A-R-G-H-!

Ma'am Jenny of Shell just called a few minutes ago offering me a job at Shell. It's another position (Contacts and Procurement) and it's f-r-i-g-g-i-n seven days late! I just wish she had called me up before I started work at 3M.

sjfsjfklsf slkfjsljfsklfjklas l;skjfklsjflsjadjkqjpjpjsfkj skjfklsjfkljsfljs fs lfkjsdlfkjsdfks

Don't get me wrong; I have no qualms about working at 3M. The people there are great and work is (so far) not taking a toll on my mental health.

But in the end, Shell is Shell.

argh argh argh amp amp amp argh amp argh amp argh argh amp!


PS: Just discovered last week that Rexine Yu, Jeleen Yu, and Jared Ang are my third cousins. For some reason all these grand parties, whether in the form of weddings, wedding anniversaries, or birthday parties, make you realize how small the world is.


argh argh argh amp amp amp!!!

First Day of Work

Just had mine today, and it was so fun that I was only able to come home at 10:30 in the evening!

Like college, first day was orientation day, but everyone else including Ma’am Ched (who’s like my mommy at work) seems to be preoccupied enough with tons of work to do that I only had an informal one. She told me that I’ll just be having the formal one in July, when the tons of work eventually trickle down to more manageable ounces and pounds.

Ma’am Ched also told me that for the first quarter of my training, I'll be working under the Marketing head-honcho of the Industrial Group. His name is Sir Reggie and he basically handles the 3M abrasives (i.e. 3M sandpaper - yup, didn't know they had one), the 3M display and graphics products, security products (i.e. the orangey reflective material usually found on MMDA throwbacks), and other Industrial Market stuff. Sorry, no Post-It designing for me yet for the first three months!

Unfortunately, because busy nga lahat ng tao dun, I wasn't able to meet Sir Reggie today, so I decided to help out in HR instead. Wahoo, HR for a day (or two) before I get expatriated two floors higher (‘coz HR's on the 18th floor and Marketing's on the 20th hehe).

Anyway, so for my first ever task, I was asked to type and print some Regret Letters (i.e. politically correct term for “Rejection Letters” - yup, companies seem to want to sound less cruel but honestly, the wording aaaain't helping) by Miss Chiqui, who is one of Ma'am Ched's minions and my first friend at 3M.

Then we had lunch at the cafeteria of this adjacent building called the BPI Buendia Tower because according to Miss Chiqui, and according to my prior experience as well, the food at our very own Equitable-PCI Tower 2 is somewhat “unforgettable-slash-regrettable”, which when combined I think means nakakasawa. Yup, I know I’m still a virgin and all in terms of eating at Tower 2’s cafeteria but at least my taste-buds can attest that Equitable-PCI Tower 2 food doesn’t stray far from Ateneo caf food.

After lunch, I got to do some more HR stuff, and this time a rather guilt-provoking task. Well, I got to sort out HR files, and part of them was to assist in short-listing applicants whether they… to put it bluntly, got it or not. But that is given a set of criteria of course. Mind you, after handling the task, I can definitely say that HR is not a guilt-free job. Oh well, at least the upside is that those whom I’ve rejected (sounds braggy but hey, just telling the truth) won’t come and hunt me down.

Then I helped photocopy the Six-Sigma (not enough energy to discuss what Six-Sigma is, basta it has nothing to do with Stat) newsletter and then after that I assisted in putting up some visual aids for the Corporate Rewards ek-ek programme due this Tuesday.

With all these, I didn’t realize that 5pm was almost there. We had a break, and Ma’am Elenette (the goddess of all 3M administrative assistants, who’s been working there for 30 years already) treated us with two waffles each. Bait! Tapos kuwentuhan with my office-mates (this was the time when I graduated from my coy state so medyo wala nang hiya-hiya by this time) and then when I thought that I’m already calling it a day, biglang nagkayayaan manood ng Batman Begins! Haha and then yun we watched the movie at Quad 1 over dinner and we finished at around 9:45pm. So yun, it was only able to come home at 10:30 in the evening! Plus, I got to take home some 3M freebies like Post-Its and Scotch Magic Tape hehe wahoo!

Looking forward to even more adventures tomorrow.

Spring and Fall: To a Young Child

by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)

Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! As the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

JSA's comment: Took this up back in Poetry class and thought about publishing it here for remembrance. Sigh, I miss Ateneo already. This was written by a Jesuit priest by the way.

Work At Last by JSA

For three months now, (so long? I know!)
The time I'm unemployed,
I always tried, tried to apply,
But they became all void.

But now it seems, that has to end,
For I'm with 3M now -
A company, a year for me
As management trainee.

