Happy Birthday!

It has been a long time since I really celebrated my dearly departed mother's birthday. I filed for a leave in advance for this day. It's her 56th birthday.

This is a day to commemorate her undying passion for motherhood. For those who don't know, my mom died when I was in Junior High School (it was February 2001 to be exact). It has always been like yesterday that I last saw her. I really miss her. When she left me, I hugged her tight thinking that this is the last chance to feel her warmth and to see her face.

I guess when shit happens the only thing you can do is to move forward and just keep the memories to yourself and remember the things that were. I hope she's happy wherever she is because I am. I finally fulfilled her dreams for me to finish and find a decent job. I know I am still a work in progress but eventually I'll reach my goal.

Going back to the celebration, I had a hard time thinking what to have for her birthday. They told me to have at least something that she would really like. I remembered she like cakes. Since it was raining, I just ordered a regular chocolate cake in Red Ribbon for delivery. It's good they offer such service already. Aside from the cake, I called Pizza Hut to deliver a Cheesy Pops 'N Dip Feast 2. We enjoyed the food and everything. We sang Happy Birthday just rejoicing for the day that she was born. I am so thankful that she is my mom and I hope that I did not fail her as a son.

Happy Birthday to the Greatest Mom!

My Mom's Birthday Cake


The entire meal....

New Seven Natural Wonders

Please vote for our own in the quest of the New7Wonders of Nature.

LPENHS Batch 2002 Yahoo Group

Our lpenhs02 group at Yahoo! Groups is good to go.

Here are the details on lpenhs02:

Group home page: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lpenhs02
Group email address: lpenhs02@yahoogroups.com

Ready to start?

Get the ball rolling by posting the very first group message. Then add photos, create an event, or whatever. In short, make yourself at home in our new group.

Simply drop by the lpenhs02 homepage now. To keep the online conversation moving, be sure to invite friends, family, and others who share your passion.

This will be the official yahoo group of our batch. I hope that we can always keep in touch through this means.

Just check the database. I made a contact list there. Just in case you know someone from our batch just feel free to invite them. Please disseminate the information that we have our own Yahoo group.

If you have any questions or messages, feel free to post it here or just email me through my yahoo email: naman_ako2003@ yahoo.com or naman.ako2003@ gmail.com.

If you are a part of our batch just click on the Join button here.

Click to join lpenhs02

Clueless

Here I am thinking right now if what will happen to me in the next upcoming months. I'm feeling a bit unease right now. I don't know why but that's what I feel. My heart is beating fast and there is a gush of emotions pumping in my vein that just wants out.

I cannot express it. That's my issue. I can't really tell what I'm feeling right now. Most of the time I just keep it inside. I leave it boiling inside until the time comes that I cannot contain the emotion and boom I'll breakdown.

Balancing everything in your hand is hard. A lot of obligations that you can't just ignore and let it pass by. I don't know what to expect or should I even expect on something to happen. I really cannot manage everything on my life alone. Sometimes I just wonder why do I have these many responsibilities. Is it a bit too early for me? I thought at my age of 22, I should be enjoying my young adult life. I should be exploring the things that the world can offer. I know responsibilities makes you mature and gives you perspective on what you should do but damn I feel more lost than ever.

Sometimes I'm left wondering at the end of the day: Will anyone care for me? Will anyone stay besides me when everything is lost? Will there be a shoulder that I can lean on when I feel I'm down? Will there be someone to help me share the load of burden I feel deep down inside myself?

I've been struggling ever since I was young. I think it was destined to be that way. I was not placed in picture-perfect life. Everyday it has been a struggle. I grew up thinking I was not given choices but duties that I need and must do. Maybe that's the right thing to happen to give me direction. But again I'm just clueless.

Tomorrow may not be the same as what I have today. We are here wondering but still clueless of what will be tomorrow's life brings us.

This concludes another post. 'Till the next post.

Nothing New...

