My colleague, the best that I have in my team, finally tendered her resignation letter. She will stay on until the 27th. It’s supposed to be Feb but she will use her remaining leave credits that she carried over from last year so she will just cut short her stay.
My bosses told me to hold my horses and not accept. They will make a counter-offer.
I told my immediate manager that nah, she won’t. I’ve been raising this issue about promotion and raises since I took over but they wouldn’t listen. I asked for her promotion the moment I assumed my new role, but I was told her name wasn’t in the list of those who will get raises/promotion. Actually, all the names I submitted didn’t get any promotion.
And now my manager is blaming me for not flagging. I told you several times already, I said.
Even the reporter herself told me that she told my manager about it.
They just didn’t listen.
If your company doesn’t value you, walk away. The problem with other managers is that they will only realize their folly when the die has already cast.
Of course, since I already knew that this was coming, I am just calmly taking it now and absorbing it. But it still hurts and also there’s a panicking voice inside me that is screaming, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU GOING TO DO NOW?! You don’t have a reporter in Singapore!
I’m trying to be calm and collected. I have no idea what to do now. Shall I fly to Singapore next week and start having coffee dates? My bosses should realize they pay peanuts and no one with good experience would really jump into this role. There’s a dearth of talent in Singapore and we could only get foreigners for this role, which would require a hefty salary given that the MoM has hiked the minimum pay for non-executive/non-investor foreign workers. Even the rivals I talked to last November aren’t from Singapore—they’re all transplants.
OK, breathe in, breathe out.
I am now plotting all the conferences that I need to attend in Southeast Asia. It seems like I will be traveling every month. Oh shit.
When you buy online, you get a free slim book keyboard worth PHP 7k. Free delivery via LBC. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I think I finally achieved a happy compromise. Portability with bigger screen compared to iPad mini 6 that I had been initially planning to get. I checked my sister-in-law’s iPad mini 6 that was newly purchased by my bro—it was losing charge quickly and it heats up. They had to bring it to the Apple store/reseller for possible repair. Aside from that, the screen was so small, even for watching Netflix. I want something that I could chuck in my handbag, but it should not be that small.
It was hard to satisfy my requirements. 🫥
I can hold it with one hand, like when I read daily news in bed. Photo by CallMeCreation.comNow I can read all my newspaper/magazine subscriptions away from my desktop. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
It has an 11″ screen, but it’s narrower and easier to handle than my old 10.2″ iPad 9. It’s also lighter.
It can easily be shoved into my medium-sized handbag. This is great for when I leave the house, like for a coverage or a meeting, but I’m not expecting heavy editing work in between. Or when I go out of town for leisure but I need to bring a machine for “work emergencies” without lugging my Lenovo laptop.
It can fit in my handbag! Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I have installed this with all the apps that I usually use for work like MS Outlook, Office, Teams, Zoom, etc. It can do multi-tasking without freezing (unlike my old hybrid tablet Lenovo Miix 3) or slowing down. It also has DeX, which is a special feature of Samsung tablets that can change the tab’s UI into desktop mode.
The keyboard is a little tight but serviceble and tactile.
I can use my Logitech mouse for this but it’s more cumbersone to shift machines with one mouse. Just use the damn pen! What’s the use of a touchscreen if you don’t use it?
I can draft an article here on the fly if needed. Well, I used to work a lot on the first netbook, Asus Eee PC 701 (with a 7″ screen), and used it as my main word processing machine in the field, therefore, I can live with this Samsung Tab S8 tablet/keyboard combo.
I guess some gadget reviewers were right; this is how Chromebooks should have been. Google could have just stuck with Android and optimize it for tablet/hybrid laptop instead of going for the Chromebook OS where everything is done via browser. I mean, where’s the versatility in that?
I’ve always been chasing the holy grail for journalists everywhere: a word processing machine powerful enough for our daily tasks in the field but can fit into our handbags so we can be free to literally chase people for interviews.
I remember way back in 2006, one journo pulled out her Palm (or a Handspring?) with a stand and a folding keyboard and started typing away during a press conference. I turned green with envy then because I was lugging everywhere with me my 15.4″ Toshiba laptop that weighed a ton. Anything that would help me reduce the size of my bag was welcome. Since then, I had been looking for a word processing machine that can send emails that I can bring everywhere with me.
