Boss

Three years ago, I winced everytime I was called “boss.” In video games, the boss is the monster. I told my subordinates to just call me “ma’am.” But I guess it’s culture. They couldn’t help it. They blurt out the word everytime, especially if their asking favors. Boss, may I? Boss, can I?

I hate the word because it creates a divide: between the “haves” and the “have-nots.” I like the feeling of being respected, but not one of veneration. I am not a god. I am just human. I commit mistakes. I am just like everyone else.

I hate it when people who are called “boss” think that they are gods. That they could do no wrong. That what they say is the truth. That they don’t give a f*ck about how others feel. That they are the center of the universe. That everyone should follow them at all costs. That others don’t deserve a life of their own.

I hate it when the boss uses power to bring down others. By making them feel worthless. By making them think that their best is never good enough. By making them feel hopeless. By making them think that their only salvation is the boss’s approval.

Respect is not a privilege of only the powerful. Even the powerless deserves it. Power is earned only when others submit to you. A power imposed is fleeting and meaningless.

Whoever started calling the game’s super-monster as the “boss” is a genius. With that, the boss becomes the evil that makes others’ lives miserable. The boss is super-powerful but everyone hates him because he sucks the life out of the powerless. The boss preys on the weak and eats them alive. The boss is ugly and simply hideous, by all standards.

But without the boss, there are no heroes. These few good men rise to match the boss’s strength and empower themselves so they can challenge him. The heroes rally the weak behind their cause to vanquish the monster. In the end the heroes win. Everyone is happy and starts a new life.

But even in video games, the heroes become corrupted by power they acquired that they become monsters in the end, just like Lord Arthas who became the Death Knight and later the Lich King in Warcraft Frozen Throne. Even in movies: for example, Star Wars’ Anakin Skywalker who later on became Darth Vader. Even in politics, with the likes of George W. Bush, from being the defender of the democratic way of life after 9/11 to Darth Invader of Iraq and the Iraqi way of life.

Whoever said that “power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” is a philosopher-king. But you see, without the followers, no one will be powerful. If the followers can only see that the power of the undeserving is temporal, then they will not fear that power. But it takes a hero to make them see that.

I wanted to be that hero. But right now, I can’t, because I’m already a boss. Much as I’d like to break out from the power structure, I couldn’t for fear of being cast away because I couldn’t live up to being a boss. Should I turn my back against my kind? Am I ready to lose everything? The stakes are high. Because I’m a boss. Funny, how a word can hold you captive.

Break

Today is the last day of our five-day break. Tomorrow is back to reality again.

But I feel good that I finished the paper. Sometimes it only takes a real deadline to get me going. I have one more paper to do then I can focus on work.

Speaking of work, I also need to do a presentation for our superboss. Hopefully before I report to office tomorrow. But I’m thinking why I should do it at home. I don’t get paid for overtime. And I’m not in the mood.

I’m not in the mood to defend why the management should not think that our unit is slow and that we’re overmanned. Because it’s true. We submit our outputs late and we are too many in our unit, considering that we are not really doing anything important. Why would I need to lie?

Worse, we set targets which would take a calamity to occur so we can beat them (I think our unit provides assistance to calamity victims). I’ll be damned if I start praying for one.

Seriously, at the rate we’re going, I think we should have only about 12 staff, not 24. About half. The superboss said maybe we’re slow because there’s too many of us. My unit-mates don’t understand. I get what she’s trying to say.

Many of us are non-performing. If the performing ones get too loaded, we give the less important assignments to the non-performing. Unfortunately, it takes them forever to finish. So they submit late. My immediate boss shelves their submissions and only looks at them if she has free time. So when she reviews them, weeks have passed, and the staff concerned already needs to change the date. And alas, the management notices!

Also, the non-performing ones tend to dilly-dally on their assignments as if waiting for the performing to finish theirs so they can hand over their tasks to them. It’s unfair. But sometimes we also have no choice.

I would like to kick the non-performing ones out and have them transferred to the admin department, because there they wouldn’t have to pretend writing. They wouldn’t waste time staring at their computers. But my immediate boss wouldn’t like that. Somehow the non-performing ones are her pets. And she’d do anything to keep them.

If I were to do the presentation on the basis of the truth, I’d recommend that:

1. Retain only four staff for each of the three divisions (I’d rather pick them out now than have the management choose whom they think will be useful in other offices);

2. Cut the levels through which our outputs pass from eight to four (I don’t understand why our referrals should be scrutinized by so many smartasses);

3. Transfer me to another office which badly needs me (somehow I think my bosses are keeping me for their own convenience — I know they’ll be fine without me, they only have to work harder); and

4. Tell the management to make up their minds and give directions already (I’m tired of guessing what they want and how they want things done).

