Liberty Chan of Landmark

Jay-Li's complete name is Liberty Chan. She is with Landmark's customer service. She condescendingly referred to me as ITONG BAKLANG ITO when I had a valid issue with how they issued a sales invoice to my staff when we had requested for an OR. Their customer service staff did not mention at all that the tape receipt is an OR.

Clearly, Landmark's customer service table was at fault in this issue, and yet, Ms. Liberty Chan, instead of owning up to their mistake as a department, called me a faggot instead.

Her name means freedom, yet she deprived me of my right to be treated like any other customer regardless of my preference.

I may be one voice, nobody may listen to my words, but I will not allow other homosexuals to be treated with the same disgust that this woman has accorded me.

We deserve better treatment.

We are not lesser citizens because of our preference. We pay our taxes. We contribute to economic growth. Our efforts and hardwork ensure others of jobs. And yet I was not good enough for Ms. Liberty Chan.

Itong Baklang Ito

I was liquidating receipts from last week's event when I noticed that 3 of the official receipts from Landmark Makati were actually just sales invoices. These were dated March 21, March 22, and March 26.

I had one of the complex's messengers go to Landmark's customer service table to have these replaced with official receipts. He came back saying that Landmark refused to give him official receipts, and that the tape receipts the cash registers issue are actually official receipts already. Perplexed, I called the customer service table to clarify what went wrong. On one of the dates, I was actually with my staff when we purchased the items, and we were directed to the customer service table at the ground level when my assistant asked for an official receipt. I explained to her that I needed to have the receipts liquidated with my accounting department, and that I need the tape receipts that were left with them. She told me that these were not going to be released within 24 hours, and that it would take a week.

It was quite unacceptable especially since I was sure that their customer service personnel did not inform any of my staff that they would only be issuing sales invoices. The woman I spoke to on the phone was explaining to me that the tape receipts were the official receipts and that the written receipts they issue are just sales invoices, and that they inform the people who go to the customer service table of this. I told her we were not informed, since in one of the instances, I was there, and we were not informed at all of that particular condition. I asked her who was on duty on those dates, and she, Li-J Chua/Chan was on duty during all three dates. I insisted that the tape receipts be located at once since the non-information came from their end.

She couldn't understand what I needed, or my defense. She asked to put me on hold.

Obviously, their phones do not have mute buttons, and she just tried to cover the speaker of the handset and said to her co-worker, "Hindi ko na maintindihan ITONG BAKLANG ITO. Ang hirap kausap. Nasaan na ba ang supervisor natin?"

I heard everything. As soon as the phone was given to her supervisor Cynthia, I asked if they had mute buttons over the phone. I informed Cynthia that I heard what Li-J had said, and that I resented being called BAKLA. I told her that what Li-J said was such a bigot statement. She did not know what bigot meant, so I defined it to her:

"...a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance."

I told her not to go anywhere, and that I would go to Landmark to tell them what I want. 

Upon arriving at the customer service table, I announced to the three women seated there that the BAKLA has arrived. Nandito na itong BAKLANG ito. 

Li-J couldn't even speak to me. I told her that I wasn't taking our conversation personally, and that she was the one who made it personal by calling me using a derogatory term. I told her I never called her pobre, bobo, puta, or... since she was Filipino-Chinese, Intsik-Bejong abnormal. 

She made it personal by calling me a BAKLA. My parents did not pay for an Ateneo education just for this woman to belittle me and my sexual preference. I did not work my butt off to get into UP Diliman just for her to regard me so lowly by calling me a faggot. I told her that it was not right to call black people NIGGERS, and that she will not call black people like that to their faces. I told her it was not right to call homosexuals faggots, and that BAKLA is tantamount to saying FAGGOT. 

Unfortunately for her, this BAKLA is not your ordinary parlor gay. This BAKLA lives in fancy houses, in condominiums, drives around in fancy SUVs, wears hundred thousand peso watches, and sports the latest and most expensive technology pieces. I am no ordinary BAKLA. 

