Thoughts On A Job

My work week ends a day early today. After a closing meeting with the division's management, we will be rushing back to Bob Hope Airport later this evening for our flight back East.

It was a busy week at work. Meetings, interviews, and hours spent observing the division's operations made it quite a hectic one. But all throughout, our contacts managed to remain very friendly and cooperative in spite of weaknesses and areas for improvement we found and identified with their processes.

A lot of times, one has to destroy in order to build. My job facilitates the process of destroying procedural and operational weaknesses in order to help our divisions run better.

In some ways, I'm glad that I do what I do where I'm at. This country has a strong culture of professionalism at work. People remain very civil and professional even when they disagree with another individual's opinion. In my situation, they understand that I'm simply doing my job when I inform them of areas they need to improve on, things that I know they sometimes don't like to hear. People take a lot of pride in their work and it could be quite a delicate matter when I'm dealing with someone who was the brains behind a particular process or procedure. It is critical for me to manage to retain their support and cooperation because I will certainly need such when I ask them to implement my recommendations.

I make sure to give the people credit where credit is due. I give people credit for what they've accomplished before discussing the areas for improvement. In a lot of situations, people work with whatever resources are available to them. They certainly deserve credit for making the best out of difficult situations. One aspect of my job that I really like is that my findings help shed light on areas that need improvement. And once that light shines on a problem, it often forces a division's management to pour the resources needed to fix it.

On the human side of things, I appreciate the fact that in this country, people can disagree with each other without becoming disagreeable. In the years that I've done this job over here, I haven't come across someone who has taken my findings as a personal attack. They all know and understand that we all have a job to do and that we all aim for what's good for the company and for everyone.

Thinking about the whole thing reminds me of some sad experiences I had when I was still back in the Philippines. For doing the exact same job I'm doing now, I received a death threat from a client whose selfish interests drove his opposition to my recommendations; I had seen our team's findings and recommendations distorted by another client's management to pursue an agenda against their laborers; and I had also witnessed how one client's management twisted and bent our recommendations to continue their corrupt practices. Although I had also seen several instances where our recommendations were implemented to the letter, it is sad to note that such instances did not make up the majority of what I saw. Is it any wonder then that our country is in the state that it is in?

At the end of the day, I am the type of person who just wants to do his job in the way it was meant to be done. The professional idealism I had from my youth has managed to remain with me in a lot of ways. Sometimes office politics do come into play but such things are unavoidable in human organizations. However, as long as the areas that need improvement are addressed to everyone's satisfaction, that's all I care about.

Busy Week Ahead

It's southern California for me this week and I'm spending it in the working-class Los Angeles suburb of Sylmar. We flew into Bob Hope Airport (formerly Burbank Airport) yesterday (Sunday) afternoon on board a JetBlue plane. The following is a picture of the plane I was on after we had landed at Bob Hope Airport.


It was a five and a half-hour flight from New York. No meals were served on this flight as has become quite standard fare for US domestic flights. However, what one got in exchange were free drinks (except for beer and liquor), sufficient legroom and satellite TV entertainment courtesy of DirecTV. On-board satellite tv is all fine and dandy but I still want my food. I'm the type who gets into a foul mood if I get hungry. Thus, to prevent starvation, I packed a "few" egg sandwiches to consume on the flight.

Three people are accompanying me on this trip. I anticipate our team's work schedule to be quite hectic for we don't have the benefit of a full five-day work week. We will only be here for four days. We are scheduled to take a "red eye" flight back to the East Coast on Thursday night that will get us home very early Friday morning. In exchange for such an arrangement, we get to take the entire Friday off.

I'll be reporting for work in a couple of hours but at this point, my mind's already looking forward to Friday. Can't wait to get an extra day of rest.

A Little Housekeeping

I did a little housekeeping on my blog today. It was getting too cluttered for my taste and for its own good that I decided to trash some of the widgets that I had installed previously.

The casualties from this round of blog cleanup are the following:

1. Google's Adsense - It didn't really make much sense to keep it since the revenues from it are a joke. A beggar would probably make more money in a bad day than a blogger would make from Adsense in a year. Thus it's gone.

2. Technorati - I didn't find much meaning with the statistic or number this tag provided. I link to other bloggers' sites because I like what they write and not for the purpose of displaying a higher Technorati number. Thus, I showed this one the door.

3. Recent Comments - This particular software was so unreliable. It sometimes displayed the readers' comments and sometimes it didn't. I hate inconsistency and thus, this widget is history.

4. Million Blog List - I'm already on their list as #968 and so there's no further need to display it on my blog. There's not much significance to the number #968 anyway since my blog is not the one millionth on the list. :D

There. That's it for now. Less clutter to see and deal with on a daily basis.

