My Perfect Workplace

I've been dreaming to write a full-length feature on this, hoped to get it published in some working woman's mag. In fact, I've posted questions on their ideas of a perfect workplace among friends. I've even visualized the layout, etc. But this has yet to find its way to legit and something-to-talk-and-brag about print. Anyway, here's my take on what works at work.

1. No uniforms and IDs. This is an era of individuality, why do organizations seek to create identity by making clones of us wearing horrendous colors and styles? Imagine a thousand employees spread across the country being dictated on their color preferences. Don't they know one's choice of color for clothes influences work attitude and perhaps productivity?

2. Natural light. I'm not really a full-pledged environmentalist. I'm still working on it, but I have these clippings of workdesks facing a wide window providing natural light where a girl who writes something important could look outdoors and where she could grow petunias by the windowsill.

3. No airconditioning. Again, I'm all for natural or maybe I'm just in the wrong job. I want to write where its naturally breezy and where the humming I will listen to everyday is not from an old AC but from birds by a tree. Also, it would be of great help to my over-polluted sinuses.

4. No grey tabletops. I currently conduct all my business on a massive light grey table with drawers on the side and I hate it. It's such a stereotype! Manufacturers of officeware can learn a lot from Ikea or maybe they should have bought themselves a box of those 48-piece crayons.

5. Enough of blue. Same reasoning as above. Now I wonder maybe all these blue around me tells me I'm in a blue-collar job or I'm plainly blue in this blue square hole?

6. No wires jutting out of walls, floors. I'm OC, I know, but I also believe in occupational health and safety.

7. Potted plants. So my petunias would have companions by my window sill.

8. Artwalls everywhere. Because color is important at work and should be found in art around me and not in my workwear that becomes so predictable I've made acronyms of it just to be a compliant employee - GPYB, BORG, RYBG... figure what these are.

9. Freewall somewhere. Space for individuality, for creativity, for unbridled and unedited opinion-making, for both friendly and unsavory messages, for art?

10.Free-flowing coffee. For one to survive days of predictable workwear, for maintaining reason amid the boringness of everyday.

Migration Art

Today is artsy day for me and my colleagues. We hosted a poster making contest on the theme: Alay sa OFW, Alay sa Bayan. There were about 40 contestants from highschools in Manila. They drew, painted, colored, erased, outlined, and doodled to their heart's content in 3 hours and voila! we have this great collection of works which depict the migration phenomenon in the eyes of highschool kids.


Some observations I made:

- Family concepts are either sources of inspiration or are problem areas
- Dollars or money representations were all over the artwork
- Nationalistic symbols as the backdrop
- The OFW as a hero

I was looking forward to something more than these but I might be asking too much. Alas, media has seeped into the creative consciousness of people, blurring the images, dramatizing only the popular ideas, and confining migration perpectives to these cliches. Sad!

Tigdas Hangin

Tobi had my undivided attention the past four days. After going through my homegrown diagnostics of "he must be teething now" hence the fever or it must be some "pilay" from all the calisthenics we do every morning, I had to bring him to Dr. Joy (nice name for a pediatrician, right?)because he developed rashes that all my research couldn't define.

My biyenan and Amay suspected its "tigdas hangin" and the "prescription" was to wrap Tobi up and protect him from the "hangin", duh? So with Tobi bundled up like he was joining the Philippine team on a trek to Mt. Everest, we went to see Dr. Joy. After the cursory check on his weight, temperature, eyes, etc. the doc examined the rashes and declared: its tigdas hangin! Then, she rattled off what's going to happen in the next few days, that there's no reason to worry for the rash will just vanish in thin air, give the baby more water, yadayadayada.

I think I wasn't paying attention then. I was pinching myself in my mind, stopping any loud laugh to come out. I didn't know that Tigdas Hangin was something medical and boy, have I a lot to learn about where and when "pamahiin" and science converge. And this, ladies and gentlemen is once of those rare instances - Tigdas Hangin is Roseola in medical science (and I thought I have mastered every page of the baby book).

Morning Call

Maaaameeeee, maaaaaaa, hihihi, meeeee. Lately, this voice has been waking me up in the wee hours of the morning. Sleeping one of my luxuries, that voice just refuses to give in and seeps into my subconscious state. The voice demands attention. It requires acknowledgement that goes beyond saying a dull “Good mowning, babyToW.” No, that won’t do for a morning talk, maaaameeeee. The call tells me and Agom that we have to haul our sleep deprived selves to wakefulness for a voice says its time for activity.

Perhaps in Tobi’s own language, maaaameeee, weewawoo, uhhhhh, ahhhh means for me turn the nightlamp off and the room lights on, switch the TV on for some morning news, bring in the toys so we can play in bed, pick me up and let’s do our “stretch your arms-cycle your legs workout.” And, maaaameeee, while you’re at it, it will be nice to have my warm teabath ready and to cook my vegetable breakfast, too.

