Category Archives: Newsroom

Bubble

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Being in Singapore is like being in a bubble. You’re so far removed from the happenings in the outside world. You tend to forget that things are not as hunky dory as it seems. I say this because I was not aware that there was a strong earthquake back home and only when my twins messaged me this morning did I get to learn about the calamity. The newsfeeds on social media are not as loud as whenever I am back home.

In the train on the way to Westin.

The conference today is half-day only but I was able to have meaningful connections today. Longer conversations with people since we are not that hurried.

My colleague and I went to our new office at Raffles Place so I can work. I initially didn’t plan on working there, but changed my mind since my hotel room is not conducive for working. Well good thing I did because I was more productive today than I thought I would be.

My temporary desk. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

Our new office is a lot bigger than our old one because this also includes the other divisions of our parent company. The setup now here is that we no longer have our own “cubicles” or permanent working spaces. Here, we hot-desk since most of us anyway are always out on interviews or client calls/are transients (like me), or are not coming to the office regularly due to the pandemic. Another colleague told me that people at the financial district usually work from home on Fridays that’s why it’s going to be just me here on Friday.

This is just a third of the office. It’s almost empty. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

What I like about this new setup is that logging into our system is not as painful as before. You just scan the QR code of the terminals you will use, plug in your laptop, then you’re already connected to the system/internet. Plus all stations are equipped with dual monitors. Just bring your laptop, external keyboard, and mouse.

We have a bigger and better stocked pantry.

You no longer have to eat at your desk or at the conference room. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I welcome the various teas that we have. There were also multiple coffee machines just like in our HK office before. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
And seriously, we have a lot of wine. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

Lounge area. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I doubt if the lounge area is used since most of the people here are knee-deep in work. It was hard taking a nap in our old sofa since it was near our entrance. I was told today we have a room in our new office where I can station myself when I check out from the hotel on Tuesday.

And of course, the obligatory bathroom selfie for the OOTD.
View of the Singapore River from one of our conference rooms. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Outside Raffles Place Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I got out of our office at 8:55 pm I did overtime because I had to finish two stories tonight and some edits. I should come back here on Friday to finish emailing people whom I have met in the past three days during our series of conferences. I need to email them or else I would forget them and they will forget me, too.

Omurice and Teriyaki Chicken. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

Good thing there was a Kopitiam near the hotel where I am staying because I’m already tired and I’m not in a mood to have GrabFood.

I need to sleep now since tomorrow is my big day. It’s my own conference.

10th day of being carless

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So I miss my car, that heap of rusted teenager car. The car shop sent me photos of my very rusty back bumper that they will replace with a new one.

So wow, it’s only the paint that has been making it look decent all this time.

After the ironworks comes the paint. Hopefully the rains will stop so the humidity will not affect the painting and drying process.

Keeping my fingers crossed that I can hail a taxi tomorrow for my second Covid vax booster and hopefully they can enter my data soon in VaxCertPh so I can generate the ID before I leave for Singapore. Traveling these days is so much of a hassle that I wonder if it’s still worth coming to Seoul in September or October.

I just had a stressful couple of weeks because I had some kind of battle of wills with the parent firm’s HR dept in London. And there’s this guy from legal (also in London) whom I want to punch in the face. He wants to change our contracts in SEAsia to freelancer mode to be paid on a per article basis due to “legal risks” in the old contracts our old company had prior to being acquired by this parent that does not have any idea how to run a media company.

That made me fume.

I told my boss in Shanghai via MS Teams that I will quit and the rest of the team will follow if they touch any of our contracts. It was a risky move but I stood my ground. I asked them to talk to our global editor and even the chief of correspondents (who unfortunately is on holiday) to talk some sense into this asshole.

woman sitting in front of macbook
Photo by energepic.com on Pexels.com

So I spent the next 24 hours on tenterhooks. My stomach acids went on overdrive and I was in and out of the bathroom this morning while waiting for the verdict.

Finally, the asshole grudgingly relented after calls and calls and some more calls from bosses.

And I searched for him on LinkedIn, the asshole turned out to be this KID who just graduated from law school and is just a legal analyst and yet to be a solicitor. The kind of language he used and the tone of his email sounded like he’s the fucking boss.

I wanted to punch him on the nose. I wanted to kill him.

So now I understand why they’re not announcing my promotion. Doing so would force them to overhaul my contract and that could lead to another battle of wills with London and this d*ckhead.

I knew from the get-go that my transfer to Singapore would have been very complicated had I requested it.

I showed a friend in Edinburgh the LinkedIn profile of that KID and said just give me one chance to make his nose bleed when I get to London. Just one punch would make me so happy.

You know, I was just cheerful last night that I was dancing in my room to my playlist. Then that “ping” from my Outlook and that email thread from that KID who was throwing his weight around eroded the rare happy mode I was in.

No. No one is allowed to ruin my happy mode. Ok?

