The Spirit of Giving
I once told by my mother about the distinguishing quality or character of Filipino, the spirit of giving.
My father who was a full blood Chinese was very much disappointed with this kind of trait and he considered it bad. He expressed that anything that is too much is definitely bad. During the celebration of fiesta in Quiapo, my mother of course cooked a lot of foods for those invited and uninvited guests. This is a yearly big festivity; even in a situation where my mother had no money she will still find a way to celebrate this fiesta with fashion.
The aftermath of the celebration was mother will normally ended up broke without any centavos in her pocket. As you see, my mother’s relatives will come to our house to have fun in celebrating the fiesta. Not only they will eat nor take some remaining foods as pabaon, my mother most of the time will also give them money for their transport or for any other reasons. This irritated my father. He reasoned out that this is far too much.
It is normal for us as Filipino to give money to those in dire needs even this money is allocated for a specific purpose let say tuition fee for your children, sometime too generous to a fault. When we are eating, we customary invite people to share to them what we have. But other people do it in a different way.
Every morning, I am eating breakfast in the canteen provided by our company. As usual, I met few Europeans who share table with me. One guy had brought a chocolate spread. While all of them are chit-chatting, he put the chocolate spread in his bread and continued talking. He didn’t even bother to ask his kababayan if they like the special chocolate spread. If he is a Filipino, definitely he will share this to his fellow persons who are also occupying the same table with him.
I didn’t say that what the man did was wrong or try to instigate that our culture of giving more is mere right. This is only my observation. Everything depends on how you see them.
Corporate Parables
It's a fine sunny day in the forest, and a lion is
sitting outside his cave, lying lazily in the sun.
Along comes a fox, out on a walk.
Fox: "Do you know the time, because my watch is broken"
Lion: "Oh, I can easily fix the watch for you"
Fox: "Hmm. But it's a very complicated mechanism,
and your great claws ?will only destroy it even more"
Lion: "Oh no, give it to me, and it will be fixed"
Fox: "That's ridiculous! Any fool knows that lazy
lions with great claws cannot fix complicated ?watches"
Lion: "Sure they do, give it to me and it will be fixed"
The lion disappears into his cave, and after a while
he comes back with the ?watch which is running perfectly.
The fox is impressed, and the lion continues to lie lazily in the sun,
looking very pleased with himself.
Soon a wolf comes along and stops to watch the lazy
lion in the sun.
Wolf: "Can I come and watch TV tonight with you,
because mine is broken"
Lion: "Oh, I can easily fix your TV for you"
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Wolf: "You don't expect me to believe such rubbish,
do you? There is no way that a lazy lion with big claws can fix a
complicated TV"
Lion: "No problem. Do you want to try it?"
The lion goes into his cave, and after a while comes
ba ck with a perfectly fixed TV. The wolf goes away
happily and amazed.
Scene: ? ?Inside the lion's cave. In one corner are
half a dozen small and intelligent looking rabbits who
are busily doing very complicated work with
very detailed instruments. In the other corner lies
a huge lion looking very pleased with himself.
Moral:
IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY A SUPERVISOR IS FAMOUS,
LOOK AT THE WORK OF HIS SUBORDINATES.
In the context of the working world:
IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY SOMEONE UNDESERVED IS
PROMOTED, LOOK AT THE WORK OF HIS SUBORDINATES.
?************************************************
It's a fine sunny day in the forest, and a rabbit is
sitting outside his burrow, tippy-tapping on his typewriter.
Along comes a fox, out for a walk.
Fox: "What are you working on?"
Rabbit: "My thesis."
Fox: "Hmm... What is it about?"
Rabbit: "Oh, I'm writing about how rabbits eat foxes."
Fox: "That's ridiculous! Any fool knows that rabbits
don't eat foxes!"
Rabbit: "Come with me and I'll show you!"
They both disappear into the rabbit's burrow. After
few minutes, gnawing on a fox bone, the rabbit returns
to his typewriter and resumes typing.
Soon a wolf co mes along and stops to watch the
hardworking rabbit.
Wolf: "What's that you are writing?"
Rabbit: "I'm doing a thesis on how rabbits eat wolves."
Wolf: "you don't expect to get such rubbish published, do you?"
Rabbit: "No problem. Do you want to see why?"
The rabbit and the wolf go into the burrow and again
the rabbit returns by himself, after a few minutes,
and goes back to typing.
Finally a bear comes along and asks, "What are you doing?
Rabbit: "I'm doing a thesis on how rabbits eat bears."
Bear: "Well that's absurd!
Rabbit: "Come into my home and I'll show you"
As they enter the burrow, the rabbit introduces the
bear to the lion.
Moral:
IT DOESN'T MATTER HOW SILLY YOUR THESIS TOPIC IS.
WHAT MATTERS IS WHO YOU HAVE FOR A SUPERVISOR.
