Stark raving mad

I am oh-so-disappointed.

There's a practice called the "midyear assessment" where I work and we used to do it every year right around July or August. It's where we sit down with our superiors and talk about our performance during the first part of the year, revisit our successes and failures and talk about plans on how to improve or sustain how we're performing. Well, the company dropped the ball last year, failing to make this practice a requirement. Since it's no longer required, no one's going to do it--surprisingly I didn't do it but I was preparing myself for it in case they announced that we needed to do it. Anyway, this year I thought we'd drop the ball again, but the bright minds running the company saw that it was a good practice and made it mandatory again. Better late than never, yes, so I'm fine with this being announced at the start of October, the start of the 4th quarter.

I was stoked. I was looking forward to it. I thought I did pretty well, considering how the year started (the team V debacle) and how much I was able to contribute to my department. I worked on a standardized way of gathering customer feedback, spearheaded the standardization of gathering surveys for our teams, assisted with the creation of a few assessment forms, appraisal forms and scorecards. I was quite active--proactive, if you may. I was rejuvenated by the new leadership that my department was under.

But, there was a dirty brown lining in this cloud. The new leadership involved a person who NEVER had any experience in our department whatsoever (leading many to question his promotion as our number one guy). I gave him the benefit of the doubt, despite being underwhelmed every time I worked for him. I always gave him the benefit of the doubt despite the decisions that he's made (which I disagreed with) and with what's been happening all around us. Well, this week, he did a few things that really ruined my perception of him.

I talked about the midyear feedback and how enthusiastic I was. Part of it was because I didn't have to work on any feedback sessions -- I didn't have any direct reports at that time, and lucky for me no one approached me for assistance with my former direct reports. So I was relaxed and had the luxury of focusing on other tasks. The deadline of October 31 passed, and the company extended it to November 15. I had no worries. The first week of November passed. Monday, November 9, passed. No worries. Then came Tuesday, the 10th of November. When I came in for work, I saw an email from our department head, asking me for inputs on two employees that I assisted and met a few times. I replied to his email immediately. I heard Luke Skywalker in my head saying "I have a bad feeling about this..." and the phone rang. It was our department head. He started with a "Can you incorporate this in their feedback forms?", jabbed a "Until what time do you usually stay at the office?" and hit me with a one-two combination of "I think you've had more experience in handling them than I have" and "Can you take care of closing this item for me?". It was TKO for me right there. No walking away from that. So I agreed to do it, but he wasn't done. The bell had already rung, but he still threw a couple of punches. "By the way, I'm on leave this Friday. Can we close this by Thursday?" It was Tuesday night when he talked to me about this. The two employees that we were talking about were scheduled to come in at 10 AM. I came in at 11 PM. Not only was their schedule different from mine, this was on such a short notice. But who can say no to a department head? He wasn't asking me to carry the world. I said yes. I was able to ask their previous superior for help anyway (and I'm quite underwhelmed by her inputs, no offense to her. She should see the feedback forms that I composed back in 2007).

So I was willing to cover for that. But, there's a part of the form where we're supposed to encode the employee's previous goals, and I had no access to that. Only the department head had access to it. I requested for the information that I needed via email, spoke to him on the phone, face to face when we had our so-called feedback session, even IMed him. Did I get what I needed? No. NO. Sheesh. Any other guy wouldn't find a way to deliver. Good thing I'm not any other guy, I thought of asking the employees after delivering the feedback if they still had copies of their previous goals, and they did. Problem solved.

But this little situation/task isn't enough to turn me off completely. My department head disappointed me even further. He asked me to fill in a self-appraisal, where I'd provide feedback on how I think I did. So I submitted a Self-Evaluation Form. He then asked me to transfer my inputs to the Midyear Feedback Form. So I did what I was told to do and sent the inputs back to him. He then asked me to meet with him for the feedback. Guess what? He didn't even bother to add what I had wrote there. And he didn't even discuss it to me! Where's the feedback there???!??!?! All he said was "I added another area of improvement, you should be more visible blablabla." Then we worked on goals. The goals that he entered weren't even SMART goals. Sheesh. And what's really sad is that, I know that my previous superior sent her inputs regarding my performance to him. Did he incorporate that in my appraisal. Freaking NO.

