occupation: SAHM

Early last week, my mom sent the househelp back home when the latter saw two men on the lawn, looking at the house.

Why are you here, she asked, at which point the two men just walked away. Alarmed, she called my mom upon entering the house and locked all doors.

Later that week, my mom and the helper was about to leave when they noticed an X written in chalk on their gate’s post. My mom was filled with foreboding and washed away the X mark. They double-checked the locks on the doors and left home with a prayer.

That evening, a neighbor arrived home and found his house robbed.

We couldn’t help associating the two strange men and the X mark with the robbery. We are so glad my mom noticed it or who knows what could have happened.

So among the things we should do to insure safety at home is to regularly check our fences for any markings. Just a quick perusal, takes just a minute or two. It may be a harmless scribble and that smiley face in crayon may have been left by our neighbor’s children but we better err on the side of caution.

The phone rang. It was my mom, who was in our office. The manager of the BDO branch I complained about was right in front of her. Judith Valerio, the manager, wished to speak with me.

I was floored that the manager, who thought I reported in our office that day, decided to see me personally to talk about my blog post. She could have called me up from her table, but she decided to look up my personal information, leave her responsibilities for a while, search for our office, to have a dialogue with me.

Continue reading ‘BDO Responds’ »

Feels like many, many, many years ago when I could compose a complaint letter at a drop of a hat. Having worked in the service industry, I believe I have mastered the art of writing complaint letters and most importantly, to whom it should be sent.

I cannot remember the number of times I have complained and have filed formal complaints to establishments regarding poor service because I’m big on service. Professional  na ito.

I experienced a bout of bad service from a Banco de Oro (BDO) branch this afternoon. They denied our transactions. They refused to accept our cheque deposits because my husband, Raymond’s name wasn’t spelled right, eventhough it was Raymond himself doing the transaction and he could’ve easily given them his IDs, his NBIs, his passport, pati birth certificate at marriage contract sabihin lang nila.

To add insult to injury, the teller said, “Ma-approve naman yan kung andito si manager kaso wala siya.”

I was denied a withdrawal over the counter  by a certain Joyce G. because I have a passbook and an ATM and the system won’t accept it and I should just withdraw from the ATM instead. When I told her that it was offline, “Marami naman po kaming ibang branches.” Ok, so what she wanted me to do was to go on a quest for another bank which should’ve been unnecessary in the first place.

Continue reading ‘When a Complaint Letter May Not Be Worth It’ »

Hear ye, hear ye, taxpayers! In case you don’t know yet, an individual taxpayer’s community tax certificate/CTC/cedula is now required prior to paying real estate taxes. According to a Quezon City hall employee, this requirement was implemented this year.

Now here’s the thing. The window where the cedula was being issued was still closed, so my mom went to the cashier and fell in line to pay her real estate taxes. The cashier received her payment without even asking her to go back to present her cedula. In fact the cashier didn’t even look for my mom’s cedula. This was in Caloocan City.

Raymond and I were in a Quezon City satellite office paying for our cedula first. But she had no change, could we wait for a while. And it took quite a while, so we went to the other cashier to pay our real estate taxes first. And again, the one who received our tax payments made no mention of a need for a cedula. Nada. Zip.

So here we are, unable to understand what the requirement is for, but we follow it anyway because we are law-abiding citizens. But excuse us if we feel this is another useless, meaningless expense on our part.

I’m think I’m getting old, because Manila Ocean Park failed to impress me. Despite the hype, despite the beautiful pictures all over the net.

I have read reviews that it may be the biggest of all Ocean Parks, but we will be disappointed with the variety of the fishes. The Parks in other countries still have the most types of marine life available for viewing. And my mom who was there the day after the grand opening added she found the tunnel too short.

My first complaint would be that the first part of the dark exhibit area was hot. Maybe the air conditioner wasn’t working well, maybe there were too many people. But it was a Thursday, so the room may be hotter on weekends. Continue reading ‘Getting Old’ »

I knew something was wrong when my husband couldn’t answer my calls to his cellphone. After my nth missed call, he finally called back. He was a few kilometers away from our house when a tricycle hit the bumper of our car.

Continue reading ‘seeing red’ »

I didn’t attend my son’s school orientation for parents last Saturday. I was present last year anyway, I didn’t need to hear the welcome message all over again. 

So on the first day of school, I had to catch my jaw when the secretary asked for PHP 3,000 for my son’s books.

“I thought the books are free,” I said.

“Sa prep po hindi (Not for preparatory level),” she answered.

I was in a daze as I left the school premises. Three thousand pesos for 8 preschool books? Is this the cost of books nowadays? For preschool?

It turns out that 2 of the books cost almost a thousand pesos because they were imported from Singapore. The school is adapting the Singapore Math Curriculum, thus the “need” for the expensive books.

The grade school students have it worse. Their books cost PHP 4,000 a set.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who dropped a jaw. All the parents were informed of the school’s new curriculum, and that they apparently have no other choice but to pay for it, only last Saturday, on the day of the orientation. 

This morning, one mother told me that the parents  are going to have a dialogue with the school owner.

Because no one among us parents were informed of this new curriculum BEFORE we paid for the tuition fees. Because we were not given the option to buy the books elsewhere.

Because funny that the school decided to abolish the Parent-Teacher Association for this year, thus depriving the parents of a regular venue to air their concerns (read: complain and make them explain).

“Mommy Cess, dapat andun ka. (You should be there ).” Well yes, of course, I’ll be there. I want to hear what they have to say. 

