Which is why, if you will notice to the right of your screen, I have placed some of the more catchier ads I’ve seen on travel at cj.com. Try clicking one of those ads and see what happens. None? Try clicking them again. Keep trying until you get it right. They’re not really there so I can make some money out of you lost folks. They’re there to motivate me to save enough so I can go to the places these ads promise.

Like going on a romantic cruise for example. Just the thought of spending a few nights on a modern boat (with enough life jackets for everyone) makes me wish that I have money growing on trees.

Or deliberately getting lost in the subways of New York, wanting to see with my own eyes the awesome things that my New Yorker friends claim that they’ve seen in this underground madness. Then go to Flushing Meadows– home of the US Open.

Of course I’d have to visit London. Got to SW19 and have my photo taken munching grass not that I entertain any thought of becoming part of the London Zoo.

Oh well, I think I’ve daydreamed long enough. it’s time for me to rest.

A couple of months ago I was granted my own little private fiefdom. I was pretty cool about it, even self-deprecating I think, when people bring it up and offer their, well, congratulations. Of course that did not stop me from doing somersaults inside my head. To be honest I was walking with my head up in the clouds for a couple of days. Then reality set in and I got shot down from my imagined kingdom.

In the corporate world, along with great power comes a daily tidal wave of emails. This is so not what I had in mind. I was imagining myself in a pristinely fluffy bath robe (the kind where bed bugs can get lost in) lounging in a lazy boy getting a back rub while four lady attendants attend to my hands and feet. That’s how Al Capone worked when he’s not killing people, right?

Now people come to me for all things as if I could walk on water, or cure cancer, or for pete’s sake, as if I can predict the future! My goodness people, I know I’m hot but that doesn’t mean there’s enough of me for everyone. Yeah right, I wish I could say something like that.

Haay, 300+ emails to go, and the day is just starting.

Work becomes doubly hard when this happens. I still believe in making the best of every given situation but it’s hard to get into that mindset when you’re being asked to milk a rock. Turning water into wine would be less difficult.

All this complaining can be quite tiresome but then again I’m not a cow, and I can’t just stampede along with the rest of the mindless herd. If something causes my belly to ache, I moan; if something itches, I scratch. I guess that makes me a bellyaching scratcher. Oh well, being a complainer is far better than being a dog who complies eagerly when asked to roll over and die. I know I’ll have to do my own version of rolling over sooner or later but at least complaining (though in silence) allows me a little false sense of satisfaction that I’m not taking everything sitting down.

Some of us have to maintain our rebellious image intact—even if it’s only imagined.

Yesterday, for fear of going insane due to sleeplessness, I resolved to do whatever means necessary to ensure that I can at least grab a couple of hours sleep before heading to the office. My sleeping tool of choice was three bottles of San Mig light drank in succession. It did put me in a drowsy mood right after and I was happily whiling away my afternoon delight in a snoring frenzy. I woke up at around 6 in the evening not with refreshed vigor but with an overwhelming hangover. My secret weapon turned around and bit me in the ass.

I resolved not to repeat the same mistake when I went home this morning at around 8. The good thing about mornings is that I absolutely enjoy spending all that time in bed (I was a pathologically tardy employee before because of this). This was the main reason I told my boss that I’ll be a good fit as a graveyard shift guy. True enough, the moment my head hit my pillow, I was in lalaland. I woke up at 1pm. 5 hours of sleep is already a luxury for me and I was a happy camper all throughout the afternoon.

Others are not so lucky.

In the Philippines there’s usually a premium paid to nightshift workers. I do not know the minimum government requirement but I do know that companies, especially call center companies, pay their graveyard shift agents a 10-20% (of their monthly salary) nightshift premium. While this may sound like a very good deal, I think it is only fair. Working at night is doubly hard, you not only had to contend with your usual tasks and responsibilities, there’s also the bothersome bout with drowsiness which means a portion of your brainpower is already allocated to ensuring that you stay awake.

There’s also a soft side to this whole nightshift thing. Some of the guys I talked to complained of temporary muscle dystrophy in their nether regions (don’t make me spell this out) after a full night’s work. A few even suggested that the happiness scale of their significant others have dropped considerably since they started turning night into day. This is a crying shame. In the end, money may be the ultimate aphrodisiac but tell that to some parts of your body — like flowers severed from their stems, some parts of our anatomy would rather wrinkle up and die– after doing a full nightshift. And no amount of scratching or stomping will ever motivate them to regain their usual vigor. Unless of course, you chose to ingest the blue pill instead of the red one– when Morpheus gave you the choice.

