blogworthy

of late, the impulse to blog has been notably absent (there's that work/blog equation at work again) and i figure it would bore anyone who read this to tears if there were nothing on this page but a full-on rant about rampant incompetences...

...therefore i choose to say little if i feel that urge to vent venomously.

however, yesterday was definitely a rather unusual day by any standards.

lunch out, probably due to another old saw (be not the first on whom the new is tried -- or something to that effect). lately, the office has been trying out the lunch wares of a new addition to the constellation of companies that we're a part of.

...problem being that some have been stung by the attempt to consume dishes with meat of, shall we say, durable consistency.

so off to the alabang town center, and thence to bizu.

they didn't have the roasted mushroom sandwich i had a craving for at the moment, nor their excellent strawberry shortcake -- so i made do with a cheese and steak sandwich and no dessert.

what was unusual about lunch? well, nothing really. short of the service time that could safely be measured in glacial terms. so a one-hour lunch turned into one of twice that duration (can't wait to see how the undertime deductions turn out).

and then we come to a real turning point in the day. ah. to backtrack, the online (naturally - this being a rather tech-oriented set of companies) ordering system for the bespoke food service relied on information in the human resource database. imagine the collective surprise when i.d. numbers and birthday information entered in the system gave back 'cannot be identified' errors. fun!

then it transpires later that other than for some unfortunate few where the data in the records was patently incorrect, there were those whose digital information had been inadvertently trashed -- no reason given, no culprit to lynch.

so, midafternoon, troop the deleted to the hr office for picture taking and scribble on tablet signature example. easiest thing in the world, no?

no.

wait for name to be called. sit in chair, smile for webcam. wait as operator goes hither and yon with program interface to locate employee record. sign on the tablet. wait, you're signing out of the digitizing region. there are no markings on the tablet, not even a little piece of paper under the acetate sheet to define a 'scribbling' zone. all right sir, right over there, write small. scribble with no visual feedback. that's not my signature but what the hell. close enough.

and then no word is given that we can leave.

for two hours.

so, literally, shoot the breeze. outside. conversations with others take turns from movies to religious matters like the revelation, old and new testaments, the deuterocanonicals/apocrypha, etc. lucky we didn't veer of into classifications of angels, their names and somesuch.

oh, there were some toy-gun-related interjections, but that's something i can ill afford, so i paid little attention.

get back to the office by 5pm. end of workday at 6pm.

so, what's for dinner? before that, go to the park part of the madrigal business park and resident photographer takes some long-exposure shots of things and us, the recent skyway patrol. end up after a while at -- for a moment there, the name escapes me -- hang on, um, fridays.

where, for some strange reason, the size of the servings still serve to surprise. the mexican nachos were quite good. didn't try the salad that was the other order. the seafood platter was also quite decent. as was the mud pie (i think that's what it was called) -- decided on getting that instead after learning that friday's version of strawberry shortcake was also hors de combat.

naturally, fridays and the plethora of choices on the menu means time to decide, order and serve; and eat; and bill. by that time, we had missed the crepe place that an officemate had wanted us to buy a food item from.

so we scattered as the mall closing time rushed upon us, gathering at the covered parking, where all six of us sat in the car, waiting.

...

until the our car-driving officemate looked over, and discovered that the person she was waiting for was already on board.

so, off we went, back to the office to deliver a crepe from pancake house instead.

jeep, tricycle, apartment. day is done.

...not quite. in the night, it turns out, apparently the upstairs bathroom, when used (for showering, it is hoped), leaks onto the master bedroom floor.

thus was the day.

amen.