This brought me to investigate HP’s iPaQ and Handspring Visor. I had wanted those things so badly because that meant I could leave my humongous laptop behind and just carry with me that handheld device and just connect it via infrared to a small keyboard. Of course, I couldn’t afford those things at that time (early 2000s).
So when the Eee PC came to Manila, I grabbed one (PHP 18,000 retail price in 2007) and left my Toshiba at home and turned it into a “desktop”. I finally was able to carry one bag with me in the field for the first time. 😉 The other business journos followed suit.
But the tiny keyboard caused my carpal tunnel syndrome. I had to go to an orthopedic surgeon because my hands and wrist were in so much pain. When the doctor asked how I worked, I pulled out my netbook and showed him how I typed. Bingo, he said. He told me to change my machine and prescribed to me a nerve pain medicine (Pregabalin) and a combo of Vit B complex. And oh, wrist supports when I slept. I think I did that for several months until it no longer hurt.
So my remedy for my tiny keyboard? I upgraded to a bigger netbook. I can’t go back to huge-ass laptops! Then netbooks went out of favor (they were so underpowered), so I had to search again for a middle ground: thin laptops/ultrabooks then hybrid tablet-laptops. The last one was the super underpowered Lenovo Miix 3 that eventually Twin I destroyed. I had to go back to the traditional heavy laptops.
Let’s see how this Tab S8 would fare in the field.
Inking. Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com
The paper of this sketchbook absorbs color instead of half-repelling it so that’s why the watercolors bleed. I couldn’t make it behave the way I want it so layering is difficult. The gray on jaune didn’t blend so it sticks out like a sore thumb.
Ah well, this is a practice notebook anyway. It’s ok if my sketches are bad. I need to fill up 20 sketchbooks before I improve. 😏
Maybe I could try sketching Manila Cathedral now or Fort Santiago.
Today is a public holiday and I’m not supposed to work but I did. I had an interview with this firm that the Singapore PR I blogged about the other day was promoting. It was a hard interview because I tried poking from different angles and I’m not able to penetrate his wall so I couldn’t get what I wanted. I don’t know if I just wasted everybody’s time since there is no actionable angle I could write about 😒
This left me exhausted. Hard to interview lawyers if they’re not drunk. 🫠
I want to visit an art gallery or watch somebody create art so I can be inspired and restore my mojo. Creativity can be drained and I tell you I’m so dry. I’m running on empty now.
You see, I used to cover her at the Philippine Competition Commission when she was still a commissioner there. She was one of my favorite commissioners to put on a hot seat during press conferences (the other one is Comm Joey Bernabe). I used to love covering both of them and she once told me that I keep them on their toes whenever I attend their presscons. She was really good and made sense. Her specialization at the UP School of Economics was health economics—everything that concerns private healthcare funding, universal healthcare, public health finance, etc.
Then she ran for congress.
She’s now swallowed by the system (or maybe there was a corrupt politician hiding in her all along) and has co-authored the bill that would create the Marcos slush fund a.k.a. the 1MDB 2.0.
What are sovereign wealth funds? These are created by states so that their excess reserves can go somewhere more productive instead of sitting in the national treasury. What states have excess funds in an age of budget deficits? Oil countries. Malaysia, Norway, Kuwait and other Middle Eastern states.
A Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) is a state-owned investment fund or entity that is commonly established from:
Balance of payments surpluses
Official foreign currency operations
The proceeds of privatizations
Governmental transfer payments
Fiscal surpluses
And/or receipts resulting from resource exports
And as a public finance and macroeconomy reporter of 8+ years, let me tell you this:
We used to log BOP surpluses but that changes month on month. I used to do magic and produce news articles just from a table of national current accounts (oh the pain of writing BOP stories)…. BUT it’s more frequent that the numbers are in ( ).
We privatize government assets because we are always short on cash.
We didn’t have fiscal surpluses. We never balanced our budget and the smallest budget deficit that finance reporters of my time recorded was PHP 60bn (if I remember it right) and that was before the global financial crisis. Arroyo had to backpedal on the zero-deficit plan because by 2008 our economy went shit.
Receipts from resource exports? We don’t have OIL AND GAS to export, unlike the countries I mentioned above. Our mineral resources aren’t generating enough receipts for us to create an SWF. Indonesia has coal and nickel, while we have the low-grade variety of these minerals.
(Not well versed in govt forex operations and transfer payments as source of funds for SWF so I won’t touch on those).
Tapos obsessed na obsessed tong gobyernong to magtayo ng SWF, kala mo may excess funds tayo. HOYYYYYYYYYY we have always operated on a deficit. Kapal ng mukha netong mga to!
