest who celebrates mass on the same TV channel on some other days. His highly spirited way of delivering his homilies seems not to help relay the real message behind the scriptures. His fondness of integrating stories from the telenovelas, maybe in his effort to enliven the churchgoers, and talking about investing in mutual funds don’t seem to impress me because I do believe that these topics just don’t fit in what is supposed to be a solemn ceremony meant to feed the spirit, at least just a day every week.

So my question now is “where have all the good priests gone?” In this world where we Catholics have become stubborn and most of us starting to think that we are smarter than the doctrines that we once believe to be true—just by sheer faith, we really need those good priests around again to get us back on track or else the next SWS survey will be worse.

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Honestly, I have been tempted several times already to change channel whenever I see this particular priest walk towards the altar to celebrate mass on TV. But just this last Sunday, something from his homily struck me. It is about focus.

“We should not focus on our problems but rather on its solutions because whatever we focus on to is greatly magnified.”

This one perfectly makes sense, right? If he makes more of these and less about Ser Chief and Bo Sanchez, I will be paying more attention.

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Bible passage from Biblegateway.com

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Mood: 2/10 Honks! (Watching The Three Musketeers on HBO while drinking gin. Alpha and Theta.)

Why Our Son Will Soon Be on Facebook

Do you know that creating a Facebook account for your young child is actually a good thing? Yes, that is what I have realized after reading the article 10 Ways to Future Proof Your Child. According to this Wired Magazine’s online article, opening a Facebook account as early as now prevents someone from creating a fraudulent account with your child’s name which could be used for malicious purposes. And by signing up on behalf of their child also gives parents a head start to place the appropriate filters and security settings, making the account safe and clean and ready to be used when their child starts to beg for his (or her) first Facebook access. All these with the assumption that good parenting has been established and that Zuckerberg’s site is still preferred over Google+ 5-10 years from now.

But the tip I like the most from this article is about getting a child his own domain name. It made me feel maintaining and paying a minimal fee for this blog site justified despite not being able to update it as often as I wished to. Although our son’s online activities nowadays involve frequenting iTune’s App Store in his hunt for games, his recent interest in writing/typing his own name with which his current favorite hero’s name is also attached is encouraging enough. I would love to see the day when our son becomes a contributor to the content of this blog and if ever that happens, watch out for the blog post author named Marcusben10. Oh before I forget, please like his own updates on facebook, just in case.

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Mood: 5/10 Honks! (Trying hard to get rid of writer’s block.)

Thank God, School’s Over

(Counterclockwise from top left.) Marcus and his awards; with mommy; cooling off at Pepper Lunch; Four Arms?

Classes are finally over as today starts Marcus’ official summer vacation. Yesterday we attended his school’s moving up ceremony wherein he brought home a couple of special awards for being the most neat and clean as well as the most improved nursery student.

So in the next two months new routines await of us. Besides his well-deserved break from books and stressful study sessions, it’s goodbye sleep deprivation for me due to driving and waiting for him at school–I skipped this for only a couple of days due to being sick; and it’s a big relief for wifey from worries if school uniforms have been pressed (or not) and if what food to prepare next for lunch, these among other things she need to take care of since class started in June last year.

Congrats Marcus! Congrats wifey, we made it. God is good.

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Mood: 2/10 Honks! (Can’t wait for our first summer outing.)

Why The Pope’s Name Rings a Bell

The white smoke from the most-watched chimney in Rome came out a lot sooner than most of us have anticipated and the BBC breaking news confirmed my gut-feel. Someone has been chosen but he is not our own Cardinal Tagle. I watched the TV disappointed like most Filipinos.

“Now what? Next controversial news please,” I was saying deep inside as I return to my station after grabbing a cup of free coffee from our pantry’s vendo. “We can now move on,” I conceded with the thought that this hype about the papal election is now over and to be forgotten.

It wasn’t the case.

More news about the new pope eventually spread and it caught my attention. Along with billions of Catholics and the rest of world, I soon learned that the newly elected pope is the first ever Jesuit and the first one from Latin America who will assume the highest seat in the Catholic Church. He will also be known as Pope Francis I in reference to one of the very few saints I can recall in a jiffy—St. Francis of Assisi.

Though I cannot remember every detail of St. Francis of Assisi’s life as told years ago by my mother, and religion teachers, its essence that despite being privileged he has chosen to be poor, to serve the poor remained in my memory. It made me a silent fan.

In fact, the story of St. Francis of Assisi has stuck in my mind that his name was the only one that immediately came out during our son’s christening ceremony. “Give me a name of the saint whose footsteps you would like your child to follow,” the priest asked. “Saint Francis of Assisi,” I answered without hesitation.

If I remember it right, that was the last time I heard about him and our son is now more likely following the path of cartoon characters—lately he asserts that he is Ben 10 and every now and then my wife and I believe that he is one of the monsters.

But five years later I didn’t expect that I will hear the word Assisi again. And what the Argentinean pope has told during his first press conference have been inspiring so far, just as inspiring when I first heard about St. Francis of Assisi’s meekness and compassion more than 30 years ago. So even if I am probably among the least vocal about religion I just might keep track about what will happen in the next days to come. The best of luck to our new pope.

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Mood: 2/10 Honks! (This weekend is a whole lot better than it was a year ago. Wifey’s in the hospital during this time last year.)