Same old, same old. Nothing new about what's happening everyday in the floor. The queue has not changed and it's still tiring.

I don't know what happened to our account but it seems that for the past few months we can feel the stress and we are burdened too much of what we're doing everyday. Several changes but few improvements. We are going down.

I felt that this was my longest one week ever. It's not because there's no VGH but because of how I feel during each of my shift. We lack motivation and I feel we're like robots controlled and managed by someone that we cannot see. It seems that they don't care if the agents are down to there knees because of fatigue. I hope the management knows these things. I know that it's important to please the client but it's more important to have happy frontliners. It'll be a win-win situation if it's like that.

The management seems to be distant during these days. We felt we're left in the dark just groping on what's really the deal in our account. There are a lot of gossips and hearsays spreading in all four corners of the floor. No definite truth yet on those things but it seems legitimate on the scenarios seen there.

I need a breather. We need all a breather. We are drowning from these shit hole that we are in. It will be fine I know as long as they take good care of the frontliners. They should know that. It's up to us to uplift the account's dropping scene but for us to do that we need to know that there are people to back-up us. People that will support us and not push out to our death.

Goodluck to us all. If this trend continues, and I hope not, I'll bid goodbye to this work that I did love. I'll weigh my options and maybe transfer to greener pasture.

Multiple Intelligence - MyPersonality.info Badge

Intrapersonal Intelligence

People with intrapersonal intelligence are adept at looking inward and figuring out their own feelings, motivations and goals. They are introspective and seek understanding. They are intuitive and typically introverted. They learn best independently.

Interpersonal Intelligence

People with Interpersonal intelligence are good with people and thrive in social interactions. They are good at reading, empathize and understanding others. They are good at working with others and have many friends. They learn best through interaction and dialogue.

Verbal/Linguistic Intelligence

People with Linguistic intelligence love and are talented with words. They enjoy reading, writing and learning languages. They have an ability to teach and explain things to others. They learn best by reading, taking notes and going to lectures.

Naturalist Intelligence

The Naturalist intelligence has to do with how we relate to our surroundings and where we fit into it. People with Naturalist intelligence have a sensitivity to and appreciation for nature. They are gifted at nurturing and growing things as well as the ability to care for and interact with animals. They can easily distinguish patterns in nature.

Note that this intelligence is the newest added to the theory of Multiple Intelligences and is often criticized as being an interest rather than an intelligence.

Visual/Spatial Intelligence

People with Visual intelligence are artistic. They are very aware of their surroundings and are good at remembering images. They have a great sense of direction. They like to draw, paint and read maps. They learn best through drawings and visual aids.

Logical Mathematical Intelligence

People with Logical intelligence are abstract thinkers and are attracted to logic and reasoning. They are good at investigation and scientific processes. They learn best by logic.

Bodily/Kinesthetic Intelligence

People with Kinesthetic intelligence love movement. They enjoy sports and/or dance. They are good at building things and like to stay active. They have good motor skills and are very aware of their bodies. They learn best through movement and experimentation.

Musical Intelligence

People with musical intelligence love music. They appreciate rhythm and composition. They are gifted with the ability to compose, sing and/or play instrument(s). Able to recognize sounds, tones and rhythm, they have a "good ear" for music. They learn best through lectures and often use rhythm and music as a way to memorize things.

Personality Type - MyPersonality.info Badge

ENFJ - The "Mentor"

Jung/Myers/Briggs Personality Types (Free Test)

ENFJs are externally focused, introspective, altruistic, positive and have excellent people skills. They place utmost importance on helping others grow. They are warm and have a natural desire to be supportive and encouraging. Being charismatic and posessing excellent language skills, they do well in leadership roles. ENFJs strive to enhance the lives of their human brethren.

It's Doomsday!

Toxic! This seems that we will never recover from this endless calls waiting.

Another day of complete shift due to failing service level because of extreme number of calls waiting. There were no common issues aside from the ZoneAlarm and Microsoft update problem which is like about a percent of the entire call volume in the floor.