HOY STELLA! Slush fund ng Marcoses ang tinutulak mo. Di kami bobo.
To calm me down, I resorted to sketching this scene at the Singapore Botanical Gardens before I started editing today.
Started with globs of color. Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com
This government is driving me nuts.
I bought more frames when I was at the Mall of Asia/Ikea. Just because. If I produce a decent sketch or painting of something, maybe I can frame it and give it as a gift.
My hoard. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
And I bought a wok as a gift to my cousin who wanted a paella pan (but I couldn’t find it.
Wok not too heavy so it’s good for flipping fried rice or stir fry vegetables. Photo by CallMeCreation.comOf course, Kimchi just had to sit on it. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
This person, whom I refuse to name on this blog, is the primary mother troll who had released his troll farm on me a few years ago when I criticized a government agency (which allegedly employed him as an attack dog a.k.a. social media handler) regarding an infrastructure project bidding.
For two weeks they tried to destroy me online. Even attacked my company’s social media assets, much to the shock and confusion of our APAC and global headquarters.
I do believe the universe will be out to get you if you haven’t been nice.
My friends and I are ROFLing now.
Speaking of trolls, I once again dodged the prinicpal of these creatures by leaving the conference venue early today. I AGAIN didn’t check the program—it was only during the welcoming remarks did I learn that Marcos is supposed to speak this afternoon. 🤦♀️ So the conference delegates were told to avoid going in and out of the area by 2 pm because the Presidential Security Group needed to check and secure the premises.
I used our PH reporter’s media pass that’s why I had a different name on my tag. Our PH reporter is in another event across the metro.
I left at 11:30 am. Good thing I was able to ambush interview my targets early.
I really can’t stomach the thought of being in the same room as this thief.
I just can’t.
I have covered past presidents and sat through some of their speeches but the last two presidents… 🤬 Nope.
I quickly escaped to SM MOA (since I was just at Marriott) to write my stories, buy Christmas gifts, and then I took Skyway so I can fly back home.
Or so I thought I could get back home quickly.
It still took me two hours to get home. I left at past 3 pm, I arrived at past 5 pm. 🫠 And to think that I already used Skyway to bypass Edsa or C5 to reach QC. 😵💫
I just want to stay put in the next few days… Traffic jams are so bad that they suck the soul out of you.
All coffee/dinner with friends would have to be pushed back after Christmas. It’s just insane to be on the road these days.
Me: requesting for an interview with this firm because of a new development.
External PR: responds and feeds me questions to ask in the interview.
Me: sending my own questions and say if the firm is not ready to answer my Qs, then there will be no interview.
Toink!
This is not a Philippines-based PR. Thank goodness, PR people here in PH are much better.
When I received that email with the questions feed, it took me a few minutes to process what the PR firm wants me to do. Then I was flabbergasted (“how dare these guys!” *deep inhale*). Then anger had set in. Then later I had this urge to laugh hysterically due to the absurdity of it all.
This is exactly the reason why there is zero journalism skills in Singapore. I mean, the PRs are even feeding journalists questions to ask during an interview. 🙄
And also this is a reflection of how clueless Singapore-based PR firms are when it comes to how real journalists work (and not the state-controlled hacks). YOU. DON’T. FUCKING. DICTATE. TO. A. JOURNALIST. WHAT. QUESTIONS. TO. ASK!!!
If you are pushing a certain narrative, you give the journalist who is going to do the interview a press release with your narrative/the client’s narrative. You leave the journalist the choice if she would use it or not. If the journalist is lazy, she would just take it, hook, line, and sinker.
This is why we jokingly say that Singapore journos are copywriters—they just copy the press releases. I receive 50 press releases in 24 hours (from different time zones) and I see how the regional (Southeast Asia) media outfits publish them. Some have journo bylines but the copies that have been published are just rehashed/paraphrased PRs. No new inputs to make them exclusive or fresh.
The PR firm has not come back after I replied to that bizarre email (in the most diplomatic way I could). It still hangs if the firm wants the interview or not.
And that, folks, is how the rest of my week will go.
I just want to have my Christmas vacation!!!
Kimchi, very comfortable after doing her zoomies at 3 am. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I must to go Marriott tomorrow for a conference and grant me, O Lord, patience. LOTS AND LOTS OF PATIENCE because that annual conference is always known to be chaotic.