I’m not sure what exactly do my fellow parents want to achieve from the dialogue though. If it’s a refund they want, I’m certain we’ll get nowhere. 

If it’s to reprimand the school owners for implementing major changes without informing us beforehand, great. But after that, what next? Do my fellow parents seriously believe we can make the school owners a little less profit-oriented?

We’ve already been had, and I don’t think we can do anything to change that.  We better accept it, move on. Hope for the best, that our children will indeed benefit from this new curriculum. Maybe this is the magic potion that will turn our children into math wizards by next year. Yeah, yeah.

They want revenge? Switch schools. That’s exactly what I plan on doing next year.  

Tsk. There’s no business like school business.

Have you seen the commercial Makulay ang Buhay pag may Sinabawang Gulay or Life is Colorful if there is Veggie Soup?

The commercial features a group of kids singing an upbeat song about the nutritional benefits of veggie soup. The bowl of soup showed chunks of squash, eggplants and string beans.

Great! At the beginning of the commercial, I was so excited to show this to my son, who I hope would be encouraged to eat vegetables.

This is one of my challenges, to get Ipan Jr to eat vegetables. And I hope this is not asking for too much, I want him to eat vegetables happily.

Well, the commercial ended and all the kids ever did was to sip an obviously empty bowl of soup. Totally against what I (and I believe most of us mommies) teach at home, that is, to use a spoon for soup. Unless of course, all you have is chopsticks.

But I am most, absolutely, totally frustrated and disappointed with the fact that not one kid munched on a piece of vegetable. Not even a tiny tiny bit of squash.

They sang and danced and sipped empty bowls. No opening their mouths wide for a spoonful of the veggies in the soup. Bleh.

All of them just said “Mmmmm ” after sipping, and even my 6-year old son knew it was kunwari lang.*

I believe though, that the creators of this commercial had to do a lot of pleading and bribing to get the kids to eat just a bit of of the veggies. Obviously without success. Probably the reason why they were “sipping” the soup from the bowls, instead of using spoons.

I hope it didn’t give an idea to impressionable young children that they can get away with pretending to eat veggies.

*just pretending

After paying for my purchases in big establishments, I don’t usually count the change, particularly the coins. The cashiers usually count my money as they lay each bill and coin in my hand, so I often feel there is no need to count again.

However, my ever-reliable gut instinct made me do just that, even after a cashier of a big supermarket displayed a careful count of my change of PHP 272.50.

I counted again before I left her counter, but all I could see was PHP 262.50 on my hand. I was beginning to doubt my math.

“Miss, ” I was mentally preparing myself for a potentially embarassing situation.

“Sukli po?” She asked. Huh? I hadn’t said anything yet.

She looked at the change in my hand, and dropped a ten-peso coin.

Now where did the coin come from?

I have made countless purchases (and I once worked in a department store and a fastfood resto), so I know how these things go. They make sure that they get the exact amount of change from their cash trays; an extra peso and they would have to pay for it. They count again when they give the change to the customer, at which point their hands should now be empty. And soon after, they slam their cash registers shut. So if the customer is justified in asking for more change, customer would have to wait for the cashier to open the register.

Besides, there should be no extra money in our transaction. One hundred, two hundred, fifty, sixty, seventy, two, fifty. She was careful. I saw that.

But this cashier simply handed the coin without touching her register. The coin was in her hand all along.

And she didn’t even apologize, nor did she attempt to make a quick explanation, like most employees in service industries are wont to do. No apologetic smile either. Gave me the coin, turned her back. Just like that.

Of course it may be a mere oversight, or it may be part of a plan. My previous jobs made me quick to identify spots where store thieves would likely operate. I’m not working anymore, but I guess that has become second nature to me. And (the way I see it), her station was perfect.

You see, she had no checker or bagger, and no security guard was manning her area. Right behind her post was the exit door leading to a busy street. So in this cashier’s case, it would be so darn easy to hand a collection of extra change over to another thief. And come to think of it, there must be many customers out there who do not bother to count their change.

Why did I not report to the authorities? And what, waste time waiting for the manager, who is usually busy with a dozen other things, to talk about something which I doubt he/she will act on right away, because most likely, there are other issues which have made things that way. It’s not a matter of life and death anyway, there’s just a possiblity that the store and/or the customers will lose money and I’m sure they are all aware of that.

I’ll just blog and warn you, to count your change. It doesn’t matter whether that was a small mistake or an evil plan. Count again, even if the cashier already counted it for you. Unless of course, you can afford to ignore your change.

I guess most of you have visited the new Toys R Us in Robinson’s Galleria. Big place. Impressive. With a huge variety of toys.

But for some reason it feels cold. And I don’t mean the airconditioning.

Pag sinabing toy store balwarte ng mga bata yan. Maingay, magulo, pero masaya. Hindi ko maramdaman yan sa TRU.

Pero nasanay siguro kasi ako sa Toy Kingdom outlets. Dumadaan ka pa lang nagkalat na ang mga sales clerk sa labas na nagde-demo ng mga robot o kotse-kotsehan, at may kasama pang masayang bati sa mga bata. Most, if not all, of the TK sales personnel are courteous and friendly. They give out greetings freely. Pag naulinigan pa nilang birthday ng bata, kakantahan pa nila.

I think what made TK a better toy store (at least for me) is the TK staff’s enthusiasm. It doesn’t matter if you’re there on a 3-day sale or right after they lift the doors on a Monday morning, they will still acknowledge your presence enthusiastically.

Tuloy, kahit wala ka namang balak bumili, lalabas kang may napamili. I guess that’s the downside of all the friendliness and cheer.