Down And Out Sunday

Today’s shift at work started with pretty much a center-wide system problem, with almost all of the merchant functions unavailable.  This led to more than half a shift giving out downtime spiels, which obviously led to a lot of disgruntled merchants just hanging up on us.  On the other hand, part of the CS side of things was affected, which also led to us giving downtime spiels to those CS calls that managed to sneak through.  The systems, at least the merchant side of things, eventually went up sometime before my lunch break, however in my case there were still additional complications… which led to me being permanently placed on the membership queue for the rest of the shift, heh.

Aside from that, nothing else exciting to share about my day.  With our cousin on her day off, it was just me, my sister, her husband, and the baby left at the house, and even then her husband had to leave to look after the moving preparations they had to do (apparently they’re just going to move in with his family).  So this leaves just us two sisters and the baby in the house.

Yeah, no worries, everything’s locked down.  I even checked downstairs after I did the dishes.

So here’s to a relatively relaxed Monday shift.

A Pot Belly Full Of Pasta

I have to admit to losing every single bit of self-control today, as I more or less single-handedly finished off what’s left of the pasta prepared for my father’s birthday yesterday… Which is to say the whole cooking pot’s worth.  It’s no wonder I feel bloated, and likely over-loaded with carbohydrates.  Ugh.

Ironically our fridge, aside from the freezer, is pretty much empty.  This means that I’m going to have to withdraw the 200 USD nanay sent us via Western Union tomorrow, just so that we can put some vegetables on the table again by Sunday, and not have to fall back on canned goods.  Sheesh.

Not really asking for much for tomorrow’s shift, just that everyone who’s supposed to be there comes in.  It’s simple really.

Checking For Holes In My Pockets

And here I was thinking that I could extend my streak with regards to not taking in Merchant calls for the week.  It started well enough too, where I couldn’t even connect to the remote server properly, and had to undergo several system restarts to ultimately no avail.  However, all that trying eventually dropped me into a server that had all systems up.  Oh well.

The merchant systems I can handle — it’s what I’m technically supposed to do after all — but I would have done without the CS calls that I found myself answering around mid-day.  Good thing I only had to do three or four, but I’m of the firm belief that one CS call is already too much for the day.

The day was cloudy again today.  No rain though, but it did seem like there’d be some at one point, but no downpour came.  Hmm.  At least it made leaving the office somewhat bearable.

Ah, savings almost spent again, and there’s still ten days to go until the next payday.  All those bills to pay, and my enrollment on top of that, ah, it’s not going to be pleasant for sure.  Going to definitely have to ask for mom’s help for this one, if only to actually survive to the 25th.

Peculiarities In The Routine

Today started out cloudy, which was why I was a little concerned that it would rain.  No such luck though, as while it remained cloudy for most of the morning (until around noon anyway), there was little accompanying precipitation.  Not that it mattered much to us, ensconced in our rather chilly workstations.  I swear, our TC seems to enjoy putting the thermostat of the A/C above our bays close to the lowest temperature possible.  That’s a fever waiting to happen, you know!

Normally there’d be only two or three of us on the Merchant side of things, but apparently there were more than a few folk on overtime, which resulted in our area being relatively crowded up to around ten o’clock (where normally be left to our own devices before then).  Not that I minded any, as more people meant that the queue was more manageable. 

Of course, my system was acting up again, so I was placed on the membership queue from the start, but that didn’t stop workforce from putting me into the merchant and CS queue for some reason (and they always seem to time it when our TC wasn’t around to countermand things too).  The result?  Whenever I got a merchant call, I had to give out the downtime spiel.  And since two of us on the team were having issues, and the calls kept on getting routed to us anyway, ah, let’s say that it resulted in a lot of angry Lowe’s store registers.

Another unusual occurrence was how the membership queue experienced a spike in calls around noontime, and this continued well into one in the afternoon.  It was really strange, as normally the membership queue flatlined at that point, so to speak.