Yes, our sweetest morning call ever comes from Tobi. Though we still have to drag ourselves up to wake up and get ready for work, the morning call at least makes the daily routine lighter. Tobi’s “maaaameeee,” would surely be much preferred to the whir of the alarm clock or even the Chinese alarm tune in my mobile.

Good morning, anak!

Lost Art

It's been awhile since I got zapped into a creative mode, which partly explains the silence in this blog. Life really can suck out all the creative juices from people. I envy those people who can write poetry out of their grocery lists, compose music spontaneously while doing the laundry or come up with a painting while trying to disguise that stubborn stain on a favorite pair of jeans. That is unbridled creativity. That is really passion consuming one's whole being.

The same passion I've been looking for the past months but simply can't. I'm in too deep in life and living. Weekdays, I practically don't have a life that its a bonus if I could doodle on my planner. Weekends are dedicated for nurturing - Tobi, the garden, our home...some space for creativity there but not as much as I would like it to be. The easel stand waits in our bodega...my craft shelf is gathering dust...my journal is buried under the design magazines and bills.

Must really do something about this longing. Must look for creative windows in this pile of must do's. Must give in to the old me. I miss that old me. I who got caught drawing house layouts instead of taking down notes in a history class in highschool. I designed my costumes for highschool plays while Mama enthusiastically sew it overnight. I was "commissioned" to do my highschool's stage design for a beauty contest. They loved my underwater concept complete with a giant clamshell with the beauties dressed in gowns that made them look like mermaids (this before the "Marina" or "Dyesebel" came to our visual consciousness). All these chances, I realize, were windows for my art.

I know there are such same windows in my life today and must move to opening it once more. Get that scrapbook project for Tobi going, do flower arrangements on weekends, start that dream mural for our room, and of course, blog away everyday. Enough with excuses, let out the artist in me...welcome the old me.

Space

If you live in a country with 7,107 islands, 88,706,300 people, and a total land area of 300,000 km², when do you sit back and say you have enough space to inhabit, till and stow as your own? Would one distinguish whether the craving for space is all about the simple joy of ownership or whether its something more noble like stewardship? What if one cannot separate the ideals behind every act of ownership yet has the money to buy land? Who says no, you've got enough.

If anyone can give answers to these questions then it will be of great help to many Filipinos who need a reminder or two of what is enough and what amount of property would sustain a single Filipino life. That way there would be answers to this insatiability I see around me. That way those whose only property claim is a pot of soil planted with "sili" or "kamatis" can likewise begin laying claim to their rightful space. That way, everyone knows when enough is enough!

Tell me.

USOG

A Monday in June. Have you ever felt like your whole digestive system wants to get out of your body while your head is throbbing like mad as you go through bouts of hiccups as if your whole body is one inflated balloon? Today, I just did.

Since it’s a Monday morning and work is waiting for me, I got out my first aid kit: the menthol stick from Binondo which Cha and I have named “the works,” a mug of hot water, and Franco’s 15-count pressure application on that skin between my point finger and my thumb. It didn’t work. I was frantic because the hiccups were coming out every single-minute and I was getting dizzy, too!
I was getting ready to rush to the hospital because I knew I shouldn’t be feeling anything close to what I call a “blah” moment. Agom and I had some body conditioning over the weekend by treating ourselves to a visit to a spa for great sauna time and a wonderful massage, we had a nice salad and fish meal last night and had a good night’s sleep.

So why this? Perhaps this unexplained occurrence calls for a mysterious explanation. I looked for S who’s known to inflict (for lack of any correct word) "usog" or "bales" on anyone she lays eyes on or greets just when she’s coming from outdoors or when she’s hungry or tired. Tough luck, S went through the ceremony of pinching my earlobes and groping through my hair but she concluded she’s not “guilty” this time. She said she can minimize whatever frenzy was going on with my body but can’t cure me since the “usog” did not come from her. I couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry but surely the hiccups and stomach pain were preventing from engaging in any other emotion. Indeed, after her “ceremony” the hiccups died down a little bit but my stomach was still churning and there’s this throbbing along my forehead.

My lunchmates suggested I approach other “usog carriers” at the office. Sadly, L, one of those mentioned and whom I recalled I met while on my way to get a mug of water when I arrived at work, was not taking me seriously. He wouldn’t believe in such mysterious deductions of a problem which may otherwise be clinically categorized as migraine. So, beg while writhing in pain I did. Thankfully, L, out of pity perhaps, went through yet another earlobe pinching ceremony. I was half-waiting that he’ll get saliva and apply it on my tummy, which I knew was part of the “usog castaway” done among kids, but thank God he didn’t. After all, the frenzy was slowly leaving my body! After the “ceremony,” I took a nap. I got tired after all those cast-away ceremonies. Twenty-minutes later, I woke up and was up and about like I ought to be on any Monday.