Fluctuating number of incoming calls to the center and few agents staffed caused our service level to fail. There were times that it had 55 calls waiting within a span of 10-15 minutes. Towards the middle of my shift, I felt extremely exhausted. The calls were too much. I just prayed that it would be 11:30 pm so I can take my lunch. After my lunch, I just looked at my computer's time and prayed that it'll be already 3am so that I can go home.

Kudos to our MOD because at last they reskilled CHD agents to HN. We were happy to know that they can reskill now CHD. They told us that they cannot do that before because HN has a higher sets of skill and CHD does not therefore they cannot put CHD to a higher skill level. Now we know that it was just a bluff and we knew that even before. We are all HN trained.

Another sad thing is that my VL for the 15th was not approved. I really need a break at least once a month. I need to recuperate and recharge from the stressful environment we have. The situation in our floor is intense. We are like robots now operated by super humans to please them and be their guinea pigs.

This ends my post. 'Till the next post.

Wednesday: A Day to Reckon With

It is my Wednesday shift. I had a complete shift plus overtime for 7 minutes. Another day that was queuing and there were no VGH of course. I think we failed our service level because our MOD requested extension of shift for an hour.

I'm very sleepy at this moment. What I want to do is to extend my sleep time. I only had 5 hours of sleep since my log-out time at 3am. Why? I attended a celebration for the promotion of my two teammates/friends—Marizen Misolas and Reginald Madrid. Kudos for both in doing a good job and on climbing the ladder of success.

Today, I'll go to work with not enough sleep and I just hope that it will not be another crazy day for me. 'Till the next post.

Tuesday Funday

It's the start of my shift. This means I'll spend the next 5 days at work and in my bed.

Not enough sleep and I feel so tired. I really did not want to go to work. It's like going to school after a long vacation. I just want to lay down in bed and sleep or go in front of my computer and surf the net just anything aside from going to work and sitting down to my usual place and take-in calls. Sometimes it just creeps upon me. The calls can really get tiring. It seems to be routinary if almost everyday you're doing this.

My flare for the moment to keep me on pushing myself to go to work is my sister's education and my dreams. This is really corny but it is what just keeps me to strive and work harder. I'm helping my sister finish her school. She's already in college and I'm supporting her financial needs for school. When I started working in this company, I started helping her already. I know I'm not as a good provider as what she thinks but I'm really doing my best to give her all she needs. I hope she notices that.

Enough of mushy stuff! A good thing that happened to me today is VGH. There was VGH after several days without it. The greatest thing about it is I was able to go. At last it was a success. I was relieved from the never ending calls.

So far, based on our MTD Dashboard, I'm still passing. I really need to work hard to get a better quarterly bonus. Do they think they can let me down? My aim is to get all 4's for the next 3 months in my scorecard (coz aiming for a 5 is insane). I'm excited to get my 2nd quarterly bonus this August 5. I hope it's big.

I'm looking forward to this. I'll inform you guys but for now this ends my post. 'Till the next post.

UAAP Season 71

Here we go again. It's the time of the year where the best of the best get together and compete. UAAP Season '71 is now officially open.

I'm a full pledged UE Red Warrior fan. Let the game begin and let's see how far can the Warriors go. I'm hoping that they'll get the championship this time. But whatever happens, I'll still stick to my school's pride.

Animo UE!

GO FIGHT RED AND WHITE! GO FIGHT RED AND WHITE! GO FIGHT RED AND WHITE! EAST! EAST!

Addiction...

Yehey! I've finally done it. I've managed to create an account on different social networking sites. I have now an account in Facebook, Multiply, and Friendster. I also added another blog account in LiveJournal.com. This officially makes me an addict to social networking and blogging.

I really don't know what will I do with this number of accounts. But as they say, the more the merrier. This is an opportunity to reach all my friends using these different sites.