What type of customer service does Landmark offer if one of their regular employees, like Li-J, would just loosely call people using derogatory terms. What type of management does Landmark have if they tolerate bigots in the workplace?

A crowd of salesladies arrived to watch the scene. I made things interactive for them. Pointed to two, and asked them if they were regular employees or contractual employees. They were contractual employees. I asked one of them if they would call a customer they were speaking to over the phone BAKLA. She replied she wouldn't because she respects the people she interacts with at work, co-workers or customers. 

RESPECT.

I was not respected by Li-J. To her, I was nothing but some makulit na BAKLA. 

I am a Filipino. I work and pay my taxes. I work hard and contribute to the countries GDP. I am a Filipino and yet I am not accorded with the same rights that my heterosexual counterparts are given. I cannot marry the person I love here in my country. I will have to go to some foreign land and marry my boyfriend there, but my country will never recognize our union. Our assets will never be shared. As much as I want to share everything with him, I can only put my name or his name at each property that we buy. I am not given the same rights as my countrymen and to make things worse, I am not respected by the staff of Landmark just because of my preference. To Landmark, I am a third class citizen regardless of how much I spend in their department store. 

7-day suspension is not enough. After that, she returns to work and its as if nothing has happened. If indeed Landmark does not tolerate bigots, they should let her go. I will no longer be able to shop freely in their department store because I now have the impression that all their salesladies are bigots, if their regular employee manning customer service is given free reign at calling customers derogatory terms.
 
If she is let go, she will find another job and forget everything that happened to her today, March 27th. I will have to live with the fact that a Landmark employee insulted me, when my complaint was right, when it was indeed their lapse for not informing us of the ORs and sales invoices. 


Where is the justice?

Evil Relatives

borrowed from passionatescribbles.blogspot.com

I'm sure all of you have your fair share of stories on how evil your relatives are. Nobody takes the cake on how evil my mother's family is.

Yes, I will give you a background on how shitty my mother's family is.

My grandmother used to be in charge of the finances of my mother's company. She stole money from my mother. Can you imagine, stealing money from your own daughter? There must be special place in hell for people like her. I really don't know where the money went. It probably went to her youngest son, who is a BUM, or one of her daughters, the SLUT.

So evil grandmother is recently back from a hiatus in the US. She used to live there with my closet-gay uncle, who at over 50 has not yet come out. Funny thing is, everybody assumes he's gay anyway. He sent the mother back to the Philippines when gay marriages started becoming legal in the US, so go-figure. He must have an American homo waiting to marry him stuffed in a condo somewhere in San Diego. And he didn't just send evil grandmother home, he also sent home senile veteran grandfather. So the couple from hell are back in Philippine shore.

Now, evil grandmother is staying in the house of Tita SLUT, who ended up marrying Tito POBRENG BEJO. Tita SLUT is sort of stupid, because she should have just used her looks and vajudge and snatched an old rich man who is set to die, and leave her all her money. Instead, the airhead decides to marry a poor INTSIK-BEJO from the slums of Binondo. Seriously?!? The only thing Tito POBRENG BEJO is good at is stealing money. They were part of the Balajadia pyramid scam. The guy "allegedly" has multiple businesses, but seems to be hell-bent on gaining access to the measly veteran's pension of senile grandfather. He would go through extremes just to secure what is a little over US$100 a month. To the extent that he would declare the ATM of senile grandfather stolen. Imagine that?!

Evil grandmother on the other hand, probably missing the high-life in San Diego under the wing of Tito Closet-Gay, pretended she was dying and forced herself to be confined in Philippine Heart Center.

Of course, the vultures descended! All the other siblings in other parts of the world flew back to Manila to pay homage to the beautiful acting skills of evil grandmother. She miraculously recovered afterwards. Sad, the siblings thought they could start dividing their mana.

Tito BUM has a wife who went to Singapore to work, she's pretty stupid though. The only reason she's surviving Singapore with her broken English is because everybody there talks Singlish! Last I heard is she wants to quit, and she has not saved enough. By the way, she works at a 24-hour convenience store! How can you not last in a convenience store. You don't really need a college-degree for that! She wasn't able to save because Tito BUM and his stupid daughter flew to Singapore twice for vacation already. Hello!

