Thanksgiving, VTO, Gulaman, Long Weekend

Gulamans, freeing people, Carl Mobile, Chicken Bacolod, passing by JAKA, eating at Dampa, iced latte…some of the highlights of this magnificent day. One of those great days, especially in our industry, as this is the first time that they let us go home on work days. Thanks to Thanksgiving Day in the U.S. of A., we don’t have anything to work on nor any work coming in for the whole span of their beloved holiday. Yay! Day started off great, I wasn’t late and was really early, only to find out that we don’t have anything to do for the whole day as there aren’t any people in our Burbank office. Whoop! The management decided made its best decision by far ever since forever: Send us home! We were given two options. One, file for half day paid time off so we’ll still be earning even if we ain’t workin’, or, render half day VTO (which I really don’t know what “V” stands for) simply the opposite of the first one, unpaid time off. Since I only have three leave credits left, the latter is the obvious choice. So TM called a meeting for the team and personally apologized for making us come to work knowing that there wouldn’t be any production for the day. He was thankful though for our commitment to go to work even if there’s this Mina super storm expected to arrive tonight anytime. He sounded sincere, I guess. But hey, a Sausage McMuffin and Toffee Nut Latte would’ve made me a true believer (and maybe reimbursement of my travel expenses incurred this morning). I do agree with him on his statement: “Look at it this way, minsan lang mangyari to sa ganitong industry. Sana matuwa kayo.” Right? Right? He’s so right on that one! In the outsourcing business, not having to report to work for more than two days is a luxury. This is the reason I’m so psyched with this day.

The moment we found out that they’re gonna set us free, we planned here and planned there on what we’re gonna do after work. Our consensus: SM Mall of Asia since Manong have never been there (tsk tsk!). Excited and all, at 12:00 AM, we logged out ourselves and got ready for an afternoon of malling and possibly, food tripping. A Spark conversation shattered Manong’s dream of Mall of Asia. “Anong ‘bye?’ Walang uuwing supervisors!” Poor Manong. So we decided to take our lunch at Glorietta instead so the poor supervisor could go back to the office. Hitchin’ a ride at the “Carl Mobile” we set off to Glorietta and chose Chicken Bacolod Inasal as our resto. I finally bought Monette her long due "Gulaman." Hahaha. Pictures below were taken while we’re eating. As always, props for Carl for his camera! Yay! Anyway Manong (still glum and blue) left after eating and we strolled around to kill time with no destination whatsoever. Carl went to get his haircut and O, Archee, Monette, and moi just hanged more and went our separate ways as O found out that there’s a new Krispy Kreme store in MOA and Archee suspiciously went to surprise his wife. Hehehe. Claude and I decided to go back the office for Manong but I passed by JAKA first to claim some things I left there two months ago. Gawd, I missed that place, still does! Surprisingly, Archee left our locker key there in our keyboard tray and two months passed by and it’s still where we left it. So got our things and headed to comfort the depressed Manong. From there, the usual going home rituals and bidding goodbyes.

Met up with Mom and we ate at Seafood! Seafood! Market!, a “dampa”-styled restaurant beside Oakwood. Team, it’s open again and for sure, we’ll be having our next TRIP there. I’m excited. Food: great! Ambience: Christmas-sy! Price: TRIP worthy!

Truly and awesome day and worth telling about. And, Manong just SMS’ed, “No classes, I mean, no work tomorrow…Happy Weekend!!” It’s like early Christmas for my team. Only drawback to this whole experience: this could’ve been the bestest ever if the whole team were present today. We could’ve went anywhere, or better yet, we could be, right now, on our way to some out-of-town location! Waaaahhh…Oh, well! Hopefully, there’ll be another opportunity like this one! Happy Weekend!