Before we split for the break, we gathered everyone. I told them, “If you couldn’t relate with the management and you stopped caring about what you feed them, I know in your hearts you’re still concerned with your bosses. Please bear in mind that whatever output you want us to approve will reflect what kind of bosses we are. I feel insulted by comments that we submit mediocre outputs. Because we’re not. Many of us here are really good and I’ve seen how you performed. But only when your heart is on the job. If you don’t care about the organization, please care about our unit, us. Let’s show them we are not what they think we are.”

It took courage for me to say that. But I haven’t had enough courage to tell my to immediate boss’s face that 80 percent of the reason why we get such feedback was her. I couldn’t break a cancer patient’s heart.

Whatever. I hope what I said has not fallen into deaf ears. I will have to find that out for myself after this break.

Noynoying

I couldn’t believe the international media actually caught up with the latest craze among demonstrators in the Philippines today — Noynoying. The article on it was even the most popular on Wall Street Journal’s website yesterday.

The term is attributed to the Philippine President Noynoy Aquino and simply means “doing nothing.” It is depicted by yawning, staring aimlessly, lying on the ground, looking bored, or just lazing around. In yet another colloquial Filipino term, it means being “petiks” or not taking something seriously.

The three-headed hydra press department couldn’t help but fend off the criticisms. They said, he is working really  hard. If there are lots of problems in the country, they’re all the previous administration’s doing. So they released a photo of the working president:

See! He’s very busy  scrutinizing about six documents that he forgot to put his glasses on. Note also that underneath the newspaper is a copy of the Constitution. He’s probably checking if the Senate could really summon Chief Justice Renato Corona notwithstanding that annoying thing called “separation of powers.”

Vice President Jejomar Binay, nonetheless, came to the president’s aid. In an interview, he said:

“Tigilan n’yo na ang ating Presidente (Give our President a break)… Can you imagine that the President eh di nagtatrabaho (is not working)? Siguro naman kahit ang mga barangay captains nagtatrabaho, di ba (Even barangay captains work, don’t they)?”

Like it really helped. Yes of course, even barangay captains or village chiefs work. The only problem is Noynoy is the PRESIDENT. He’s got not just a village to manage, but a nation. He’s already close to two years in the job, but it seems that there has been little progress in this administration in terms of economic development and poverty reduction, if not nil. Though there has been an awful lot of progress in persecuting the previous administration. But aside from entertainment, what does an ordinary citizen really get from it?

There’s also nothing inspirational about how the international media see him:

“Mr. Aquino might not be the most hands-on president to have led the Philippines. Since being elected in a landslide in 2010, Mr. Aquino has sometimes been caught laughing it up with celebrities instead of attending to the impact of typhoons and other disasters. It also taps into old Philippine folk tales about Juan Tamad, or Lazy Juan, who manages to get by doing the least amount of work to get by.”

On the other hand, the press department could be right. All the problems the Philippines is facing should be blamed on the former president. If 15 million Filipinos did not hate her so much in 2010, then Noynoy would not be running the country today.

Tribute

Let me share with you the tribute I made to a dear boss who decided to abandon our vow of poverty and left our god-forsaken office…

If there are two persons who really made me feel my worth in this office, they would be my former big Boss and you. When he left, I felt orphaned. I suddenly felt that I had no one to turn to. I really thought it was the end for me when the new guys came. But you came with them.

Funny, I thought that time, I saw you a month ago when you scared the crap out of me as you interrogated me about pollution and environmental permits. Like, what on earth was that? It was so embarrassing because the only thing I could think of was “one-stop shop.” When you left the room, I was stunned for ten minutes. How could someone who looked so nice and harmless be so terrifying?

So I guess I flunked that because of you. Just kidding. I know I did poorly and I admit my ethical sense was kinda screwed up that time. You probably read the scratch papers and found out what my drafts looked like. And you were probably disgusted. In fact, I still feel horrified when I think about it. Frankly, I was so traumatized that until now, I haven’t mustered enough courage to go through it all over again. Plus, I don’t have the money.

Though you gave me hell that day, you were heaven sent when we met again. I was in a difficult situation, and was really already looking for other employment prospects. I thought it was just a matter of time. Until you noticed me (well, you had no choice, really) and began trusting in me and my work. For the first time after I vacated that 10^th floor office, I felt important again in this place.

I bet you know what it’s like. You know that feeling when one day everyone is befriending you because you are the assistant of a VIP, and then the next day, by a sudden twist of fate, you text these people, and they reply: “Who u?” I was at my lowest point of self-esteem and began doubting what I was capable of doing. But you believed in me. You made me believe in myself. Then I had nothing else to prove to anyone.