As for non-work stuff, my father headed back to the province again this morning, so this means that we’re left to our own devices again here at the house.  I wasn’t able to ask how long he was staying there this time around, but hopefully he doesn’t do so for a month, or else the end of the month (and the bills that arrive around that time) will be painful, to say the least.

Lingered Unexpectedly

In a bit of a surprise, the clouds didn’t disperse after yesterday, which meant that it wasn’t as hot as it normally would be.  There was also a bit of rain, but again no massive downpour but rather a smattering of showers here and there.  It made for a much more comfortable day I suppose, but I wasn’t really able to appreciate its effects until after the shift ended.

As for my shift at work, it was the usual.  System issues once again placed me on the membership queue only (because frankly repeatedly restarting my system until I landed in a remote browser that had the merchant programs in working order took a huge amount of time, and there were calls waiting).  There was one instance where I got assigned a CS call despite said system problems, but that was ironed out soon enough and I was back to memberships again. 

Can’t say I was able to make good use of all the extra in-between time that gave me though.  I wanted to use the avail time to continue on the draft (saved right here), but the office’s browser wasn’t properly showing the draft contents, so I had to abandon that.  Instead I had to take comfort in just browsing the manga that I could.

I hope that the clouds still hang around until tomorrow at least.

Rainy Election SNAFUs

Oddly enough, today did start out with rain, or at least with a light shower.  It’s as if the sky decided  that yesterday’s veil of mist was enough of a tease, and finally let loose the goods today.  The result was a bit of welcome relief from the usual heat, and a healthy amount of cloud cover throughout the day.

As for this day’s shift?  Slow and casual, which is just how I like it.  We were a bit worried that the intermittent rain would turn into a continuous downpour, but luckily that didn’t happen.

Oh, and if anyone is wondering, yes I did go straight to the polling station after work.  Indeed, I spotted my father heading back from the place while I was on a jeep heading there (though somehow I still managed to get back home before he did, since he apparently made a detour to the nearby grocery).  Well, mostly there anyway, as the way was blocked with all sorts of tricycles and vehicles (and streetfood hawkers, oddly enough), so I had to walk part of the way.

And what did I find once I got there?  Well gee, apparently my name (or my sister’s for that matter) was nowhere to be found on any of the voters lists, in any precinct involving our barangay.  Somehow our father’s name was though (explained by the fact that he re-registered last year so he can also be eligible for SSS benefits), which meant that he’s likely the only member of the family that’s been able to vote this year. 

Oh well.  This should remind me to double-check on whether or not my voter’s registration was still valid.

Misty And Cloudy Mother’s Day

Although it started out sunny enough on the way to work, the usual summer sun quickly gave way to a thick blanket of haze.  It covered the horizon and much of the cityscape (at least, the one I could see outside our 9th-floor window) for much of the morning.  It wouldn’t be too surprising that you’d think that it was actually raining, but it wasn’t; things were just alternatively gloomy, with varying degrees of visibility, particularly towards the south, towards Cavite and Alabang. 

Indeed, the only thing missing was actual rain, but it never did fall.  I suppose that while there was a lot of cloud cover accompanying th fog (or smog?  can’t really say for sure), it wasn’t enough for an actual downpour.  Oh well, can’t have everything I suppose.

The haze persisted until around noon, at which it slowly dispersed I suppose (likely due to the heat), until the sun was out again in force.  Indeed, it was very sunny once our shift was over, which was too bad really.  Some of that cloud cover would have been very welcome, but on the bright side, it wasn’t as hot as you’d expect as a result.

Got home dead tired for some reason, despite having gone to bed relatively early last night.  Despite my father’s protest, it was straight to bed for me.  Heck, I didn’t even linger to taste the spaghetti they prepared for Mother’s Day (as well as to make use of it before the pesky bukbok wreak havoc on the new pasta again), but given the quantity, I’m sure I can accommodate that tomorrow morning…

Oh yeah, it’s elections tomorrow.  I’m not sure if I should go out and vote this time, as the last time I tried, my personal information apparently didn’t show up.  Doesn’t hurt to try though, but man, I sure hope it isn’t blazing hot tomorrow afternoon.