Now guys if your reading this and you want to check them out, I'll post all of my links below.

• MySpace : http://www.myspace.com/jmnaman
• Friendster: http://profiles.friendster.com/jmnaman
• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/profile.php?id=672373209
• Multiply: http://jmlifeasitis.multiply.com
• LiveJournal: http://jmnaman.livejournal.com/

Rating them all. I love MySpace the most. I think it's because of the user-friendliness environment it has. It's organize and it's more intuitive compared to the rest. I love all these sites because of the blog features they have. This is a must that I'm looking for these type of websites. Aside from reaching out to my friends, I have also an online diary through the blog features.

Just add me up ok. I want to see you guys on my contacts or list of friends. 'Till the next post.

Curacha

Another complete shift. Tiring as usual but at least this is my last day. Welcome rest day or should I say sleepless Sunday!

It was a promising day for my shift. Not as tiring as it used to be but, unluckily, still no VGH. What the heck! Complete shift means more money. More money means more savings. More savings means I can buy what I want on Christmas or whenever it's enough for me to buy what I want.

Why did I say it'll be a sleepless Sunday? Our team had a plan to have a team building/bonding activity in San Mateo today. A despedida party for Carrie as well. It was intended to be an overnight event. Due to unexpected circumstances, a last minute change of decision was needed; I cannot go.

After shift, we ate at Pancake House. This was a pre-celebration of Van's birthday this coming Monday. She treated us breakfast and it was awesome. She was given a scoop of ice cream and it had a note of Happy Birthday! It was so nice of Pancake's to do so.

My aunt from the US came back in the Philippines after 21 years for vacation. Since she's a balik-bayan and she misses a lot of things that's only here in the Philippines, they always plan to visit different places near the metro. Since it was her last day here in Metro Manila before she goes to Iloilo, they went ahead and planned that they will be going to Tagaytay today. Now, I'm torn between my team and family obligations. Which one should I prioritize? Family or team? Of course, as they always say: blood is thicker than water, family comes first.

I told my teammates about it and said that I'll just follow after the trip. So here we went to Tagaytay, I thought it will be cold since it's somehow on an elevated area but I guess because it was mid-afternoon when reach the place, it was darn hot! My sweat is dripping like an open faucet. I did enjoy it generally. We visited a convent and strolled in their garden. It was cool. The scenery was awesome. Never ending picture-taking on every spot that captures our eyes.

After that, we ate in RSM. It was fabulous. The food was extremely mouth-watering and overwhelmingly satisfying. Actually, we weren't able to finish all the food because it was too much for our stomach to handle. The restaurant was also situated near Taal Lake and you can see an overview of the Taal Volcano. You will be captivated in the beauty of the scenery. The breeze was refreshing. You'll be flabbergasted and you'll just hold your breath with how charming a volcano can be.

And last in our itinerary, Palace in the Sky or the People's Park. It was first time there. It was an old ruin. A building that was conceptualized but never finished. I was just looking at it and picturing how it could have looked like if it was ever built. I did not so much enjoy going there. It was just plain and you can't do much if you go there. We ended up staying just for 30 minutes and then we left. Most of the time what did was just sat down and rest.

We headed home and took the never-ending traffic jam in EDSA. It's an opportunity to do what was taken out from me , sleep. It was my first actual sleep for the day. It was amazing. I was energized.

Due to this trip, I was not able to follow our team bonding activity. We returned damn too late for me to follow them at San Mateo. I'm worried if I'll follow I might get lost or something worse may happen. I just informed Dulce about it and they said that they understood and it was fine. They told me as well that there will be another party next Sunday and it'll be held at Carrie's place. Looking forward to this.

This ends my post for this day. 'Till the next post.

Fourth of July Dilemma

As what was predicted, it will be avail all throughout the shift...NOT!!! As usual, like PAG-ASA doing their weather forecast, it was wrong. The forecast of low call volume was not as it was expected. We had several calls waiting from 8pm until forever.