You saved my ass. And I would be grateful to you for that for the rest of my life. Then I kept hearing about good things you said about me. I did not know you liked me that much. You were probably guilty because you flunked me. Haha! That was why when you asked me to help you, even if I was already happy going home at three in the morning every other day in my unit, I came to this office. My God, I would even do cartwheel or eat with my feet, if you’d ask me to! I will even join you if you will only ask me. So, please ask me. Joke.

Kidding aside, it’s really sad that you are leaving us. You are our defender and source of strength, in other words, yabang. We are so proud of you and feel so blessed that we worked under you. You are really such a great loss not only to us, but to everyone here. But I can’t blame you. Looking at the bright side, it means you will be able to inspire more people out there…where the pay is higher and allowances are untaxed. I am jealous of those people. Not because they are paid generously, but because they will have you.

I know you will go places. More places. I hope you won’t forget us because we will never forget you. I learned a lot from you – on work, motherhood, being true to yourself, dealing with my husband, etc. Whether you like it or not, I have decided to emulate you. For you are larger than life.

Lovable

An office staff just had his despedida today. So some of us who are his close friends gathered to give him a little tribute. Since all of us spoke funny and good things about him (I talked for 20 minutes and bashed him most of the time) when it was his time to deliver his speech, he also spoke on what he would miss about each one of us.

He talked about me, second to the last — he reserved his last speech for the girl who’s got a crush on him, and from our assessment, he also crushes on. But his speech for me was the longest. I don’t know if that’s because I also teased him the longest. Well, I did not know that it was supposed to be just a ten-second well-wishing because I just came and was immediately given the stage. As Christopher Lao once said, “I wasn’t informed.”

His speech was all praises about me: on how he thinks I’m one of the best officials in that place because I’m cool, approachable and intelligent, and how he felt so close to me. I actually stopped him twice saying that it wasn’t me who’s leaving. But he just went on telling everyone all the good things about me and that he could talk to me about anything under the sun: from philosophies to politics to trivial matters. I wasn’t able to react when he said that he thinks he loves me. In tagalog he said, “ewan ko, mahal ko na nga yata si mam.” Then one of us said,  “o sige pakasal na kayo.” To which, he jokingly said, “sige na mam, let’s get married.” For a moment it was awkward.

Weird. Well, I have always treated him as a younger brother. If he was directly under me, he could have been my protege. Since we bonded with a circle of unlikely friends, I also think I feel love for him. But no malice there. I love all of them equally and I also feel they love me back. But it’s out of the line to tell me you love me when you are not paying tribute to me. I think it was uncalled for.

So, I let it pass. He probably just felt overwhelmed that he did not know what he was saying. But when we had coffee later with our group of friends, i told the girl who’s got a crush on him if it’s okay with her to sit next to me because I smoke. And she said, “oh yeah, he should sit next to you because he likes you so much he’ll miss you.” And I thought I heard jealousy in her tone.

It’s crazy. Because I’m older than many of them and I’m already married with four kids, these things never came to my mind until now. Could it be that one of these guys actually dreamed of hitting it on with me despite my circumstances? I’m not even sexy and gorgeous. I know I’m beautiful in some aspects, but definitely not gorgeous. In fact when I was young I saw myself as an ugly duckling. In my adolescence, I had always been treated as one of the boys.

As I was driving home, I kept thinking about it and the only way I could explain it was because of my position. Where I work, I am one of the top officials and I know that many people have come to like me because I manage people in an unconventional way and I deliver what is expected from me. I have always been grounded while others in my league were treated as gods and goddesses, I always make the people around me feel that I am one of them. Not to mention that I really think that such discrimination is stupid and counterproductive.

I know that people who became my friends are proud that I am their friend. But we always seem to know where to draw the line. When it’s about work, I am the boss and they deal with me with respect. When it’s time for having fun, I strip down the walls dividing us so we can have pure fun. People flatter me, but it’s fine because it’s part of the  goddess-commoner roles we play. But I never thought that some would like me a lot that they would actually lust over me. Who would dare? It’s not like I look down on them. I just dismiss such thoughts because I never really gave anyone such motivation and I don’t need anything that would make my life more complicated than it is now. And I am no longer in the position to entertain such ideas in the first place. I am married with four kids.

When I come to think of it, I’d say it probably comes with the position. As I said in the earlier post, “with great power comes great responsibility.” I did not know that preventing anyone from desiring me in such a way is one of these responsibilities. Of course, I love to be loved. It’s human instinct. If you’re not loved, you will have a difficult time to become an effective leader. People won’t be able to relate to you. But for goodness sake, I don’t want any illicit relationship! It’s okay for boys and girls to get close to me, but not too close. Especially the boys.

Now I know why my husband is paranoid most of the time. Everytime he’s suspicious, I ask him, “why, am I that gorgeous?” Now I know it’s not about being physically overly attractive. It’s about the position. Now I feel uncomfortable.

Funny, I also feel good about it. In fact, I’m happy today.