Not Really Perfect, But Well Enough

Today’s shift was a good capper to my work  week, I think.  Four out of five people in our morning shift team came in, which meant that there were enough people to take in calls, and what’s more, some system related issues locked me out of some vital functions.  This meant that I had to be taken out of the merchant queue, and spent the whole day just taking care of applications.  The rest of the team was more than enough to take care of the merchant side though.

Despite this, didn’t really spend as much time as expected on idle browsing.  Wasn’t able to take a nap either, despite the convenient neck pillow that had been left behind in the station beside mine.

Payday again tomorrow, but as usual I’m not really expecting that money to last long, as I have two bills that I need to pay almost immediately. 

Hot And Sweaty Welcome

My fears about queue capacity was unfounded, as we had a full complement of three people for the team today, including the one who was missing yesterday.  This meant that the calls were more than manageable rather than possibly stressful.  Though I have to say, the shift had a worrying start, when the very first call that I took in turned out to be a CS call.  Thankfully the customer was actually level-headed, and what’s more it was the only CS call I took in for the day.  Whew.

It was terribly hot as usual when we finally got off work (really disappointed when there wasn’t a single bit of cloud cover again), and what was worse, the vehicular traffic seemed to have slowed to a crawl.  But given the choice between walking with the sun blazing unrelentingly overhead, and sitting down in a possibly stuffy jeepney as it slowly made its way in the direction of the MRT station, the latter was still more preferable.

I was worried that there wouldn’t be any MRT service today, as May was supposed to be the start of maintenance work, which means variable times of interrupted service, but that didn’t seem to be the case today.  Which was fine too, as I didn’t want to get stuck in a bus that was slowed down in traffic either.

When I finally got home, needless to say that I was looking forward to a few hours napping with the AC at full blast… but apparently that wasn’t to be, as the electricity in our neighborhood was out.  It was that way since early afternoon, which made it a terrible pain to be even moving around.  Heck my father, who had just bathed in preparation for heading to Baclaran church for Wednesday mass, was already sweating barely minutes after the bath he took.

Had to console myself with playing with the baby (my sister had come back obviously), including propping him up seated on the sofa for some pictures (taken by his grandfather).  He was very well-behaved, though later (after I had actually dozed off a bit upstairs) I had to calm him down after he woke up with a start and raised a ruckus.  It was nice, though I have to say carrying a six-to-ten pound baby can be a real ordeal on the arms, especially if you’re doing it for more than ten minutes straight.

Thankfully the power finally turned back on during the late afternoon.  Wouldn’t know what to do if it continued past dinner.

Anyway, my vision is blurring, so I better get this done and turn in early.  This is what I get for doggedly trying to go over the 53% win rate mark in World of Tanks, which led to me going to sleep at almost 3 in the morning. Ergh.

One Little Hurdle Passed

So, managed to survive the Tuesday shift, which is one of the hurdles of my work week.  Now all I need to do is see to tomorrow’s shift, where at worst there’s only going to be two of us taking in calls.  Hmm.  Makes me wonder where one of the members of the team went, as usually she’d be in today, and there wasn’t any word that she swapped shifts with someone else.  Would have really helped, as we were forced again to take in CS calls today…

Maa, as long as she shows up tomorrow, I won’t have any problem with it.

My sister and her baby weren’t at home today, as apparently she’s going to have to see to her SSS.  Given the fact that the main SSS office is closer to their Tandang Sora place, she obviously went home.  The house is quiet as a result, but that’s just how much the place’s changed with the baby around.

Now, to pray real hard that tomorrow’s shift doesn’t also involve an influx of calls.