Postcards On the Roll....

I grew up in the time when we had to travel to post offices to drop mails to different places (either to local places or to cousins based overseas). It was also during that time that I was fascinated with postage stamps & tried to collect them. When electronic mails (or e-mails) were introduced and words such as Yahoo!, Hotmail, Gmail became household names, post offices & snail mails turned ancient.

Until recently when my youngest sister asked me a favor - go to the post office to send post cards. I dug deep in my brain on the location of our post office. She narrated that she joined a postcards-exchange website called Postcrossing. You start by sending a postcard from your country to a random registered person anywhere in the world. The admin will give you a postcard-id which you must write on the postcard. The recipient will use the postcard-id to register the postcard you've sent. You can send a maximum of five postcards any time. When your first postcard is successfully received & registered, your name will show up as a recipient for another person who wants to send a postcard. So on and so forth.....

I paid almost P50 for the 3 postcards my youngest sister sent to european recipients. I don't have an idea how long it will take until the postcards reach their destinations. I already have 2 recipients - both in Europe. I haven't purchased my postcards yet & I am clueless what to write down. I've seen their profiles, & I've read the postcards they like to receive - common theme: nature.

I'm excited to start sending & receiving postcards. I feel like a kid all over again. Promise, I'll take a picture of the first postcard I'll receive. :)

www.postcrossing.com

What Late?

Not to boast but I'm not the type of person who arrives late at class/work. Since I was a kid, I was trained by my parents on avoiding tardiness. Even until my residency, I haven't gotten tired of that habit. Of course, you cannot avoid unexpected incidents (like car radiator going up which eats up a lot of time or very very heavy traffic) but those were just rare occasions. My colleagues will start to wonder that something did happen to me along the way. To quote a colleague, "Bihira lang ako ma-late." I'm a professional, and it starts at arriving on time.

With my present work, there's a rule imposed that tardiness will be sanctioned through salary deduction to encourage us to arrive on time. There was no "grace period".  Since I started there, I didn't receive any salary deductions due to tardiness. There were occasional days that I logged-in between 8:01 to 8:10 am (the latest) but I guess they were okay with it. There's just this 1 incident when I was late because of car radiator problem. I informed a colleague and a nurse by phone that I will be arriving late. I logged-in at 8:18 am. I thought "One time lang naman, hindi naman habitual. Baka pwede pa nila akong pagbigyan since may dahilan naman ako." And with my overtime hours, I guess makakabawi ako.

When I saw my payslip for the second half of December via email, I was shocked to see that I had 251 minutes (equivalent to more than 4 hours) tardiness. Almost P1000 was deducted from my salary. What?! Where did that come from? My colleagues and even the staff were surprised when I told them about it. I called our Payroll division to clarify/verify that. It turns out that the accountant was wrong about my actual clinic schedule. For 2 days (wednesday and friday mornings), she assumed that my log-in time was at 7 am but my actual time-in is at 8 am. So when I logged in at 7:59 am, she thought I was 59 minutes late. She repeated that pattern for the other days. Thus tallying to 251 minutes late. Right then & there, I corrected her by giving her my actual clinic schedule. Surprisingly, that's the first time I encountered it. If she's unaware of my actual clinic schedule, why didn't it happen before or during the first few months? Why only now? She told me that she'll give back the amount (that was deducted) on the next pay. Dapat lang! Sayang din yun.

Starbucks 2012 Planner

Every time that Starbucks Coffee offers their Christmas drinks, I become one of their patrons. I'm after the peppermint mocha. Completing the sticker booklet for a planner is just secondary, but I care less about it.

It just so happen that I was able to complete the 20+ stickers needed for the new planner. I asked myself what will I do with it since I already use Navi? On the other hand, sayang naman if I don't claim it. Probably I could sell it.

The planner (cover bamboo) is neatly stored in my book shelf, unopened. Anyone interested in buying it? :)