"Take 5" Tag

This is a nice little tag from Dr. Clairebear that involved quite a bit of digging through one's blog archives. I had to do so because of the following rules:

Post 5 links to 5 of your previously written posts. The posts have to relate to the 5 key words given. Tag 5 other friends to do this meme. Try to tag at least 2 new acquaintances (if not, your current blog buddies will do) so that you get to know each of them a little bit better.

Thus, as per the tag's rules, I linked some select posts to the key words given.

Family. - Story of the beginnings of a courtship many years ago.

Friends. - Memories about my hometown and some of the family friends and personalities there.

Myself. - Memories about a favorite eatery in Metro Manila

Love. - A song and thoughts about a special someone.

Anything. - A funny story that actually took place in a province in Mindanao (southern Philippines) 20 years ago.

Although the tag rules require that I tag 5 people to do this tag, I'm not tagging anyone in particular. I'm giving you guys a break. Hehehe However, please feel free to do the tag if you so wish.

Okay, now it's back to work for me before I get fired. :D

Ain't No Sunshine

It's Monday and it's a holiday here in the States as the country marks Labor Day. I'm nearing the end of a long weekend and frankly, I'm not very happy about it. Instead of making the most out of this day, especially with the gorgeous weather outside, I'm feeling a bit stressed with the thought that I'll be back at work in less than 24 hours.

I'm feeling a bit exhausted physically and mentally. I need a real long break but except for quitting the job (which is definitely not an option), I am limited by company policy to the number of personal and vacation days per year I'm allowed to take. I wish I could take and lump all those days into one long extended vacation. But it's certainly not possible given the demands at work. Thus, I have to content myself with taking a day off every once in a while not unlike a swimmer who needs to come up for air every few seconds as he swims towards the finish line.

And to add to my blues, I miss being with her. A short two-minute song the words to which I find simple yet personally meaningful are helping me through the moment.

Ain't no sunshine when she's gone.
It's not warm when she's away.
Ain't no sunshine when she's gone
And she's always gone too long
Anytime she goes away.

Wonder this time where she's gone,
Wonder if she's gone to stay;
Ain't no sunshine when she's gone
And this house just ain't no home
Anytime she goes away.

And I know, I know, I know, I know, I know,
I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know,
I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know,
I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know

Hey, I ought to leave the young thing alone,
But ain't no sunshine when she's gone.
Only darkness everyday.

Ain't no sunshine when she's gone,
And this house just ain't no home
Anytime she goes away.

Anytime she goes away.
Anytime she goes away.

And now I write.

This song's called "Ain't No Sunshine" and was written and performed by the great Bill Withers. The song, cut from his debut album "Just As I Am", became the first hit for Mr. Withers when it was released back in 1971. The song peaked at number 3 on the Billboard charts. The above live performance was from 1972 on a music program called "Old Grey Whistle Test", a music show that ran on British television, specifically the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation), from 1971 to 1987.

Bill Withers was a gifted musician and lyricist. From the above video, you could see that he was also a great singer gifted with a rather powerful set of lungs. What caught my attention the first time I heard this song was when he came to the part where he repeatedly sang "I know, I know..." continuously and without pause for a total of 26 times. I've tried singing this part several times but it's always left me gasping for breath. Hehehe

Some of you may have never heard of this guy but I'm pretty sure that a lot of you know of at least one other particular song of his. Back in March 1987, an R&B group called Club Nouveau scored a number one hit on the Billboard Charts with the song "Lean On Me". The song struck a chord with listeners because of its very positive message of extending love and care for one's neighbor. It longed for a strong sense of brotherhood in a time when an individual's needs seems to be valued more than the community's.

Club Nouveau eventually won a Grammy for Best R&B Song. Lean On Me also became the group's first and only number 1 hit. Mr. Withers was the man who wrote the song and was the first artist to take the song to the top of the charts back in July 1972. The following video is a live performance of the song by Bill Withers:

This song remains very popular because its positive message of love and friendship continues to resonate. Aside from Club Nouveau, the song has been covered by a number of other artists such as Al Jarreau, Michael Bolton, and Limp Bizkit, to name a few.

Bill Withers scored other hits aside from the two I just mentioned. His other hits that I count as personal favorites are "Lovely Day" and "Just The Two Of Us". Just The Two Of Us was a collaboration with the late saxophonist Grover Washington (1943-1999) and topped the charts worldwide in 1981. But at the time and for some reason, a lot of radio stations in Manila mentioned Grover Washington as the artist behind the song. But just to help set the record straight, Mr. Withers co-wrote the song and performed the vocals as evidenced by the following video:

Mr. Withers retired from recording in 1985.