Random Realizations # 2 (and My First Day on the Job)

Okay, I got home from an inuman at 1 A.M. last night in a very... lonely, I guess... mood. But it was all good. The sucky thing was that I couldn't get myself to sleep. I read a book for a couple of hours, then lay awake and thought about stuff. I finally got to sleep at around 4 A.M. And I dreamt.

* * *

Sometimes all it takes for a person to spend years hoping is just one little phrase, like, You know what, I have this feeling that no matter what happens to us after this, we're still going to get together in the end. Even if you know the other person probably didn't mean it.

But what if she did? What if it can still happen again?

This sucks.

* * *

I had to wake up at 5:30 because it was the first day of my internship at Unilever, and I had to be at the office before 7:30. So yeah, I only got an hour or so of sleep and I had a tad bit of a hangover while driving to work.

* * *

Oh, and I changed the title of my blog. My head doesn't hurt as much anymore, thank heavens. So I just changed the title to something that states the obvious.

* * *

Contrary to what I said earlier, I wasn't placed in the marketing department to be a brand management intern. I was placed in a small department in the middle of Finance/Accounting and IT called W.C.E. (which means World Class Excellence, I kid you not; and the head of the W.C.E. department is called the Champion, as in World Class Excellence - Champion). As part of the W.C.E. department, I was placed in E.C.R. (which means Efficient Consumer Response), which I still don't understand completely. Acronyms galore, whoopeedoo.

It's some kind of in-house consultancy team that troubleshoots the different problems of the organization. Langiya ang daming trabaho. I have to go around the whole compound looking for the different components of the team (marketing managers, supply chain staff, accounting and finance people, and HR managers), collect data from them, and bug them to do their work. I have to make dozens of phone calls a day to different line managers. And at the end of my internship, I have to construct five bulletin boards (yes, you read me right - bulletin boards, dear Lord, have they ever heard of a website?) that would serve to monitor all the different projects by showing their monthly Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

* * *

An illustration of corporate life:

During the latter period of the one-hour lunch break, some of my older officemates find it convenient to take 20-minute powernaps in their seats. I was just playing Solitaire on my laptop to pass the time, when a man from a nearby cubicle lets out a snore that would make Darth Vader proud.

True to the dehumanizing nature of cubicles, every single person in a 10-cubicle radius around the culprit stands up, stretches his/her neck like an ostrich, and clucks in disagreement.

Now I know how Dilbert feels. After just a single day.

* * *

Contrary to my earlier misconceptions of corporate life, it actually is kind of fun, in a sadomasochistic way. I get so much work piled up that I totally forget about everything else (which, if you know me, is actually good), and I mean everything. At this rate, if I find myself in the corporate world after graduation, I'll probably end up an overworked, stressed-out bachelor who dies of a heart attack at the age of 40.

Oh, and I get laptop privileges too. Haha. And a cubicle of my own, complete with a phone line and an e-mail address. And there's no dress code, so people go to work in casual attire every day.

And did I mention the women? Oh my Lord, chinitas, chinitas, everywhere. Do-able 20-something chinitas everywhere! AHHHH I'm in heaven. Sigh.

* * *

After an hour or so of lounging around in the reception area/lobby, my high school classmate Jude (who's in Customer Development) goes up to me and says, Chong, butas kili-kili mo.

That was my lucky pink collared shirt, dammit. The whole day I was eating, typing, and shaking hands with my upper arm stuck to my chest, lest I show my hairy armpit to the world on my corporate debut.

* * *

I wonder how I'm going to feel when all the novelty wears off. Disillusioned and disenchanted and depressed? Hopefully not. Burnt out and alone? Probably.

I am officially going through my quarter-life crisis. Care to keep me company?

* * *

I'm the type of person who can't move on without fixing problems. That's the way I am. I can never leave anything hanging, or half-done, or un-optimal.

I need to fix situations and mistakes first before I can fix myself.

That's the way I am. Please understand.

* * *

Deep down, though, I just want to be happy again.

You have no freakin' idea just how much.