Simple and Wonderful Christmas

Our family spent Christmas together at our favorite rented place in Pansol, Laguna. I think that’s the third consecutive Christmas that we spent there. The kids love the place because of the hotspring swimming pool. They just love the water that they chose to go there instead of a visit to the Global Fun Carnival in Mall of Asia. The kids were very happy and that’s what important to us.

The celebration is so simple, very basic just like before. It’s that simplicity that I missed. For two days, we did not think about our problem. We just focused in the celebration, the bonding moments and of course, the time to rest.

Here’s some of the quotable quotes from the kids:

Donn : “Tito Mike, wala ka pa regalo sa akin…” (this is early on Christmas eve, hehehe)

Fia : “Nde naman totoo si Sta. Claus, fake kasi yung Barbie na binigay sa akin tas yung Teddy Bear, yun lang nabibili sa SM” (that’s on Christmas day, the day after gift-giving)

Donn : “Ayaw ko naman si Superman! Gusto ko si Batman!” (I gave him a Superman T-Shirt, he smiled back after giving him a crisp P100 bill)

Fia : “Di ba, wala namang ganun sa US?” (referring to the ‘local’ Barbie doll that ‘Santa’ gave her)

Over all, it was fun!

Greeting You a Merry Christmas

I didn’t realize that I wasn’t really greeting people “Merry Christmas”. Of course, that’s mainly because I can’t be merry on Christmas. That’s a shame since my friends deserve to be happy. I, too, deserve to be happy on this holiday season. Not because I have financial problems, I can no longer greet them, right?

So with this post, I greet all you people who read this a Happy Christmas. May the spirit of Christmas be with you always. Please do treasure your loved ones, the people around you. Let’s be thankful for all the blessings that we have received for the year.

On another note, being happy is a choice. On this season, I choose to be happy. If I can’t be happy, at least I’ll try. Again, Merry Christmas to you all! Accept Jesus in your home.

Over-Qualified is Never Qualified

I recently sent an application to a company in Singapore. The nature of the job is very similar to mine, production support. For some, they call it technical support but that’s just the same. Quite a number of my former officemates already moved to that company due mainly to good compensation but had to sacrifice the company of their family. A few of them moved with the family to Singapore but that’s another story.

And so I sent them my resume and waited for a few days for the reply. I had it coursed through my former officemate so that he’ll be able to get a referral fee if ever I get accepted. The opening is for the second-line support which means somebody has already pre-processed a service request that will come to you and if you can’t handle it, you’ll pass the request to another group. It sounds like heaven since in my current job, I do end-to-end. It has been my bread and butter for almost seven years here in my current employer and another 1 year from my previous job.  Yes, it is very toxic but believe it or not, I love it.

When I got the reply, I was devastated. They said that I’m over-qualified. What the hell they mean about that? To be honest, I took it as if I’m not really qualified because Over Qualified is Never Qualified. It’s either you are qualified or not. It’s just that simple.

I don’t know what they saw in my resume but I think my current position mattered much. However, not because I’m a team leader here means I can no longer do the ‘mean jobs’. Until today, I still help my subordinates in their job to the point that I still do some of the work(to the dismay of my managers, of course!).  I do that partly because I want to get things done fast and right especially if problems are of high severity and the impact to the business is considerable. How can I be not qualified?

Or maybe that job is really not meant for me. Maybe God has something in store for me. I don’t know. God only knows… I just pray that he show me the way…. soon.

God Will Always Provide

When you feel that God has provided enough, would you think he’ll still provide more?

It’s not a question of God’s power but rather a manifestation of how much shame I already feel. I just feel that it isn’t right that I let God to the work for me. I just feel that I am already blessed abundantly and asking for more grace from the Lord already too much.

But what can I do? I have nothing. It is only the faith in him that keeps me on paddling. Or maybe I haven’t surrendered everything to God yet. A timely message by Ellen G. White states :

Many who profess to be Christ’s followers have an anxious, troubled heart because they are afraid to trust themselves with God. They do not make a complete surrender to Him, for they shrink from the consequences that such a surrender may involve. Unless they do make this surrender they cannot find peace.