Tito BUM should have died years ago. In one of his regular drinking sessions in their house in Quezon City, he got into an altercation with the neighbor who stabbed him. Missed his heart though. It is true what they say, ang masamang damo mahirap mamatay.

I have a tita who lives in Australia now. She used to be a doctor here in the Philippines, married another doctor. Apparently, however, just because you're an MD, and you marry one, doesn't mean you have a comfortable life. The husband's mother is... or was... even a corrupt judge, so she is... was loaded. She died recently, much to the joy of Tita MD's husband. They migrated to Australia, but Tita MD ended up working as a nurse. She's better off, because her husband ended up becoming... a BUM! Can you imagine? You're an MD in Australia, and he just stays in their house? It gets better, he doesn't just stay in the house. He surfs porn all day! How did we know? Tita MD caught some charges on his credit card for porn sites. And Tita MD doesn't get any financial assistance from this guy! He only pays for his share in the house. Talk about married bliss.

I should probably write a book on this. Maybe a television channel will pick it up as a telenovela. They're sick, really. No wonder I am anything but normal.

The Filipino family is now driven by greed, money, lust, drunken-stupor. No wonder the Philippines is 3rd world.

My sister and I are waiting for their generation to die, already. Because when my mother's generation dies, My siblings and I are on top of the heap. And what will we do? Well, we'll continue the family tradition of course. We will make sure that the stupid daughter of Tito BUM gets what she deserves. And the adopted daughter of Tita SLUT, well, I'll send her to the whorehouse, just like her mother.

Curbing My Urges

Was at Glorietta 3 today after work. Got a haircut and purchased a Moshi iPhone 4S back plate. That was everything I budgeted to purchase. You see, I'll be purchasing a 60sqm condominium over the weekend, so I really have to curb my urge to purchase on a whim.

I was tempted by Fino, however. I didn't give in, though. I almsot purchased a leather iPad 2 folio, but I didn't! Somebody please congratulate me!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad2

Keep Your Friends Close and Your Enemies Closer

borrowed from http://intrepid-llc.com/branding/new-book-cover-design/

I hope people aren't sick of what is turning out as a series for the bane of my existence at work. The picture is cute, isn't it? Apparently, there's a book entitled Shedding the Corporate Bitch. I personally have not seen a copy, but I will check Amazon later.

I had once been asked by an officemate of my boyfriend if I enjoyed working in the corporate world. You see, their world is different. In their office, the women dress up, wear stilettos, and get paid to shop. I told her I wasn't enjoying it because backstabbing is part of the culture, and bitchiness is the name of the game. Truly, it is in my current job where I was really able to apply the adage, "keep your friends close, and your enemies closer."

I attended a board meeting today (yes, it doesn't get any more corporate than that.. a board meeting!). One of the board of directors posted I question about an event that we held last December. She asked why we did not charge the extra guests an entrance fee. I knew the answer rather well, that the other faction of the organization that I work for, led by a sly old Chinese bitch, ordered the dumb bitch-that-I-hate-so-much co-manager of mine not to charge anymore. That Chinese bitch, and dumb bitch co-manager are really such a good team. So what did I do? Well, dumb bitch co-manager was on leave and wasn't in the board meeting, so I, after my uber-evil mind ad calculated the damage to her and to myself, told the truth. I told everyone that dumb bitch co-manager ordered that we don't charge the extra guests anymore. Everybody was shocked! Who is she to order that we don't charge the extra guests?

Of course within minutes, my boss who was in the same meeting, sent me a message to scold me. Get the facts straight, he said. Oh please, it doesn't get more straight than that! I knew he was going to scold me for telling the truth, because dumb-bitch co-manager is his pet. And of course dumb bitch co-manager who was but a text message away defended herself by saying that she only ordered that extra guests don't pay for the people directly under her jurisdiction. Oh please, like we don't belong to a complex linked to each other! If you order that people under your jurisdiction, the other two jursdictions shouldn't pay as well, otherwise, they would question why they're paying. Furthermore, the people in her jurisdiction were the ones who brought their entire baranggays to the event! Hello?!?

