This was just pure laugh trip. The sense of humor of my fellow Pinoys in our office is, at best, gutter humor. The kind of humor you get when you’re all drunk and laughing at each other’s antics while singing and eating. It was such a welcome break from all the craziness of this week.

Yesterday’s public speaking training was good. I’ve improved from last year and our trainor was happy about it. I realized that I do better when I write it down so that my thought process has structure. I have a lot of verbal fillers when I don’t have structure. I told our trainor, who is a stage actor, that being onstage is not difficult for me…it’s only when I have to think about what I need to say on stage that I get into trouble because my brain is faster than my mouth. But when I have a script in my brain, like Hamlet’s soliloquy, it’s so easy for me.

From Monday until today, I had back-to-back meetings and trainings. I barely had time to write and edit. I’m so stressed because not only I had to double my output for this month, I also had to make sure my team is beyond the minimum number of stories for Feb. I had to go through the grilling of my two bosses yesterday; they told me that I really had to scare my team to make everyone move. I agree with my bosses that two of them aren’t even exerting enough effort. That’s why I’m flying to one reporter’s home market in April to check on her and probably I need to visit another one to do the same. I mean, there is no reason for them not to attend events and earnings calls and such.

My bosses said it was unfair to me that reporters under me produce less than I do when I still edit and do admin work. They know that I tried my best to provide them all help I can extend, from facilitating interviews to providing them with people to chase. It was already spoonfeeding but they still can’t—I don’t know… It’s exhausting.

Meanwhile, I was able to tell my manager my issue with her. She is unaware about what she was doing to me (and to other reporters because one had the same issue with her). She lacks self-awareness. As one reporter told me, she is rude online but in person she is ok to deal with. I told her whenever she pings me on Teams, she makes me jump out of my skin.

At least now we are levelling off. At least it’s a start. I don’t have to quit my job or my current setup. I don’t have to go freelance. I just don’t have to mind her.

After our session, the editorial unit of our company had drinks and at least it’s a good ice breaker.

But they had to close the tab immediately—this company is such a cheapskate. 😑 So some of my colleagues and I left to eat at this famous beef brisket noodle place called Kau Kee, several hundreed meters away.

It was good for HKD 70 per bowl but it was small. I had a bigger bowl of pho at Central Market for the same price. In terms of broth and noodles, this is much better than the one I had in Taiwan, which was sour and the noodles were just too thick.

According to Reddit, this restaurant is not popular with the locals as it has become touristy (mostly from mainland China) and most of the customers just go there to have selfies and post on Xiaohongshu. One poster said there is a better restaurant in Jordan called Sun Fa. It doesn’t have an English name on Google Maps so I have to be creative…