She further says:

Our heavenly Father has a thousand ways to provide for us of which we know nothing. Those who accept the one principle of making the service of God supreme, will find perplexities vanish and a plain path before their feet.

Whatever my family and me are going through is a tough test. I need your prayers and support.

Floating in Limbo (Dec 18 2007)

It has been several days since I last posted an update. If there’s anything good that happened, it’s the fact that I’m still alive and kicking. Of course, we are all trying to keep on paddling. I managed to get a loan from a bank. That will help me finance some of the dues. My sister will transfer the money tomorrow. That means there will be no legal actions against me yet. No murderer, either. And for some good news, the former owner of the house agreed to postpone the payment until January. That’s one less headache for the next two weeks. Of course, there’s a lot more.

Just this afternoon, I already informed my superiors about what I’m going through. I feel lucky to be able to have people like them. They have been very supportive of my plans. I can’t help but cry when I told them that I have plans of going abroad to look for a job there. I never dreamed of working abroad despite the promise of better wage.  Of course, tears flowed when I told my managers my predicament. At least, I was able to let that tears out. I hope that will help me to sleep tonight.

Tomorrow, I’ll start talking to some of my financier-friends. I’m praying that they’ll understand. If they don’t, then what can I do? It isn’t easy. I can’t take it but I have to. It’s not more about me, I’m more concerned with my dear wife. She’s not used to this kind of stress. She’s not used to be away with her family. But maybe, it’s time for her to learn some things the hard way. But I feel sorry and guilty for pulling her with my family’s problems. Yes, she is my wife and we are one but sometimes, I can’t help but think on whether she deserves it or not. Besides, who does?

Losing hope is so natural but if that’s that you only have, how can you let it go? It is only the faith with the mercy of the Lord that keeps me going.

A Spark of Hope

We were able to contact a high-ranking official in a bank yesterday. The prospect is very promising but details will be discussed on Monday. If that will materialize, it will ease some of the burdens. Not all, not even significant, but any pressure lifted will taste like heaven.

Another good sign is the news that there is another bank willing to rediscount our client cheques. As you know, the loan sharks around the metro cannot handle huge amounts. If you show them a cheque worth 1M, they’ll stay away. So it is the banks that can help us. But we don’t have the right connections as of yet. We beg from our clients to release their payments even in the from of post-dated cheques (PDCs). They themselves admitted that they don’t have the funds so they can’t release a dated check.  Some agreed to Jan and Feb dates so that what we have right now.

It’s a spark, not a beam. Nevertheless, it’s a light in this dark days. If that spark will cause fire (which I hope and pray it will), then we can start moving. In the dark, even a small source of light is a treasure.

Who is to Blame?

At the height of a problem, we usually ask who is to blame and pin that person/s down to the bones. In my corporate life, especially in the current company I work in, this is not the case. As a production support resource, we have to solve it first and then do a “post-mortem” analysis later. We’ll have to identify the root cause and investigate what went wrong. If there’s somebody who made a mistake, we’ll have to know what lead him/her to commit the mistake. Simply put, there’s always a reason for every problem. There’s even a new requirement that we have to log every step we take to solve a Severity 1 issue. That’s logging every email, every query, every update and everything you do until the problem is solved. Once done, then we’ll have to devise a procedure or solution so that the recently solved problem will no longer happen again.

In the problem I current problem that I am into (not related to work), solving it is a tall order. Honestly, I don’t know what to do. If there’s any little thing that I can do, I already did. I’m almost resigned to the idea that it’s a losing battle. Or should I say, we already lost it and it’s high time to know what went wrong.

