October!

Can’t believe we’re already 10 months in in 2022! I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s having time adjusting to that fact, but I feel like I’m still practically stuck in 2020. My life has stopped moving with the world. It probably had something to do with seeing and doing the same things the past 2 years. Heck, I’ve been home every single day – work, sleep, and netflix. Of course, on occasions, I workout just to get my body moving and things like that, but i don’t know, my life’s routine has been like a mouse wheel every day. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had so many opportunities that came my way, especially in 2021, and I’m absolutely thankful for them, but I feel like something’s still missing, and I don’t know what it is.

I’m just drifting everyday. I’m not sad or “depressed” about it, but I just feel like something’s missing. I wanna do something about it for sure, but the pandemic – the fear of catching covid, etc, is still as debilitating as it was 2 years ago.

I’m certainly open for tips by the way. 🙂

Wishing for Better Days

I was so stressed out today. There have been so many personal responsibilities that I had to attend to, and I felt like all of it could have been dealt with better if we had another person in – a sib (which is certainly impossible now) or a helper. WHY IS IT SO HARD TO GET HELP!

But the real issue is that IDK how it’s gotten this hard to maintain a household. People, chores, tasks, wealth, health – everything’s just so hard to juggle and manage! Like, how do people my age cope? No wonder mental health’s been a rising crisis these days – life’s gotten really complicated and competitive. I just wish we’d all have better and more peaceful days.

Stuck

I feel like I’m generally stuck in life. I have a good paying job, but I feel like I’m not enjoying life as much as I want to. I feel like I have so many things holding me down to be able to do the things that I wanted to do. Things that I have to worry about in the present, and more in the future.

I also feel like I don’t have friends who have the same wavelength as I have, and at this age, I don’t even know if I can even meet anyone who has the capacity to deliver the same energy.

I’m stuck and I don’t know what to do.

The Universe Saved Me

Two weeks in, and I’m still in awe of how amazing the Universe worked its magic to turn things great for me. The Universe saved me; I am one of the lucky ones.

The last couple of years have been tough, to the point that I’ve grown so desperate and anxious towards what direction life’s taking me. I’ve felt stuck, stressed, and just literally burnt out, and to add salt into the wound, more than ever, I’ve felt powerless to change my course because of the pandemic.

I was not much of a risk taker. I like it safe. I like it when I can see and calculate what’s about to come. I like it when I understand the pattern. I had reason to be – I am a breadwinner of my family, and the thought of risking a career move during this crisis gave nothing but an overwhelming fear of not being able to provide.

I thought about seeking other sources of income – I dove into the gig economy. For a few months in 2021, I was juggling 2 clients on top of my main work. It wasn’t hard, but I still had to sacrifice my personal time, and I wasn’t happy about it. The whole set up was tolerable until it wasn’t. The demand from each grew, and before I knew it I was already drowning. I had to stop. I had to revert to my old work state. When I did, my self confidence dropped, unhealthy thoughts grew- I started comparing how my peers have been earning more than myself. It felt unfair, I was the hardworking one. Eventually, it made me realize that thinking about it wouldn’t change anything, so I shrugged it off. At that point, my anxiety was just at its peak. I was losing control of things.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not like I’ve never communicated this to my superior. I’ve always asked what else I had to change, what I had to do to become better, in the hopes that I’d get better KPI scores and eventually become in the running to be promoted to a higher role. I’ve always shown I was willing to stay. It probably wasn’t a good idea – I might have been misconstrued that I was ok to stay and get stuck in the same place.

Fast forward to October when I was just badly managing my anxiety, an email came to offer a possible work opportunity from a LinkedIn contact. I took it. In my mind I was managing my expectations that I’d probably drop it eventually and the whole interview journey was just to “practice and sharpen my rusty interview skills.” I was so sure that I’d get rejected somewhere in the interview process. To my surprise, by some Universe magic, I pulled through. It turned out that the role demand was exactly the same as how I was doing it in my role. I swear it was like the Universe dropped a tailor fit job opportunity, right when I needed it. The most important part was the job offer, and my jaw just dropped to the floor as I was offered significantly higher than the expected salary I communicated. I was on cloud 9. I couldn’t believe it that I asked the recruiter for a couple of days to think about it. I was so used to getting tired and burned out in a routinary fashion, that I was thinking about rejecting the offer. I felt like like I wasn’t ready for that kind of change.

I spent that time to consult my family and friends. They spoke the nicest words – the affirmation and validation that I needed; I deserved what came for me. They’ve been nothing but supportive and positive about this leap, and I’m very much thankful for them for virtually holding my hand, and rooting for me on that very important life decision. With an overwhelming support and a replenished self confidence, I accepted the job offer.

I know it’s too early to tell, but the last couple of weeks have been warm and filled with so much support from my new colleagues. It was a culture shock, but it was the good kind. I’ve never felt this happy. I think I’m in a very good place.

Thank you Universe. Thank You, Higher Power.

An Interview Question I Came to Ponder On

Out of boredom today, I found myself looking at available work opportunities, both freelance and corporate. It was an effort I knew I wouldn’t fully pursue, but did anyway since it could kill time. Anyway, I saw one interesting ad where I felt I would fit so I clicked the application form. As I was about to fill it out with my details, I read that I had to write an essay as to why I would like to join the company. Then I wondered, “what answer do employers expect from that question?”

It was an opportunity to look back at how many times this has been asked in my interviews. To be honest, most of my answers were just empty charms and lies made out of sheer desperation to get the job. Some of these interviews, I successfully landed the job, but does that mean that’s exactly the answer they were looking for? Was that a filler question just to fill the minutes of the interview, and the answer I gave didn’t really matter? Possibly both?

