Work. Ho-hum

This is my first work-related blog entry. I don't know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. What we do for a living is part of what defines us, and the fact that I haven’t had any work-related entries may be seen as a denial of that part of myself. That’s bad. This job keeps food on the table and it deserves a bigger part of this blog. On the other hand, I’d like to think Im much more than the thing I do for a living, and seen in that light, not blogging about what happens at work is a good thing. Besides, nothing really bloggable happens at work. Im not hip to the latest office chismis (read: I dont give a hoot).

This isn’t the same place it was when Grif, Delphi, and the Niggook were here. And the Big Shot and his twin. (B is still with us, but he’s in Indonesia.) Those were the days when we terrorized Blarney’s. I think we were the only All-Pinoy team that ever won their Thursday Quiz Nights. We’d come in during happy hour, order happy-hour priced beer, and nurse them til the quiz begins at 9 when happy hour ended. We never ordered anything after nine. Too expensive. The owners must’ve dreaded us coming in because we never ordered anything full price and yet were always contenders for their prizes, which sometimes included free booze anyway so we never had to order more. Blarney’s had what we called a ‘house team’ composed of expat Brits. These were the Blarney’s regulars who, unlike us, ordered a lot of stuff and kept the place in business. Naturally, the owners wanted these limeys to win. The house team even supplied some of the questions to the quiz, we found out. But still we kicked their alien royal arses a lot of times. It was always down the wire between us cheapskates and Her Majesty’s big spenders.

Anyway, where were we? Head admin chick called my attention this morning to a member of my team’s attendance record and it was appalling. He’s been skipping work a lot. He was tasked to take care of the family business and that’s what’s taking up a lot of his time. I was supposed to talk to him and give him a warning and all that. I’ve never had to do that. He’s an asset to the team and everyone who’s ever worked with him on projects talk about how helpful he is, how he’d drop what he’s doing if there’s anything he could do to help you out when you ask. I spent the whole morning wondering how I’d word the warning ek-ek just right. Warning? What I was going to do was ask him to quit. More accurately, I would reason with him in such a way that the only logical conclusion he’d come up with was to quit. With his record, I can’t find anything for him to do since I wasn’t sure when he’d show up. I asked him once to go fix his schedule and at least give me a regular schedule so we can plan stuff around it. He was willing to work at home if there was anything. But he couldn’t come up with a regular schedule so he ended up doing odd jobs for the team which wasn't making full use of his talents.

So he shows up at 2 and I said to myself, Let’s give him a few minutes to settle down first. So I chilled. After a couple of minutes, email comes in. It was from him and he was quitting. I said, I’d do the same thing if I were in his shoes and thanked him for all the work his done for the team and the company and all that. He saved me the trouble.

Thanks, [blank]. You were a great help. Good luck. And when youre rolling in the moolah, don't forget your old team.