Get my facts straight. Well, yes, to get my facts straight, I did what was right. I was to be scolded in the process, but it was a smile price to pay for the chink that I caused dumb bitch co-manager's armor.

Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Why did I bring that up? Because I had a little skit during the board meeting. I knew the scolding was going to come, by text, not as much expected. But as soon as I received the scolding, I acted dumb. Like, oops, I didn't know it wasn't that way (think Elle Woods in Legally Blonde clueless, but brilliant!). I still come out clean. A bit ditzy, but still clean. After all, I'm just the poor little rich boy who was hired to handle the socials, and other kasosyalan of the complex. All I know is to shop, right?

She really has to be careful of me. I'm evil. I learned from the best. My high school was really good training ground for these acts of deviousness. I survived an evil pack of fags in high school, and I still came out to be the clueless ditz who couldn't harm a fly. Well, they didn't see anything coming.

Watch out for more of my brand of corporate politics. If I'm successful, I will be shedding that dumb corporate bitch.

Counting the Hours

Pretty exhausted already at work, and yet only half the day has past. Can't wait for 5:00PM so I can already leave. Or maybe its the lack of potassium that's causing me to feel exhausted? Who knows? Feel pretty idiotic though. I actually have to consciously remind myself to drink water, otherwise I wouldn't be getting any water at all. So that's going to be part of the New Year's resolution. Funny, to ensure that I don't forget, I stuck a post-it note on my PC's monitor. How sad is that? Counting the days, as my boyfriend flew for UK just this morning. He'll be returning on Friday. So, for the time being, I will be all by my lonesome in the condo, catching up on TV series, and on my reading. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPad2

Atonement

borrowed from beeonfilm.blogspot.com

I am not one to turn this blog into a movie review site. I just wanted to share how my error in purchasing this DVD has been an opportune coincidence as I ended up liking its quite tragic turn out.

I purchased the DVD thinking it was a period piece ala Pride and Prejudice, or Sense and Sensibility. Try as hard as I may, I can never finish these novels of Jane Austen. I would often start reading the book, only to stop midway. Eventually, a couple of years or so later, I would try to start reading it again, only to lose interest.

I have seen the movies though, and I always seem to typecast Keira Knightley into period films, thus. It had been my mission for quite so long to be able to watch Atonement, then. Finally, I was able to purchase a copy, and I ended up watching it after a busy day of teaching. Much to my surprise, it was set in World War II.

It's a World War II Romeo and Juliet drama. I don't really want to dwell on the storyline as I know a quick search on Wikipedia would help those seeking the plot out. I wanted to tell everybody that even though I hate dramas, I actually like this one.

It must be the tragedy. Robbie and Cecilia, never being able to really get the much deserved time that they wanted, all because of a sister who cried wolf sending Robbie to jail.

It was a love story that never was. In the end, Briony, the wicked sister who had so much to atone for felt that in order to do justice to her sister and sister's lover, she would fictionalize the ending of her autobiographical account, Atonement. Cecilia and Robbie died months apart during 1940.

She romanticized it. Now, I don't want to sound as if I am a person of faith, but I believe no such fiction was needed. You see, Robbie died in the war, and Cecilia died because of the bombings of London during the war, months apart. I want to see the coincidence of dying months apart as romantic in itself already. Neither needed to live long without the other. They did end up spending time together, they had an eternity of not waiting for a lifetime to be together.

Valentine's Day is still over a month away, and I am not churning out the sick-puppy eyed lovestruck addict just yet, but the movie struck me. It would be more difficult living a lifetime without that one great love of yours. So why bother. Pray for a coincidence, because if you're lucky enough, you don't have to spend a lifetime of waiting for an eternity to be together.

Hah, random thoughts.