This post is brought to you in part by Viagra—guaranteed to harden your softening resolve.

Should be a gas I think. No traffic, no pollution (it’s dark, so if you cant see a thing, then it really isn’t there), and no malls either. It would be interesting to chug beer in broad daylight when most folks will be downing their first cup of coffee.

Some say that doing the graveyard shift does things to your body, and these are not usually the delicious kind of things. Sleeping during the day they say will not be able to simulate the usual night sleeping patterns thus the body will not be able to generate the hormones that it should be generating. I haven’t taken the time to verify these things but since almost everyone is saying it then it must be gossip (huh?).

But I figured Manila is such a convoluted city anyway that people are expected to have a shorter life span. At least the stress that traffic and pollution brings becomes a non-issue when one is a night shifter. No traffic-related stress in exchange for hormonal imbalance, throw into the bucket a couple of pesos worth of parking fee savings, night differential, plus transportation allowance, it should be a sweet deal.

The biggest blow is that there’s usually no whiskey a-go-go bars that open during the daytime, which means no more exotic cultural shows for me. Not that I go to these places. Really, I don’t. Bummer.

Oh well, time to don the threads. Have a great day everyone.

“Wake up, Fence.”

As far as being fashionable go, that was the closest thing I came to. I hastily got off from my bed, put on a ragged looking pair of old, old, jeans a semi-tattered shirt and the shabby blazer I bought from SM for P599.95. I was going for the rockstar look– the fashionable excuse for those who are naturally messy.

In our table, a teammate was complaining about her disastrous hairdo.

“After all those curling iron sessions, my hair is still as flat as they can be.” She lamented.

“Think of it as disheveled chic, dear.” I tried to console her. It seemed to work ‘coz her eyes lit up after that statement and she was already smiling. Funny how simple words can brighten a person’s day, or night.

The party was as expected. Each of the participating departments outdid themselves in coming up with their production numbers. We didn’t win first place, but we were a very close second. Of course the teammates blamed me for everything. An electric post would have been more graceful, I heard someone say. Whatever, you sorry excuse for a tranny.

While everyone was shaking their jelly on the dance floor, my left-footed friends and I were taking advantage of the unconsumed alcohol. It’s really amazing what a hundred bucks discreetly slipped in the hand of a waiter can do. Leftover food started magically appearing on our table, and while other folks were trying their darnedest to persuade some of the waiters to bring them their bottle of beer, our table was overflowing with beverage. Some of the waiters would even innocently pass our table hoping to be the next one to receive a little christmas gift.

All in all, it was a great night, I drank more than I supposed to, ate more than an average person should consume, and even embarrassed myself some more on the dancefloor for a full 5 minutes until a kind soul decided that I need to salvage a little dignity and hauled me back to my table where I continued to drink like a fish.

I have the ominous signs of a hangover as I’m typing this, but at least it makes for good reading material, no?

I think Sunday nights are the worst. I am caught between regret and dread; regret for the weekend that went by so fast, and dread for the coming work week.

Speaking of work, let me slip this one in right now, just in case I lose this thought. I think it’s a good reminder for all of us working class heroes.

I’m not sure if everyone realizes that work takes up at least 8 hours of our lives. 8 hours.

Add 2 hours for lunch,
2 hours of travel time (less if you’re lucky),
2 hours of preparation for work,
another hour of preparation prior to leaving work.

That’s 15 hours all in all. Add to that 6 hours worth of sleep, and out of the 24 hours we have everyday, that leaves us with only 3 hours worth of time from Monday to Friday to do the things that we really like. Only 3 hours to be spent for ourselves, our family, and our friends.

Are you sure you want to spend those precious 3 hours working overtime in the office?

Think about it before you volunteer for that extra work again.

“Life is too short to be doing something you do not love.”

Monday morning, 1 AM ]]> http://thefencesitter.com/the-hours-of-our-lives/feed/ 2 http://thefencesitter.com/42/ http://thefencesitter.com/42/#comments Fri, 16 Mar 2007 10:49:00 +0000 fence http://thefencesitter.com/?p=7 Continue reading →]]> I’ll be sleeping in a strange bed for 42 days. For two whole nights I’ll be sleeping listlessly in a huge space minus the peculiar smells of my overused pillows. I need two nights to settle in on a strange bed. It doesn’t matter if I’ve been in some adrenaline pumping midnight activity, if it’s a strange bed, I wouldn’t be able to sleep.