Now, being mostly on the side of the interviewer for the hiring tickets that we have, I don’t think it’s something that I’d ask since I think I have worthier questions up my sleeve to see how they fit in the roles they are applying for. But I would definitely be interested what the other managers or recruiters think about this. Like, what objective does it fulfill?

Bad Pandemic Management

It’s so frustrating that we’re running with 7,000 cases again per day, In fact, just today, we outdid last year’s peak, and we scored 7,999. We’re definitely spiraling down, thanks to the ever efficient government and their amazing efforts to turn things around.

What’s worse is the people’s lack of responsibility, and the conscious choice to leave their houses when the pandemic is clearly out of our control. People party, people travel, people fake tests to travel, etc.

And don’t get me started with how the government balances out the health and economic crisis. Back in January, cases plateaued at 1500 to 2100. There’s still community transmission. Manageable, but definitely still chasing on the community transmission. What did they do? Terminated contracts of contact tracers, centralized the vaccine purchase, delayed emergency approvals for preferred vaccines, prioritized infrastructure projects, and further opened the economy. It’s a no brainer that whatever they were doing was a recipe for a disaster.

Anyway, this whole collective effort thing is the reason why I hated group projects in school. When the members don’t exert equal effort to achieve the same goal, the group score gets pulled down, and you get dragged along.

It’s so unfair.

Lockdown Anniversary

Monday marks the first anniversary of the longest community quarantine in the world. A year and billions of debts after, the only thing that majority could access is a recently implemented curfew and strict implementation of face masks and shield. It’s really bad out here. People have different priorities. Blind supporters and paid influencers have been applauding wins in infrastructure (which I admit to be worth applauding, if we were in a different sitch), yet couldn’t call out the slow COVID-19 management. The spox says the government’s response has been excellent. The misinformed agrees. THAT doesn’t make sense. How can they be so blinded to agree that there has been an excellent response in all this when we’re back at almost 5,000 cases per day? It’s so frustrating.

I can’t understand what drives them to be like this. Could it be ego that they don’t want to be proven wrong for their choices last 2016? Could it be greed that they get better pay for supporting a murderous and incompetent government? Could it be the fear of going back to the progress-less govenment led by the liberals? It could be a lot of things, and these are what hinders people to critically think, and be objective about what the actual situation is in this country. At the end of the day, we’re all sitting ducks, waiting for the vaccine that would probably come in late, while they continue their clownery and nonsensical media flex.

House Repainted and other things

I haven’t had the chance to write something here – not because I’m busy, but I have been feeling lethargic lately of doing anything productive.

Work’s been pretty steady the past few weeks and I’m happy about it. As you know, I have 2 jobs, and so far, I’m actually a tad bit more stressed with my side gig than my main -primarily because the former’s been asking me to do research, and that’s not really my best skill. In any case, work life’s generally survivable, all things considered.

I’ve also started chatting again with people on dating apps because I wanted to polish my already rusty social skills. Well, so far, I can say that I’m pretty sociable…virtually, but it’s too early to tell if it’s the same in real life. I haven’t really gone out since March and I haven’t seen any of my friends so there’s no way to test.

Oh right, we also had our house repainted! Well, just the outside area. The whole thing wasn’t done for aesthetics, but to get the dripping problem inside our house fixed. I can’t even tell how crazy those weeks were – mom’s been really mad about a lot of things because we felt like the whole paint job was rushed and that what we paid for was more than the actual purchases they did to finish the work. But I’m glad that it’s all over, and that the cracks have already been covered like how it was 6 years ago when we first moved in. I just hope it fully fixed the issue of rain water sipping through cracks.

Good 2021 juju

What a promising feat. I actually got it.

I was offered a contract for the side hustle I was telling about in my previous post. I couldn’t believe it. The pay, the work schedule, the arrangement, everything is just too perfect. Since the pandemic started, I’ve been weary about my job security, and I thought I should look for a side job just so I have multiple sources of income. I never had any luck. My profile never got approved on Upwork, joined onlinejobs ph and never got a decent response, heck I even joined a freelance FB group but never found a schedule that fits my availability.

In December, a colleague of mine tagged me in a random freelance group looking for an ecommerce guy. I thought my skills were perfect and, without any expectation at all, I applied. Heard from them a couple of weeks later, still not expecting anything. Did an interview and thought, since they’re in the US they might offer a position that’s night shift (which I might eventually decline). When I received the job offer last week, I was surprised that they let me in on a dayshift and part time. Without hesitation, I took the job and signed the contract.

Earlier today was my first day. I met JT (one of my bosses) and he was the kindest. He asked me if I wanted to take any trainings to further my skills, he promised a few things like getting me a Macbook pro if I stayed with the company for a long time, etc. He was also generally light to speak with.I mean, I never really had a side gig before and he seems like a trustworthy guy, so that kinda made me happy; a little hopeful and motivated to stay with them for a long time.

Anyway, the past week’s been a great week. I just hope my luck won’t run out just yet. Thank you Universe for this amazing 2021 gift!

Side hustle

Today, I got several calls from a few side hustles I applied for since the beginning of the month. I’m generally hopeful and excited, buuut a bit worried should I actually get the job. I mean, I haven’t really thought about it, nor planned how I’m going to squeeze it in my daily schedule considering how demanding my main job can be. I just.. applied. Initially, I only did that for the experience of you know, brushing up my skills on interviews in case I’ll be looking for other job opportunities in the future – I usually get rusty with interviews if I don’t get to practice. I guess one idea led to another, and now here I am, praying with gleaming eyes to have positive results on a potential employment #2.

I hope you could pray for me, and that the side hustle would perfectly fit in my schedule. In case I don’t get it though, then I guess that’s charged to having my interview skills polished. Win win? Though I prefer the former kind.