How can I continue to look up to him and respect his leadership if he's like this? Geez. I'm oh-so-disappointed.

I'm allliiiiiivveee. Barely. Anyway, here are my five rants or raves:

• I hate how my girlfriend and I have to settle for a two-seater table when the group beside us are occupying four seats but have not ordered a single thing in the establishment that we're occupying. And right across us was another couple, also occupying a four-seat table. Yes, they were eating. Eating food that they bought from a different place. Talk about fairness.
• After several months, I finally found the mechanical pencil that I thought I already lost. It's a special mechanical pencil that I got when I was still in college, it's sea green (my favorite color and hue) and it's different from other mechanical pencils in that you press a button at the side rather than at the eraser end. I couldn't find this kind of mechanical pencil in the bookstores that I've visited (I really didn't go out of my way to look for other bookstores though) so I'm glad I found it. The rubber coating kind of melted though, which made it sticky, but a little clear tape fixed that problem real good.
• On our way home, the cab driver that we flagged asked me if I wanted to take the service road--I said no, I don't want to take my chances there, especially in the middle of the afternoon, no matter how free-moving the vehicles taking that road looked. Despite the slow moving traffic on our side of the road, I've learned from experience: once we reach the part of the road where the five or six lanes merge into just three, it's going to be smooth sailing. Which is better than what I can say about the service road. I got annoyed at how the driver kept on glancing to our right--where the service road was--and fussing because we were in traffic and the service road appeared clear. Lucky for me, I was right: when we reached the bottleneck, I pointed out how bad the traffic was at that part of the service road and how fast we were moving. It feels nice to be right. The cab driver's disposition the rest of the trip improved.
• I saw four penises today. I wish I didn't. I saw them at a spa, some men are really quite confident with their packages, I guess. Well, I'm not going to show them mine. Still wish they covered themselves up like I did.
• I had a lazy week as usual. I need to start earning my wages soon. I hope I can shake my doldrums away and start running the way I was supposed to run.
  

Today, I'm selling an object that used to bring me a lot of enjoyment. It's an airsoft replica of the H&K MP5K submachine gun that I was pretty fond of.
 
I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before in this blog, but I was into airsoft a few years ago, and I returned to the sport/hobby last year. Anyone who's ever enjoyed playing Counterstrike or other military-type first person shooter games should know the feeling of chasing or being chased by enemy troops, and airsoft is one step closer to the real thing. I can't even begin to describe how it feels to work with a team against another team. Attacking and defending as necessary, running, firing, taking cover -- it's such an adrenalin rush.
 
I was a part of a nice group of airsoft players, but I decided to leave because I didn't want to hang out with specific members of that group. At first I thought I could endure being in their presence, but it because too much to take that I decided to quit entirely. Which is why I'm selling my gun.

This is actually the second time that I've done this. The first time was when I sold my M4A1 replica. I quit for mainly the same reasons, and I thought I'd be able to get over my dislike and continue to play but I really couldn't. I knew that it was best for me not to hang out with people like them.

What could these people have done to me that makes me want to avoid me like the plague? Well, I'm talking about three people in particular, and to talk about everything that they did against me would take up a lot of my time, so I'll just give one example each:

• I can't find it in me to respect the leadership of one of the so-called "leaders". He's the kind of guy who is quick to judge others but when it comes to his wrongdoings, well, in his own words, "walang pakialaman". I know about his ethics because he's a former co-worker. One act that he did with such high regard of himself? He used his human resources connections to extend his resignation date, despite having resigned earlier. I believe he managed to collect pay for an additional week or two while already working with a different company. He's also the guy who promised his manager to train his replacement, and then just dropped the ball completely. His work ethics are so bad, that he refuses to do anything work-related on Monday and proudly tells everyone about it ("I don't work on Mondays") then rushes all that he needs to do on Friday. People have complained about his output because it's so obvious that he rushed his work. And yet he thinks so highly of himself that he keeps wanting to be promoted.

• His co-leader is similar to him. Judgmental of others and very forgiving of himself. He also holds himself in high regard. Sorry, I can't think of him without feeling angry, so I'll skip him. BTW he still works where I work, but I don't work with him directly anymore.

