The tragedy continues...

Forgive the impertinence but I never believed when it was written that ‘To whom much is given, much is expected.’ Take for instance the case of work supervisors. In the past five years that I have been torturing myself in the office I have known only one supervisor who works herself to oblivion. She usually puts life and work in the same equation and is worthy of more than a lifesize molded gravel and sand in Luneta. Then came the nightmare. I was taken under the wing of a non-Filipino boss and as soon as I put that I-need-not-soften-my words-to-get-my-message-across smile it was immediately wiped off by the you’re-just-a-Filipino-staff smirk by my supervisor.

Of course it would be self-aggrandizing to claim that I worked myself to death (because i am still kicking!) in an effort to empty the well of work, so I won’t claim that heroic attempt to salvage the Filipino pride, or the hardworkers of world, for that matter. You can not salvage something which can not be killed.

Suffice to say, that even with so much effort to remain a wallflower, well, at least a useful wallflower, I can not seem to stop myself from getting into sticky situations. The tragedy is, even if we argue black and blue that the there is no such thing as a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, she would insist that the I haven’t looked that hard. Yup, digressing again. Anyway, the meaning being simply that the powerful, always defines, the powerless is defined (citation forgotten).

As a lowly employee everyone would think that I am mentally challenged, never mind that everyone knows the boss is utterly exasperating in spelling and doesn’t have an inkling of an idea when it comes to human relations. And we take this everyday in our own country – from institutions where human rights, equal opportunities are the rah-rah slogans. Everyday, I take crap from people who’d find even a way to blame adam and eve for the tiniest of mistakes, who thinks that a diploma sealed with the empty airs of some US University is worth more than a UP tracing paper bought cheaply at the shopping center. Forget that the word following has no plural form no matter how many numbers follow the colon. I am flabbergasted, disillusioned and has lost whatever faith I put in social justice and I no longer believe that the world is round. To whom much is given, much will be given more, so workers of the world unite… my apologies to unforgotten sources of these quotes.

Yup everything here is quotes. But who cares?

...serial tragicomedy

I am one of the slaves in an international organization meatgrinder in the country and somehow that statement seems cold, callous and unpatriotic way of describing our beloved Motherland. So on the risk of sounding overly parochial, I’d say, I work here in our Motherland, the Philippines (and still that statement has an overly dramatic ring to my ear). I wish I lived in the days when Henry Ford’s workers are able to buy what they manufacture with their salaries. Forget that you have similar drab colored cars and always seem to be in a funeral convoy. At least he knew what fueled consumption behaviour. The glory of capitalism.

Fortunately for capitalists and anti-capitalists, we live in an age where the dividing line is similar to sotanghon – thin and translucent - where everything is interpreted on a level of metaphors and everything revolves around the meaning of meanings but oh, Wendt would object and say that ideas, institutions and material capacities would always determine who eventually determines meanings, and in the end, power. Meaning then becomes a non-issue– it becomes a given. My apologies to the constructivists. We no longer discuss metaphors, we bleed ourselves dry to interpret meanings - meaningless and colorless statements become subject of endless debates. And we’re not even on the same dimension. Going back to the context of a workplace, and on the risk offending the sensibilities of avid readers, I’d quit writing disjointed stories and get down to the gist of an ephemeral assault... maybe later?

Tragedy of the (un)commons

Around 1960’s Garett Hardin specifically used the same phrase to describe the problem of free-rider in public goods. He has nothing to do with the rest of this article. The title just seemed to have attracted my current mental state. So econ majors, I am not going into the lengthy details of the herd story and try to go around in circles with the hope of convincing you through my lame arguments. If you put economists in one room, they may not be even agree on a single thing , so I won’t even try.

I would’ve want this column to be named high blood because I am precisely at that state but I have not reached that age when it is fashionable for me to mull over the atrocities of daily existence with such relaxed musings, resigned expression, tamed activism topped with we-can’t-help-it shrugs and deep exhales. I am at an age where signing up for friendster is still reasonably tolerable (even with studio-shot photos complete with silly hats) but at that point where forwarded if-you-don’t-email-this-you-die chain letters would go directly to email trash bins without having been slightly pillaged. In short, I just turned 26. Never mind the connection.