In the context of the working world:
IT DOESN'T MATTER HOW BAD YOUR PERFORMANCE IS;
WHAT MATTERS IS WHETHER YOUR BOSS LIKES YOU
Flying Experience
You are sitting comfortably in your seat and expecting to reach your destination in less than 1-hour time. Out of the blue, you saw smokes gradually coming on the top of your head. You are looking around finding where did this smoke come from while your heart begun to beat faster and the adrenalin are inundated rushing to every veins of your body. Inexplicably, you became tense, aghast and worried. In fact, you can’t explain the feeling you are encountering now. You are waiting for an explanation to find out if everything will be fine.
Then suddenly, the pilot announced that there was an electrical fault in the cockpit area and the plane needs to return to the base. The pilot added that everything would be ok. But, there is still a feeling of uneasiness on your mind and started to pray and call all the saints you could remember.
You see that this situation is becoming an occurrence here in Africa. In fact, a Boeing 727 owned by Chanchangi Airlines yesterday was in flames as it landed at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport.
The aircraft which arrived from Kaduna was scheduled to depart for Lagos.
Although the airline’s spokesperson explained that the fire incident was first noticed in the cockpit, and not in the engine as believed, he added that the lagos-bound passengers were transferred to another aircraft which later took them to their destination.
The incident comes a few weeks after an aircraft belonging to Chanchangi Airlines made a return to Lagos after a hydraulic leakage was discovered shortly before touch down in Abuja. That incident occurred not too long after another Chanchangi-owned aircraft on its way to Kaduna from Lagos returned to base because one of its three engines broke down 20 minutes after take-off. One of the blades of the engine reportedly fell off.
A similar decision to return to base nearly caused a brawl between Chanchangi’s crew and two passengers in a flight to Lagos from Abuja.
The Chanchangi aircraft was already airborne when the pilot realized that its cargo hold door was open and had to return to base to close it. A passenger in the aircraft said there was a loud bang when the plane eventually landed as the cargo door hit the tarmac.
Attempt by two passengers to disembark from the plane was flatly refused by the crew.
I just pray that I will not experience the aforementioned horrible things. I still have a family to feed.
The Boss
I witnessed the hand-over ceremony of our outgoing big boss. The main reason why I attended this ceremony was to hear what these big bosses would say. It is always a fascination on my part to hear what other people think about themselves and how they portrait their achievements.
I was amazed with the speech made by the outgoing boss. He didn’t only focus his discussion on what he had done to the Company but emphasize on the sacrifices of his subordinates had done in the past in order to achieve the Company’s goal. First and foremost, he gave a great deal of concern on those people who worked under him. I saw in his eyes the sincerity and effort to improve the conditions of service of all workers.
Comparably in Pinas, a party like this will shower us with a lot of foods, drinks and dancing but in this particular occasion it was made so simple.
Talking about people we considered our ultimate superior in fields of our work, I crossed to read a blog depicting his boss as one of a kind, a very considerate person. The blogger looks like had a high regard to his boss. Unfortunately, their tandem was cut-short due to the boss’ early demise. I, myself had good boss and it is very much painful to let go something so beautiful. This experience happened to me also when my previous boss resigned since he needed to stay in Canada permanently. Indeed, it is hard to find a good employee who you can trust and rely on but it more difficult to find a boss who will always be there to support you and kind enough to properly compensate you for the things you had done for the Company.
Manny Pacquiao, the winner
The game is over and Manny Pacquiao won over Marco Antonio Barrera. I anticipated this boxing event to be short and would be finished by knockout. I prepared myself to wake up as early as 4:30 am to see the TV broadcast of the fight live in supersport.
Barrera was underdog in this fight but it looks like he managed to stay standing and box greatly avoiding Manny’s devastating punching power. The main boxing event was not thrilling and compared to the last fight they had neither to the Manny’s trilogy fights with Morales. Nevertheless, Manny is going back to Philippines as a winner.
It was seen and heard in the TV the utterance of Roach, a sort of “don’t play around”. Was Manny not serious in doing his job to beat Barrera or is he really playing around the ring? Could this be the reason why Manny didn’t knockout Barrera? Who knows? The only thing I knew the game did not raise my adrenalin and was very disappointed that Manny failed to knockdown Barrera to the boxing ring floor.
Same Attire
I have a colleague who is working with me in the same Company but in different department. He came from Eastern Europe. His country was under the communism regime until People Power broke out and thereafter it collapsed. The old era had gone but it seems that his way of life is still under communist style.
Why did I say so!!!. He is using the same attire almost everyday, literally almost everyday. He is always wearing his patented maong long sleeve shirt. As far as I knew and during those old days under Chairman Mao, the system of communism in China is allowing its people to wear one type of clothing, which is a blue coverall. I don’t know how true is this. But, I felt it had somehow a correlation on the foregoing person I mentioned.
