The Elevator

I'll be celebrating my 9 years in the call center industry this year and  for the most part I am very pleased with the experience. I've endured a P12k base salary when I started, night shifts, political uprisings in the workplace, personal resignations, 7 different CEOs, earthquakes, mega-typhoons and the yearly news that the company will shut down, and ehem, soon. All of that is nothing compared to the daily torture that I go through almost every day: the IBM Plaza elevator.

Ten Things I Hate About You:
10. The color green and light-brown palette of the elevator walls is not soothing to the eye. It's like you're in the forest with wilted trees about to die. Whoever did the redecoration needs to study basic color blocking. A ten year old could do much better using crayons!

9. The spray that hovers on the upper right corner, waiting to spew out its perfume-of-pungency, is not pleasant to the nasal cavities. That is an understatement. The smell is nauseating and is much more suited to a building in Quiapo than one in the supposed Cyber-city of Manila!

8. A reflective door is fine if the people occupying the front row are at least tolerable looking. With the current majority population of the building being the tech-savvy yet non-aesthetically pleasing (bordering on horrifying) folks from the special floors, I prefer matte, thank you. And that most of them don't seem to bathe daily, adds to the unpleasant experience tenfold. Perhaps the perfume spray in the elevator was made for them? Hmm...

7. There are three elevators in the main hall but for some unexplainable reason, only one or two are working at a time. Color-coding? Cost-cutting? Act of God? Please explain!

6. Because the demand for the elevator exceeds the supply, you would often see lines of people awaiting their turn to ride the box of discomfort. The queue you see even exceeds the amount of daily calls that certain accounts have per day. Sad. :)

5. The weight sensor is faulty, or non-existent. Irregardless if you have 25 people squeezed like sardines inside, the elevator will insist on opening and seemingly allow more people in. The catch: once the next person comes in, it will sound an alarm that the maximum capacity is reached and it won't move until someone steps out. Eeny-meeny-miny-mooh, you're out! Fun!

4. Talking about sensors and the lack thereof, I have witnessed at least 5 people get painfully squeezed between the doors while going in!  It's like the elevator is hungry for the masses! Well as long as it only eats the gaudy, non-Thompson people I'm fine. :)

3. Like a scene from a suspense flick, the elevator will sometimes stop mid-floor with half a wall and half an opening facing you. Just imagine that happening while you're alone, in the middle of the night ,with half a door of your reflection in front of you. And the other half...could be a reflection of someone else...

2. For ambiance, instead of music, people are treated to a series of frightening grinds and whirls to give you that unforgettable sensation that the elevator is about to crash. A free roller-coaster feeling every time you ride! Wheee!
It also makes you closer to God as you pray fervently each time you ride the elevator of doom!

1. And the single-most thing I  hate about this contraption: the speed. I swear, it's 2010 but I feel like the elevator was made in 1910, where people can leisurely wait for an hour while the business world goes on without them. To add insult to injury, it insists on stopping on all of the special floors of the tenant with the most number of levels in the building, even if no one is coming in or going out of that specific floor! Who do you think you are: %$$2@%!!!

My opinion: Impractical, technologically backwards and down-right shitty. There I said it!

Thankfully, we have the small scenic elevator at the back. If you don't mind the view...

The Road Not Taken

I'm not a what-if guy. I try not dwell on the what-could've-beens, or supposed missed opportunities as I find it a waste of time better spent on something else. I always try to live in the present and leave the past where it belongs, in the past. My sense of nostalgia is minimal and you wouldn't find me gushing over long lost memories over a cup of coffee with friends for hours. A few minutes maybe, but I'd rather not waste time talking about school memories that you could never change -- unless you have time travel powers, there's no use debating whether my life would be different if I went to the blue school instead of opting for the one with statue of the naked guy in front. I'd be more snotty-nosed for sure, so on second thought I probably made the right choice.

And school romances? Of course I had my share--I'm not some gargoyle living on top of a stone arch! I have my own broken hearts and king-of-the-world moments, but I'd rather keep them as that, moments. Kept in a special place in my small heart. And not to be discussed in a blog, ever.

Career-wise it's been a fun roller coaster ride for years. True, I've resigned and accepted offers more for the love of work than for money, and many friends find it impractical for me not to exploit my skills for more economical gain. But this is one part of my adult life that I have found most insightful. I have met a lot of interesting, quirky, and downright weird people, and interacted with them in a high-stress, constantly evolving environment -- the call center. And this I wouldn't change that for one million bucks. But I will for two. :)


So what's my point in all of this? Nothing. Nostalgic reminiscing works for some (specially those that watch those oh-so-predictable tele-novellas and plot-light tear-jerker movies ), but not for me. I'm a live-in-the-present, plan-for-the-future person. Some may find me emotionless, but that's not entirely true. I'd rather call myself unemotional.


And that's that.