A Greeting From The Heart

A Merry Christmas and A Very Fruitful and Happy New Year To all!

Thanks for supporting “Just Thinking Out Loud!”!

Dear Santa…..

Every year, about a week from Christmas.  I would sit down and write my Christmas Wish List.  It’s just a wish list because, there’s no way in hell am I gonna get them.

Why?

Simple, I can’t afford them ( although 1 or two I might be able to..) and some is definitely out of my control.

And so here’s my list for this year.  And I do sometimes pray that Santa is real.

1.) Peace of mind, and financial security for my wife, children and parents and my brothers - Hey you can’t beat that right?  This is the only thing that’s always on my list and always my number 1 wish. My love ones comes first no matter what!  ALWAYS

2.) An original Converse All-Star shoe.  You know “Chucks”.  I have been wanting to own both high and low tops for almost two years now.  Black preferably, because they go with anything.

3.) The Appeal by John Grisham – I’m a big Grisham fan. One of my dreams is to own all of his books in Hardcover.  The Appeal is his latest so far!  The Associate would come out next year.

4.) Playing for Pizza by John Grisham – Mr. Grisham’s 2nd Novella. As I said:  “I love his work.”

5.) The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis – Got interested with it after I saw the first movie adaptation.  Now I’m hooked.

6.)  Superman Ultimate Collection – Superman Films at it’s best.  Christopher Reeves’ Movie legacy.  And of course it includes “Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut. ‘Nuff said.

7.)  Nokia N96 Smart Phone – The most smartest phone in the market (well, at least that’s what I think.) truly optimized for video and TV. With a large 2.8″ screen, 16 gigabytes of internal memory and support for high-quality videos in a wide range of formats.

8.)Play Station Portable: Slim and Lite – Everybody I know owns one of these babies.  So versatile and oh so beautiful and handy.  No more boring idle time!

9.) Home Theater System – I am foremost a movie fan.  I discovered movies first before I was into books, and before I wrote blogs;  And there’s nothing like taking a load off, with some hot buttered popcorn and a nice  tall glass of Coca-cola and your favorite movie playing in the comfort of your own home.  Ah….the life!

10.) The most lucrative of all $1,000,000,000.00.   With this amount I can buy all that I want, give Financial Security to all the people I love and have a nice sum to donate to charities and a few more to live on the beach forever!

So that’s it folks!  My list for 2008.  How about you?  What’s on your wish list this year?

Working During The Holidays

I just got my schedule for the next couple of months! .  Financially it’s going to be great!  .  But when it comes to relationships it sucks .

You see I’m scheduled to work at 3pm to 12MN this December.  It was ok.  Granted that I’d be at work this Christmas, but I’ll be out at midnight and I can still rush to go home on time to celebrate Noche Buena.  But I forgot that at 24/7 Customer Philippines Inc.  Schedules change EVERY FOUR WEEKS, not bad if you think about it.  I can definitely live with it.  But has faith would have it…  I’ll be scheduled to work from 7 pm to 4 am starting on December 29.  Yikes!  First time in all my call center life that I’ll spending New Year Eve at work.  I’ll be lucky to swap schedules ( yes!  we can do that) with someone because of the festivities.  I tried to avail a vacation leave for Dec. 31st.  But you have to qualify for it.  You may ask what’s the qualifications?  Nothing much but PERFECT ATTENDANCE from the date you started in the same year.  PERFECT ATTENDANCE which as all call center employees know is one the most very difficult thing to do.  No absences can be done by any sane person, but lates and tardy?  That I can’t promise.  I don’t know why, but only a handful of individuals can actually manage to get perfect attendances.  It’s not really that hard to do, but still…………………….

I already told my wife about it, and she’s not crazy about the idea but what can she do?  She knows that it’s a critical workday (workdays that Attendance is an absolute must!)  So there’s just no way around it.  Maybe I’ll get lucky and get some lowlife to swap with me.  But then again…..wishful thinking.

But I’m not losing hope!  Besides it will be an experience!