Total abomination! It was extremely exhausting. No VGH! This is the worst thing to happen. Why? Why do we need to suffer?!

Nonetheless, no VGH means more money. In a way I'm also thankful to that. The only thing I'm mainly complaining about is just that it was freakishly queuing. That's how it really is in a call center. A lot of drastic changes, what's now is not really what you'll have tomorrow.

Que sera sera! I always think that everything and every event in our life has a purpose and whatever it is, that will be for the better. Adja! We can do this.

Another Day...

What's happening!?

Everyday it seems that it's getting tougher. What the hell happened to our queue?! It should be avail because it'll be the 4th of July. Damn, it has been queuing since 8pm until 12am. We were surprised because we were told as well that we have a low call volume. What the heck happened with that low call volume. Is it all of sudden customers realize that it'll be a holiday and they need to call us because we'll be close by then? I hope not! As what I always say to our customer, "You can always give us a call anytime that you need assistance. We are open 24/7 ready to assist you." Note to those customer's that does not listen, 24/7 means that we give service 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Due to this unexpected incident, I went on VGH earlier than what I should have. My VGH was 12:57am. This is not good for my pay. I really need to do better next time. I should have taken my break then went on VGH. That should have let me earn more money. But never mind, I've already done it. Lesson learned and I'll just do that next time.

In addition to the crazy queue is our new template. It's adding up to my ACW which means longer AHT. They said this is to quantify the compliance of the agents to process flow. But, compliance to the process is not part of our metrics. What's part of it is AHT. Sacrifices should be made for this. It'll either be, longer AHT but better compliance or shorter AHT but not compliant to the process.

Later, it'll be the Fourth of July. Fifty six agents were given split off due to expected low call volume. Again, I hope that they've not judged wrongly on this. We expect that it'll not be queuing but then again to experience is to know. I'll just inform you guys what happened. 'Till next post.

Super Duper Stressful

Another day has passed. And this is even worse than yesterday. Calls came pouring in as early as 6:30pm which usually would be around 7pm. Since then and before I've taken my lunch at around 11:30pm, no ending calls. No avail and several calls waiting. This was a crisis. This could not be for a Wednesday shift. Is it because they are already preparing for the 4th of July? I hope so.

The only thing that can save me is nothing else but VGH. Alas! It was offered around 1:25am. Unfortunately, I was in a call and not even close at ending that call by that time. What will I do then?! Of course, desperate times needs desperate measures, what I've done is placed my customer on hold. I told her that I need to prepare some tools and will be back after 3 minutes (since there is a 3 minutes threshold for holds) and then call the MOD (manager-on-duty). Luckily, I was able to get in touch with her and got a slot. She even told me that I was bad because I've placed my customer on hold just for this. That's how life is.

Aside from the usual, we are the pilot team of a project to standardize note taking and also to measure our compliance with the process flow. I'm really not sure how will it go but for sure this has a lot of loop holes. What will make this successful if all agents have integrity. I'm not saying we don't but then if we want our clients to get good results then we could just cheat. In line with that, I need to change my template for my note taking and add additional info for every call. I hope this will not affect my AHT in general.

'Till the next post.

First Day Funk

Tiring! Queuing! Reskilling! Short avail time! The usual day for my shift. After four days of rest, here I am again, I need to face the never ending queue of customers that needs help getting online.

Today, I got long calls and weird issues and of course weirder customers. Sorry, but I cannot go into details about them. This is to protect their reputation as a human being. Let them believe that they are smart and more dominant than us.

As usual, I went on VGH around 1:40 am. We ate in Mcdonald's Philcoa, chat and gave opinions on what's happening to our account. What's consistentl, though it's no surprise, we share the same sentiments. We also shared our unsual experiences in our calls. This is relaxing. I'm given a breather to at least unload all the stress after my work.

Another day has ended. Please wait for my next post.