Sunday in Manila

Saturday was a non-event. I slept most of the day. I got up at 7pm, ordered some room service and then went back to bed at 11pm. I slept until almost dawn. I had a long leisurely breakfast at the hotel before heading out for a walk to explore the city.

Unlike last Sunday, this day was more kind to me and my walking tour. It was fairly cool with a light breeze, but very very humid. I was dripping wet by the time I got to the office a few blocks away. I went there to make a few calls home and, my luck being what it is, no one took my calls. Saturday night back home is not a good time to call, I guess. I’ll give it another try in a day or two.

I took some videos while I was walking. The city is so quiet on a Sunday morning. The vids were taken around 9-9:30am. Almost nothing was open. It was a bit odd seeing a major city all closed up at that time of day. Thankfully there was a Starbucks open near the hotel. I was able to get a frappuccino (with jelly aka tapioca). I’m posting the videos today-of my walk, not the coffee.

I came back to post this and cool off before I head off for more sight-seeing. I’ll share more when I return.

By the way; the date stamps of these posts may be confusing compared to the times and days I reference in the posts. Manila is 13 ahead of us in the Central Time Zone. For example when I was trying call earlier this Sunday morning, it was early Saturday evening back in the US.

Day 4 and complete

The last day of training is over. It was a long day, but the trainees seemed much more confident. We treated them to pizza for lunch and had cake for them to celebrate completing the week. They were a good bunch of people and I have high hopes for them to do well.

We have the schedules set up for next week’s work on the phones. The team will be split up in two for closer supervision and coaching. The times for the teams will be 8pm to 4am and 4am to 1 pm. Mare adjustments to be made to the sleep schedule; just as I was starting to get used to the old schedule and time change. Ugh, here we go again.

It took me a while to wind down this morning. I slept well once I did get to sleep. They are doing some construction on the exterior of the hotel and that kept waking me up, but I slept pretty good in spite of that.

I was too tired to go out or do anything by the time I woke early this evening. I ordered room service and watched some TV. Sorted my laundry/cleaning and caught up on emails and other work.

I’ll get out and about tomorrow to see some sights. I hope it doesn’t rain too hard!

Day 3 of training

This session was a bit more difficult We were reviewing the most important aspects of the trainees new privledges and responsibilities. It was rough going for a while, but they slowly started to get it and the pieces fell together.

I'm still impressed with the creativity of their presentations. They have so much energy and enjoyment in the production and participation. I have been shooting videos, but I forgot to charge my camera and the battery died right as the first presentation of this session began.
I'll be sure to be charged up for the last of the presentation tonight.

Tonight is our last day of training. We'll be surprising them with a meal and cake to celebrate their completion of the training. They were so excited when I told them not to bring any food. It's going to be fun to treat them.

Day 2 is over

The second day is over and went fairly well. The rain had let up after a big lightning storm last night. Traffic back to the hotel in the morning was horrible; the worst I've seen since I've been here. It took almost 30 minutes to get back from the office.

I took a walk after breakfast to find a bakery. I wanted to get a cake for the trainees to celebrate their completing the training. I bumped into a guy that works at the hotel who had the day off and he directed me to a nice place, but put the arm on me to advance a little cash for his sick wife. I had been warned about this. I gave him a few bucks and went on my way back to the hotel for a shower and will get into bed now.

We'll see what adventures tonight brings.

Day 2 of training

We had a brief respite from the rain which has no end. I'm sleeping most of the day, so it doesn't really matter.

Our second day of training is going well. We completed 1 of 3 assessments that will be wrapped up by Friday.

The trainees are composing some hotel presentations for the rest of the class. They are doing a real entertaining job. They are using games or TV shows as the vehicles to make it fun as well as informative. I am taking videos of their shows and will post some if they are ok with it. Two of the leads (kind of like supervisors) presented separate modules from the training manual. They both did quite well.

I think I'll be staying up this morning to do some walking around before I go to bed. That is unless it is raining cats and dogs again.

Finally got a good night's (day's) sleep. I had a big breakfast at 6am and got into bed about 8:30am. Tossed and turned a bit until 10:30am. I should have ate less at breakfast. I slept great until 5:15pm. The phone woke me up, or I might have slept longer.

I had dinner with Chris at a local restaurant near the hotel. We'll realx until we leave for the office at 10:15pm or so.

We have a small group for training, so it will relaxed and much more fun. I'll share more news about the first day when we return in the morning.

First day (night) at the office

7/26 (continued).

This evening went well. We got set-up at the office. There was the usual technical problems, which was expected. I would have been surprised if there wasn't any. Everything got sorted out in the end. The big surprise was our schedule. It has been changed from 9pm - 6am to 11pm - 8am. Oy!

The office isn't very far from the hotel; only 10 minutes or so. Everyone seemed nice. I'm looking forward to starting.

My attempts to stay awake during the night last night weren't very successful. I had breakfast at 6:30am and then returned to the room about 8:00am to doze off and on until mid-afternoon. I went out to get a little exercise and try to wake up. It was a sunny day and even more hot and humid than the day before. I almost wish it would rain again. After the drowning I already got, that's saying a lot.

Tried raising my co-worker, but I think he has his phone off the hook.

We'll be going into the office later tonight to check things out and get ready for the beginning of our training on Tuesday night.

7/25/10

It was dark and stormy day. Hot and humid too.

I went to an art museum across the street. It was raining cats and dogs. The umbrella I had, courtesy of the hotel, was of alm ost no use. I was soaked from the knees down as well as my arms.

It was a nice musuem. Lots of history of the caountry and comtemporary art. Met one of the srtists there; although he wasn't the friendliest guy.

By the time I got doen with that, I was ready to go back to the hotel and dry out. Later that night I went to a mall within a block of the hotel called Glorietta and had some dinner.

I tried staying up that night to get my schedule in sync with work, but didn't have much success.

Adventures in Manila

7/24/10

I am posting videos on Youtube of my time in Manila. My ID there is jimtexan1.

I and Chris, my co-worker (he's the big guy in the vids), finally arrived in Manila at about 11pm. We made good time from Dallas to Detroit; then hit a snag due our connecting plane arriving late in Detroit. We then got delayed further due to thunderstorms. It was midnight Saturday night local time by the time we got through customs and baggage claim.

We waited for a car from the hotel to pick us up. The guy there was very nice; giving us water while we waited. To make up for a long trip, they ordered a Mercedes to drive us back. Edwin, the driver, drove like a bat out of hell because he, "knew all we wanted was to get a warm bath and go to bed." During that quick trip we had damp towels, water and candy to enjoy. A whole army of staff welcomed us at the hotel and made sure we got settled in quickly.

I tried to video the sights on the trip to the hotel, but it was too dark and we were going too fast. I'll post some shots on Sunday.

The other vids from tonight are of our car and the room I have for the next 3 weeks. I'm going to get used this life style real quick.