In my ealier post, I already presented what went wrong. It’s just part of the story. Another part is the fact that in the months of July and August, our small company managed to have a 55M worth of sales. Now, that’s mind boggling to me. I can’t believe my sister was able to pull that off. If we get the 30% downpayment by the first week of September, the company will be in good financial position for the rest of the year. But that downpayment never came. If it did, it was already too late. Instead, we have to repossess items equivalent to 30% of that sales due to non-payment. It’s a domino effect since then.

If you look at it, we should have not gotten to the big ticket contracts. We should have stayed low where the risk is low and although the profit is less, it is steadily coming. We bit more than we can chew! 

So who is to blame? Most of the people in the know would say it’s my sister who is to blame. But no, we are part of it. In every request to get funds, we always get one. Had we not give in, this would have not been the case. But it’s already there and we have to face the consequences. We are part of it and that’s the truth.

My God, your tests are just too heavy for me and my family. It is only you and you that can help us. Forgive us.

Tough Luck at Christmas Party Raffle

Ever since I started attending Christmas party of the companies I worked for, I always win something mostly minor prizes. That means in one way or another I get to bring home some bacon. It worked for almost a decade but in the just concluded (about half an hour ago) Christmas Party 2007, I did not win even a single penny. You see, there’s at least 60% chance that you’ll get something as long as you attend the party. In this particular party, there’s about 20% of the employees that did not attend and that alone boosted my chances of winning. To my horror, nothing happened. It’s not just me. On our table, three of us did not get anything.

Hmnn…I guess none of the prices are meant for me. I’m beginning to think that this second half of the year is really not going my way. I mean, with all the things happening with me and my family right now, I really welcome any kind of help that I can get. Prayers is of the most important from all of them.

If you read this post, please say a little prayer for me.

Cruven System Fixed my Car

Feeling that my car isn’t in good shape after experiencing steering problems at 110kph upwards. My steering wheel starts to shake violenlty when I reach that speed. A couple of months back, I only feel that at 120kph and since I rarely reach that speed unless I’m at the superhighway, I just ignored it. But after my last visit to Goodyear Servitek in Otis early this year, the problem persisted and got even worse.  I didn’t dare go back to that servitek branch nor on the other service shop that sounds like ‘quick fix’. That other shop is the previous machine shop that looked into my problem and my money was rapidly drained without any improvement.

Finally, I had the opportunity to visit Cruven to fix this problem. That shop is popular with their injectable suspension rebuilding system among others. Suspension is their expertise so I thought I might give them a try. Besides, I got good reviews of the company. Honestly, I was surprised by their service.

Immediately after arriving, three personnels attended to my car. Another surprise is that they don’t use computerized machines, just plain old school alignment and camber correction tools. But make no mistake as when they checked, it confirmed that my frontwheels are misaligned that it veers the car to left. There’s also some correction on the camber for the frontwheels. When they checked the rear wheels, they found out that it is inclined to the inside. That’s where they took sometime to finish as they have to manually file some holes due to lack of adjustment mechanism for my car. 

Alas after three hours, they are done. I tested it and lo and behold, the veering to the left or right is gone.  As for the shaking, I’ll see that when I use the highway again. I’m more than satisfied with the workmanship.

Camber correction and alignment onl cost me P900.00. I would say that it is well worth it. Simply, there’s no comparison to other known shops that I went to. Another thing I learned here is that not all computerized provides good results. Sometimes going manual is better.

Next week, I’ll accompany my brother for his car to Cruven. So if you have same problem or any suspension problem for that matter, try Cruven System.

One Fulfilling Project : C&G Medical

It excites me when any of my projects delivers its supposed purpose and actually contributes to an entity’s growth. That’s what just happened when I was informed by my sister that C&G Medical Supplies‘ website has just found its first client. The website is not really intended to generate sales but more of a tool for our existing clients to browse the products we offer. So any other entity who come to visit the site would be a big plus. The website was found by a prospective client from Bukidnon through Google. A meeting has already been set and some people is already scheduled to fly to Bukidnon (via Davao where there’s another client as well as in CDO).

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