Remembering
Three years ago, tsunamis swept away thousands of lives off the shores of Asia.
May they always be remembered.
(Photo taken by one of our campaign planners while we were in Krabi, which is very near Phuket, one of the hardest hit towns in Thailand.)
A Rotten Tomato in the Queen's Garden
"I got your present," I said to Marnee. She gave me strawberry and mint flavored condoms. "Red and green. Perfect for the holidays."
"Sorry I couldn't get you the ribbed ones. Store ran out. I know how much you love them."
"Loka loka." And threw her a crumpled ball of paper. Monito monita ended days ago, but Marnee was still in the mood for giving away naughty presents. Yesterday she sent old Jonders from accounting a big can of whipped cream. Marnee had meant it to mean something else -- but Jonders? Jonders just thought that Nestle All Purpose was still the best for fruit salad.
"So, you think Dense is going to get anything?" Marnee picked up the big boxed gift on my table. It was from one of my planners. I kinda guessed it was a memo pad.
"I don't know," I said. Dense was almost always in our conversations lately. The reason we called her Dense was because everybody in the team, except Sts. Agnes and Jane from CategMan, hated her to pieces. She acts like she doesn't know. We all wanted her to "move on" to another line of work, like organic farming.
Marnee rolled her eyes up. "I can't understand why the Queen hasn't
let her go like she did to Charms. Charms was ineffecient, but not thick. At least she knew she wasn't wanted. She resigned the moment she felt it. Poor girl." We called our big boss the Queen, and that's because she went about our day to day speaking with a genuine English accent. We loved her for it. We pretended we were in some bizarre sitcom spinoff.
"The Queen must be biding her time. You can't fire someone like Dense just like that. You have to have grounds for it."
"But duh? She's got grounds since two years ago. Let's list them, shall we? Half a year's worth of absence without leave, lying about her leave, shirking reports, shirking strategy creation, shirking execution, lying about her neck condition, lying about her hepatitis, going on trips while her staff groped about operational stuff, and yes, lying lying lying. The biggest category in the company is going to suffer with her leading it. She has no leadership to speak of. Bah, Aling Josie could do a better job e!"
"You've really got it going, Marnee. Keep it cool," I said. Aling Josie was the cleaning lady.
"Hey. You were angrier over Dense than I'll ever be. "
"That's true." Months ago, I took Dense's favorite fountain pen and threw it out the window after she failed, yet again, on another deliverable. I had hoped it landed on her brand new car. But I had forgiven her since then. Or, forgiven may not be the right word. Maybe
forgotten is more apt? I had started to
forget she existed.
"How could she sleep at night, that witch!" Marnee was probably thinking about
that time where Dense fooled her into doing one of
her reports for Global by namedropping The Queen. And it wasn't an easy report. Marnee chaffed her fingers doing the numbers.
"Are you giving her anything for Christmas?" I asked.
"If I could give her a heart, I would. She hasn't had one, I think."
Pink-tied Glen walked up to us sucking on a long green popsicle. "Thanks for the pop, Marnee," he said, and winked. "What are you girls talking about? Dense again?"
"Yeah," I said. "I think we'd better stop talking about her. Ever. It's evil, you know. It's one of the seven capital sins."
"Well, you may forgive just this one interesting piece of info," Glen licked the melting popsicle from stem to tip. "I have heard from the royal grapevine that Dense may be off by the New Year."
"No," Marnee said, disbelieving.
"Yep," Glen said. "I think Her Royal Highness has finally put together the case against her."
"Do you feel sorry?" Marnee asked me. "What would you feel if you saw her tight little ass kicked out of the office forever?"
"I never thought that it would occur," I said. "But how could you feel sorry for
a pebble in a shoe?"
"Well done, Stepmother," Glen said, getting the analogy, and off he disappeared into the blue cubicles, licking the rest of the popsicle.
"The New Year is going to be very exciting," Marnee said.
You betcha.
Labels: employees, office politics
Christmas is a-Comin'!
I guess everybody's on a shopping frenzy. There were only a handful of people watching movies (at least in the theatre we were in -- I expected The Golden Compass to be packed that night, but nope, there were like ten of us there when the movie started), and most of the people I've talked to had been worrying about finding the time to tick-off their long gift lists.
I love giving gifts! Especially if the gift makes the receiver squeal with glee. "It's purrfect!" "I love it!" "It's exactly what I need!" are words I want to hear, and then I feel I've done a good job being Ms Santa Claus. Unfortunately, now, being what, ten days to Christmas, I still haven't bought my family anything (I've finished the friends bit -- they were easy). I've yet to squeeze my brain for brilliant ideas.
Anyway, if
you've been thinking of what to give me, here's my wish list. And just in case you don't know, my webname and second name being "Christie" does have something to do with my birthday.
- Black pointy shoes, with a low heel, preferably with cushioned sole, Size 9 (feet correlates to boob size, i've found)
- Gift Certificate for a body massage (because my back is as knotted as a pretzel with all the stress from work)
- Gift Certificate at a beauty salon -- hair spa, manicure, pedicure, brow shaping (I am so tired of looking like a wreck)
- A classic, 2-tone metal-strapped watch (preferably in the make and style that lasts)
- An iPod shuffle in hot pink
- A nice dress I can wear to work (preferably in jersey material, the wrap type)
- Three different types of tops that go well with jeans
With all the available vacation leave days I need to use, here are some things I so want to do (of course, listing them has no guarantee that I'd fulfill each one... but it's a start)
- Completing Simbang Gabi, something I had never ever done
- Singing my heart out at the Red Box (in the room with the stage) until the wee hours of the morning
- Celebrating my birthday with family and friends in the garden
- Treating my family to a concert (if there's one with Jed Madela in, we've got to be in it!)
- Listening to a full orchestra playing Christmas pieces
- Doing random acts of kindness to strangers (i.e. paying for the toll fees of the ten cars behind you)
- Ultimate fantasy Number 1: Open to All Street Dancing to House Music
- Ultimate fantasy Number 2: Dream date at the top of a skyscraper
I hope everybody's going to have a wonderful Christmas this year.
Merry Christmas!
Labels: lists