• The last guy in this triad of assholes is the ultimate asshole. Everyone dislikes him. I got on his bad side in particular because he's jealous of me. He finds it irritating that women find me somewhat attractive. One of the women that he liked had a crush on me. When we applied for the same position, I got the job and he didn't, and he despised me for that. Hey, can't help it if other people think I'm better than you. He managed to get himself fired from two different companies because of bad behavior (he screamed at someone and also fought with his superior). He gloats about how he took advantage of my inexperience as a leader when I handled him and is so proud of this accomplishment. Well, I'm still here boy, and where are you again? I'll let that fact speak for itself.

 
A part of me wishes that I could still play, but it's really not possible. Elsewhere, players aren't as pleasant to play with (they cheat and do anything just to win) and it's not worth my time to stick around with my former group. Now that I realize it, there are others whom I can't hang around because of their similarities with the three people I mentioned above. So I'm saying goodbye to a hobby that I enjoyed a lot because I don't want to surround myself with these guys.

"RUN. As fast as you can."
 
That were my mentor's parting words for me before my transfer was made official. It's now official, and while everything hasn't been ironed out yet, I haven't fully transitioned into my new role. How in the world did this happen? Everything was so fast.
 
It all began with me being a little more visible to the head of our department. As a head who did not a team to lead, I was the obvious choice when it came to choosing task owners and project leads. And I was successful in completing them. This success has caught our department head's attention. He talked to me three times about assigning me to several teams, the first two instances were for two brand new programs. I never heard anything about my supposed re-assignment to these new programs, and my application for a higher position went by without me being interviewed at all, so I took his words with a grain of salt. The last pitch that he presented involved me being in a position where I would gain exposure and be able to show my talents off. It was the same pitch that he gave my mentor, and because I have ambitions, I bought into the pitch and accepted.
 
My mentor believed that this was the opportunity that I was waiting for, and I knew there was some reality in that. But we didn't consider if I meet the profile that works best with their team. It's too late for me now, I just have to make sure that I'm focused on my new role and that I give more effort than what's required in order to achieve results.
 
I always talked about being able to 'hit the ground running' if I were assigned to a new account because I already knew which bases to cover when starting from scratch. Now I'm crawling at a snail's pace because I'm trying to find my way through their existing processes. I've been encountering roadblocks here and there, and while I'm glad that I'm progressing, I'm not happy with how fast I'm progressing.
 
I better make sure that my shoelaces are tied real tight, because next week I really need to start catching up and run as fast as I can.

Yesterday, I thought I experienced the worst storm I've ever had in my life. It turned out to be one of the worst storms that ever hit the country.

I didn't quite anticipate how bad the storm would be. If I knew about the amount of rainfall that we'd face I'd have left the office as soon as I could. I received a text message from my girlfriend at around 8:30 AM, informing me that we won't be able to get home until after 9:30 AM, which was okay with me because it was still raining. When the clock hit 9:30 AM, she called me and we decided to stay a bit longer because the rain fell harder. At 10 AM, we decided leave because we had already spent a lot of time waiting for the rain to stop or at least subside.

On our way home, we decided to stay at a Power Books branch to again wait for the rain to subside, but it only got harder the longer we stayed so we finally decided to go home. Unfortunately for us, cabs wouldn't take passengers because according to them, roads weren't passable. My girlfriend didn't want to wait any longer and suggested that we take the bus. We finally found one that went our way at around 12 PM. Because of floods, it would take more than 4 hours before we reached the village where we lived.

During that harrowing 4 hours, we had fought the urge to just go down and walk the way home several times, and I'm glad we did because we reached a part of the road where the water was waist-deep. Initially, I thought of how our situation would've been better if we had done things differently, but when we got home I realized that our decisions actually resulted in us being in the best situation possible. If we had went home earlier, we would've caught the flood at its highest level, high enough to stop a bus (we encountered one that had stalled on our way home). We might have taken a cab--that would've been a nightmare for us, we'd end up with a huge bill and nowhere near home for longer than it took us on the bus.

When we got home, I also realized how lucky we were compared to others. A long bus ride is nothing compared to what others have experienced. A lot of people lost their homes and possessions, and some even lost their lives or the lives of their loved to the floods. I didn't want to watch the news anymore, it was hard for me to see everyone else's misfortunes.

It's been more than twenty-four hours since the worst of the storm, I hope everyone who needs assistance has finally got them. I pray for everyone's well-being.