This company was so funny,
They kept on nagging me.
That out of lots, and lots and lots,
They're only getting me.

And even if it's project-based,
Don't know my choice if wise,
At least I'm in the workforce now -
A blessing from the skies!

So wish me luck, pray hard I plea.
I'll start on June 16th.
At least this ends the agony
Of job-hunting for me.

So God bless me, to work with glee,
Guide me in ev'ry test.
Work not like hell, to function well,
And do my very best.


JSA's Comment: Not 3M Pizza ha? (hehe though I love their pizza) I'll be with 3M Philippines effective June 16th of this year. Hehe that means I'll be in close contact with Post-Its, Scotch tapes, Scotch Brites at kung anu-ano pang Scotch! (whisky? haha malay natin...) Wish me luck!

Just for laughs

Hehe since marketing mode ako (or the lack of it hehe) naisip ko lang bigla gawin ito. Wala lang. Pano kaya kapag ito yung ginamit ng Washington Apples na advertisement? Tie-up with Disney "kuno" hehe. Anyway, more details about my future employment soon. Thanks to Julie for the light-bulb, enjoy:

"Circle" by JSA (2003)

The world is a carousel:
With its ring of gallant steeds
Laden with rotund children -
Some carry balloons,
Others blow bubbles,
But all are happily coiled
At their opal-headed steeds.
And as the wheel turns,
These plump children see
Different parts of the world -
Some parts are lit by the sun,
Others by the moon,
Still others by stars.
And as the carousel twirls,
So does the world swirl with it.

The clock stops...
...another coin is dropped.

And the cycle
of whimsy,
of the sun, the moon, and the stars,
of plump children with balloons and bubbles,
Goes over and over again.




So this is the first installment of my poem-log promise. I wrote this back in 2003 for Celadon's first-ever CD Yearbook, when JLo was VP Comm back then. (Hehe had to recycle this one because it's obviously hard to make a decent new poem in such short time).
The poem is basically a play on imagery, since you can pretty much nuance one particular shape in almost all lines of the poem, hence the title "Circle". The poem was also inspired by my personal belief that life is very much like a "wheel of fortune," where luck and adversity take turns in determining what happens in a person's life. Hope you enjoyed the poem! Hehe more to come soon, should a hefty amount of inspiration strike me.

Updates

Dear Journal,

After some tweaks and tricks, I finally managed to transform my 2-column blog into a 3-column one. At least now the leftbar and the rightbar are shorter than the middle content (unlike the previous layout, where the sidebar was wayyy way longer than the content part). Hehe who can blame me? I'm more interested in web-design aspect of my blog rather than its journalism side!

Yup, weird me.

Actually come to think of it, now that I've accomplished furnishing my blog with three columns, I feel I need to focus my attention to the content of my blog. (Rant: I'm not satisfied with the outcome though, and there are still some points for improvement with the blog like placing a footer, minimizing the cluttered effect of the three columns, and so on, but anyway...). Anyway, it's been a while since I've posted a decent update here (not some StarWars Jedi-wannabe online survey), but it seems I'm always lazy to recount my life on a regular basis while simultaneously transcribing it here.

*** Okay before I even border to the thought of not updating my blog about myself just to prove what I just said, here's a quick recap of my life thus far: Hmm.. just got rejected by Shell after undergoing the Shell Recruitment Day (aka SRD, the penultimate level where you slug it out with the other candidates to get the coveted job offer). Just to give you a picture of the agony, out of an estimated 60+ thousand people who applied to Shell, only 9 of us were chosen to undergo the SRD. And, at the end of the day, only 3 were offered the job, and I wasn't one of them.

According to Ma'am Jenny Tio (she's the cool Shell Recruitment Manager, God bless her), my insights lacked depth daw. Boo. Sayang, but at least I learned a lot from the experience. Wow, Unilever Business Week memories are all coming back to me now! Guess that means I'm back to square one. Hayy, that also means I should call Unilever and Nestle on Monday for a follow up.

The woes and wails of unemployed Atenean fresh-grads. What else is new? ***

Okay, back to my non-updating self (hehe forgive me, kinda in an M.P.D. mode here): So as I was saying, I feel a need to update this blog, but I'm not too "retrospective" in terms of giving a daily blow-by-blow of JSA, or at least on a regular basis. Hence, I've thought about making this a poet-log (hehe sagwa.. parang combination ng two anatomical parts). There are already photologs and story-logs (not sure about the term though) and I of course don't want to be a second-rate, trying hard, copycat (hehe), so I thought of making poems and publishing 'em here. However, this is not to say that I will not give occasional updates about myself; it's just from now on, the entries that will be seen in this blog will most likely be poems - haikus, sonnets, odes, songs, whatnot - all composed by me.

So there. Hope this works!