Driving All Day

My body ached like hell and my eyes were sore and swollen from staring at the mirages on the road all day. The entire day, I was bound in front of a dashboard, strapped tight by a seatbelt and hands glued on the steering wheel.

Today was like a drag race to a destination unknown. I wish I could drive endlessly. I dreamt about spending my time alone with ZeeWee as we cross rolling plains and green acres that are vast enough.  I want to drive through zigzag roads and long flat highways with scenic backdrop and breath-taking views. I want to see a rainbow and drive underneath it.

But all of these are just figments of my imagination. My body is still aching from the almost stationary or immobile job of driving my bosses around town. I spent a lot of time in the streets of Cebu and my eyes suffered like crazy.

I hated the thought of having to wake up early in the morning, move my self and ZeeWee out of the driveway and drove 50 kilometers up north to the town of Sogod. Not to mention that I had a quickstop to a local fast food giant in Danao City and ordered some egg and sausages because I thought I was about to faint from skipping breakfast. Not to mention that I even stopped somewhere in the north road to just buy a handful of candies.

So I came to Alegre Beach Resort at almost 10 am. I came in my pink dress shirt and silver gray tie. It was my first time in that exclusive resort. It was my first time also as a chauffeur for my bosses. Merck, Inc. hosted a Bioscience Conference for 3 days and it’s attended by all the Bioscience specialist of Merck in the Asia-Pacific region.

My bosses were there to grace the opening day and they exited from the conference for a scheduled meeting with our direct accounts. And so at 10.30 am, we left the town of Sogod and headed to the city. We reached Cebu at noon time.

Now lunch was a bit of a challenge for us. My bosses were from the national capital region and so they have already set their minds to eat lechon for lunch. Being their designated driver, I brought them to CnT Lechon House just across SM City Cebu. We got there by 12.30pm, looked for a seat and waited for my other officemates.

We found out later on that they could not serve us lechon anymore and so we moved on to Tong’s at F. Cabahug St. only to find out that they have lechon kawali to offer. Finally, we went back to the reclamation area and had our lunch at Bernadette’s.We feasted on lechon, kinilaw na isda, guso (seaweed), and chopsuey.

Bernadette’s is an average dining spot for workers and sales agents. But the place is always full at lunchtime. My bosses were cool with it. Eating al fresco on a long table and monobloc chairs with electric fans in every post. We were the last few people to finish lunch. For dessert, we bought lansones from a street peddler.

From Bernadette’s we split ways. I was a bit relieved. My bosses went with my officemates. They moved on to their meeting with their clients while I proceeded to Talisay City and met up with my dealers.

It’s exhausting. Work-related driving could be physically draining.

      

Marching ON to MARCH

In ancient Roman times, March used to be the first month of the year, maalisku as what the Finnish would call it. The month of March begins with the sign of Pisces and ends with Aries. Sources say that ancient Britons called this month hyld-monath, meaning loud and stormy. Mars is the Roman god of war and it was the reference for this quite interestingly lion-lamb month.

We just moved in to the third month of the year. This signifies another round of challenges at my office. I have prepared myself to accept whatever defining events that would happen for the month of March. I know for a fact that most multinational companies are very much dynamic and most of them adapt to changes at the least possible time. In the organization where I’m at, changes and adjustments happen so fast.

They say that there will be strong energies at the start of the month. I must say that I am not too keen about the energies that would come in March because while it’s true that some energy good or bad, influence the way we decide and act on certain matter, these energies also demand much effort from us to deliver growth and success. By energies, I mean the forces that could lift our emotions to greater heights or those that could make us feel fulfilled or satisfied.

March is a celebration of Fire. Fire itself, is a manifestation of an internal energy being transferred from one matter to another. March is the time where fires often break out. It’s the busy month for the all firefighters and the Bureau of Fire Prevention. Safety practitioners often regard March as the fire prevention month. But still, some houses, shanties and buildings continue to go out in flames.