Boycott

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https://twitter.com/guampartosa/status/1539085547846504448?t=2orc_WutBsrcDxdNhuztSQ&s=19
https://twitter.com/guampartosa/status/1539085553961799680?t=acdDUqfUmPn2ADE3cWw06w&s=19

If I only knew 😤

I would never support enablers. I’ll stop going to Pinto; there are other galleries out there.

I just learned Dr. Cuanang is also the doctor who issued the questionable medical opinions for Gremlin a.k.a. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to escape prosecution. No wonder this doctor has a lot of money; he serves the biggest crooks in the world.

Twin I inside one of the galleries of Pinto Art Museum, the first time they went there when they were 4 years old Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I had been chatting on Telegram yesterday with a friend, who taught me the mantra, “All is well. All is well,” whenever bad thoughts about the past come to invade my head. He told me that not all men are like my exes so I shouldn’t lump together all men under one category.

Well, I told him, I will only change my opinion of men if I meet creatures of their sex that are the opposite of my exes. But as far as I’m concerned, all of them are the same (sorry friend, that includes you). He got pissed, of course, since he was cheated on by his gf who slept with his officemate. 😑

Why is that my friends and I are in this predicament? Because we’re nice? Maybe we shouldn’t play nice anymore. It’s a dog-eat-dog world anyway. The nice ones die quickly.

This friend got depressed for two months and just got out of this funk this year (the cheating happened last year) and he told me I had dwelt too long in my grief. I said this is precisely the reason why I went to a shrink so I can get out of this clinical depression alive. I was too late in consulting a professional (already 8 months after the fact) that’s why it got protracted.

And I pointed out to him that his ex-gf didn’t send him a painting to destabilize him like mine did. The friend did acknowledge that the ex-gf was not as cruel as my ex.

Hah, it’s already 10:34 pm I’m still working on an energy story. Being workaholic makes me dull. I haven’t drawn anything in weeks. This is what it is like having your ass always on the line. I have back-to-back calls tomorrow with the sales team and then in the afternoon, I need to talk to one of my people to tell him that our bid for his promotion wasn’t granted. So I needed to push him further to improve his stats so I can make another attempt by end of the year to push for his promotion.

Meanwhile, I needed to handhold the newest member of the team because of her language issues and she isn’t used to the Western-style journalism, so I need to co-write her stories until she gets the hang of it. If I don’t do it, she will be kicked out by end of the year. I keep on losing people due to language issues and/or not being able to cope with Western standard journalism.

As my former APAC editor told me, the hardest bureau to run in Southeast Asia.

I will campaign for another raise for me by end of the year because of the headaches I’m having.

Oh hello, Monday

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Back to work.

With no fixed broadband Internet.

WTF!

And I had a lot of VOIP calls today. I couldn’t respond to a week’s worth of emails because I am just using my mobile phone as a hotspot.

And the promotions I asked for my people weren’t granted and salary increases for them and mine were minuscule.

My second-worst performer still has a higher salary than me.

Now this. 😤

And yet they still limit our access, we legit journos who have code of ethics and strict guidelines to follow before we publish anything.

I’m super pissed.

Oh hello, Monday. You haven’t changed.

Hard landing or soft landing?

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We don’t know how long the elevated prices and supply squeeze will last. The oil prices at gas stations keep rising and jeepney drivers are throwing in their towels and are now looking for alternative sources of livelihood. They simply can’t make ends meet. Not with this daily price hikes and horrible traffic.

And yet this stupid government is still saying the PHP 20-per-kilo-rice is doable, at the expense of poor Filipino farmers

But Federation of Free Farmers Cooperatives national manager Raul Montemayor said the DAR’s plan would only make farmers end up losing more, especially if the farm-gate price — or the selling price between a trader and a farmer — is further reduced.

Montemayor said if a kilo of rice would be sold at P20, the farm-gate price would have to be about P10 a kilo.

As a rule of thumb, the retail price of rice is at least double the farm-gate price of palay (unhusked rice), which is currently P19 a kilo.

Philippine Daily Inquirer

Meanwhile, the outgoing cabinet secretaries of Duterte admin say it simply cannot be done.

These idiots are not even coordinating their press releases 🙄

If these asshats have any iota of intelligence, then the first thing they should fix is the supply chain problems/inefficiencies/bottlenecks, which eat up 40-50% of the cost of goods, especially food, in this country. That alone has an immediate effect on the prices of food, which comprise bulk of the CPI.

I spent the day talking to this investment company that primarily provides mezzanine financing to SMEs. It slightly lifted me out of the doldrums but I’m still having a tough battle with the promotion of my people. Like what the heck?! Why is it even hard to have my good reporters promoted and have their pay raised? What the fuck is this company??? It was like defending my thesis all over again.

I was so angry this afternoon that I refused to work overtime.