Energies may also come in the form of light and heat. At this time of the year, the rays of the sun become intense and severe. March is considered to be one of the summer months in the country. This is the time when people began to let go of their manes and shed off layers and layers of clothes.

Summer in the Philippines could be as harsh as it could be. One could get instant tanned complexion even just by standing in the open for 5 minutes.

So let’s move on to March and see what energy is in-store for us. Right now, I’m thinking of refreshing frozen delights (halo-halo, blueberry cheese cake, double-dutch ice cream), cotton shirts, vacation in a beach or on a mountaintop with my bro bear, celebrate birthdays, relax and unwind with friends and or officemates. I will also try not to succumb to spontaneous combustion.

So far, I’m keeping my internal energies at bay.

      

I’m a Chemical Engineer by the way

I assumed my role as a superhero for the past 3 days. With my powers, I was able to overcome mountains of challenges which at first I thought were insurmountable. With great powers come great responsibility, thus with the power vested upon me by the PRC and the Philippine Institute of Chemical Engineers or PIChE, I attended the 3-day convention at the CICC.

As a chemical engineer myself, I feel like I needed to participate in the conference and get to meet people from my field of education. I come from a family of engineers and nurses. My dad and my older sister are chemical engineers and my sister Ken is an industrial engineer.

Hundreds of licensed chemical engineers attended the national event and this time, it was the PIChE Cebu Chapter who organized the said affair. Merck’s sales team for VISMIN happened to be composed of chemical engineers who were graduates from Cebu Institute of Technology. And this team had successfully participated in the conference exhibit.

My company participated in the conference as an exhibitor. We promoted our products for water monitoring, microbiology and culture media as well as our chemical reagents and raw materials. Most of the participants were from the manufacturing and monitoring sector who play significant roles in purchasing items for use in production or in the laboratory. We also pushed for the campaign on Safe Laboratory Practices and Environmental Awareness and Responsibility. Although I was not a member of the VISMIN Direct Sales Team, I voluntarily extended my help in putting up the materials for the exhibit and also I helped in attending product inquiries from the participants.

The schedule was a bit tight. The conference fell on the last days of February. To us at Merck, these period is the most crucial time because it’s the cut-off for sales. I juggled with much difficulty between increasing my sales for Feb and at the same time attend to the inquiries of those who came by our booth.

Throughout the conference, I met some of my batch mates in USC, I saw my former classmate in UP, my ex-officemate in GenChem and also my teachers in my majors. It was nice to know how these people remained loyal to their profession in the midst of the great diaspora of skilled chemical engineers who left the country to work odd jobs abroad and those who had worked in an entirely different field.

I saw and met my teacher in unit operations and I recall how big a booger dangled in and out of his nostril as he discussed in detail the mechanism of the absorption apparatus. I also met my dad’s batch mates from CIT who are now educators themselves.

It has been 8 years since I graduated in Chemical Engineering and it was not a big surprise when the educators began to report the dwindling number of students taking up this engineering course. This growing concern is also being experienced by chemical engineering teachers in all colleges and universities. Unless something could be done to stop students from taking up nursing in college, this particular problem would get much worse.

When I graduated from college, we were just about 60 students. Now, teachers told us that only 19 students graduated last year. In some profit-oriented institutions of higher learning, this fact could be an omen. It could be a signal for the dissolution of the college and could force teachers to seek employment from something else.

The 60 people from our batch may have sought jobs not related to chemical engineers. There were only a handful of us who adhered to the discipline. Most of us, me included, had found works in some other fields. A lot of us are already middle managers or section heads. Others have already pursued odd-jobs abroad. Some are into sales and marketing, like my self, while others had been designated as pollution control officers or PCO in their companies.

For the past 3 days, we also resorted to do these: Camwhoring.

At the 2nd floor of the Cebu International Convention Center

The VISMIN Sales Group headed by Ching (seated left) 

The conference ended a little bit past 1PM. The 69th National Convention was finally over.