I had put my ass on the line by saying that if they don’t give these people their due, they will leave the company—and one of them was already being pirated in front of me by a rival company (which was 100% true). If that happens, my work will be unbearable because I will be plugging the gap by myself and that would force me to look for opportunities elsewhere because I simply cannot overwork myself for little pay, I said.

Now I have to look for Plan B.

Being under this new parent company is much worse than being owned by a PE that squeezes the life out of a business. 🤬

Today just sucked the life out of me. I was feeling sorry for myself since last night until today and this HR issue added to the pain I’m having today.

Oppo Band. To motivate me to move. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I’m sooooo looking forward to my break next week. I will shake off the bad jujus and tune out. I will love myself and make myself believe that I am not as horrible and unlovable as my ex-partner thinks I am.

I hit bumps like this from time to time because I’m still working through my trauma. It’s part of the process.

Anyway, I took advantage of the sale last Saturday in Glorietta and bought this smart watch that I will test this coming Saturday in Pico de Loro when I dive/swim laps.

Meanwhile, the cats managed to bring a smile to my face last night despite feeling like shit.

Sushi inside the paper bag
Kimchi’s turn to destroy the paper bag
Have paperbag, have cat. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

Chonky cat. 😻

Delaying tactics

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A magenta peony. Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com

I’ve been pushing back finishing that Sombrero island painting. I’m having a problem with how sunlight strikes violent waves. I am almost getting it with the waves near the boat but the farther the waves are from the boat/from my perspective, the more trouble I have with sunlight reflection/refraction.

You see, painting is like solving a problem; you always get troubled by how light falls on the subject and the perspective—how the lines meet, especially in urban sketching. Rooftops are difficult, especially if the structures have different angles. That’s why painting/drawing is a good way to keep myself occupied because I don’t have to think about things that are troubling me.

Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com

I made a mistake here. I should have left the pencil outline and shouldn’t have used the UniPin liner for the finishing touches.

Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com

I’m a bit unhappy with how this turned out. I’ll try to see if this will grow on me.

Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com

Ok this is better.

Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com

While I wait if the above watercolor painting will be something that I will like later on, I made a sketch of nemophilas or “baby blue eyes”. This is how I saw them/photographed them in May 2017 in Hitachi Kaihin Koen in Ibaraki Prefecture (see photo I used for this blog’s header). I used the darkest pencil I have in my arsenal and would see if I can leave it as is without layering it with a UniPin liner.

Today was a bit rough at work as I was editing non-stop. That problem journo from India was displaying her attitude problem so I had to shoot her down in our email thread. Her ex-officemate in Mumbai (he already left the company) and I were chatting this morning and he told me this journo, R, is exuding “India newsroom vibes” where everyone thinks he/she is the star reporter so they all display similar arrogance. He said, R does not fit in my company because of her attitude problem; our company, M, is not like the usual Indian newsroom. When I showed him how she replies to my emails, he said: Oh wow, how can you have the guts to speak to an editor like that?

“She thinks she’s a goddess. Her BC does not like her and she doesn’t like her BC,” he said. That’s how I ended up editing her. The problem is she doesn’t like to be edited. Her BC keeps rejecting her copies because they are not up to par—still India newsroom-y, this ex-colleague said. So her draft with me reached a fifth iteration and yet she demanded that this should be published right away. I told her firmly that the publication of this article will depend on how polished this is. “As I told you, editing analysis pieces do not take just a day,” I scolded her.

I told my ex-colleague, “And you know how thorough I am with my edits.” Yup, he agreed because I was the one who trained him.

I told my manager in Seoul about this problem journo and she was backing me up in that email thread.

Shooting down biaaaaatches is really tiring. On a Friday. 😣

Meanwhile, my manager finally approved my leave and two weeks from now I will be toasting under the sun. First I will be Pico de Loro then I will be with my bffs in Caliraya. Either we will get the glamping tents or the boathouse. I have yet to book the accommodations. Will have to talk to them tomorrow regarding the schedule.

The past few days I was feeling like shit because of the bad news left and right. I suddenly wanted to have someone hug me and assure me that everything will be all right. I wanted somehow to have a safe place and feel protected when I sleep. That’s all I wanted; I’m a simple person. I never demanded anything else.

But then you know it seems like such things are not for me. Maybe I was made to be this way—independent and strong-willed—because in the end I will always be alone. So I need to toughen up more, especially during the times I feel weak and vulnerable.

No, I shouldn’t let myself be a wilting flower like that because that leads to mistakes. Major mistakes. I just have to be kinder to myself and learn to hug myself to sleep. I don’t want to get hurt like that again. I’ve come soooooooo far from where I’ve been 1.5 years ago.

It’s kinda shitty that it is taking me a long time to completely recover while nobody gives a flying fuck about me. Not him anyway.

Awwww jeez. I must be very tired to be holding a pity party like this on a Friday night.

I just need to rest. Tomorrow will be better.