on early mornings, late nights, and physically hitting someone in between

when i started with this company, i told myself, i'll be a model employee. i'll arrive on time, i'll ensure everything gets finished before the deadline, and i'll go way beyond what is expected of me.

and of these three, being early requires the most effort from me. i'm not an early bird, neither am i a night owl. i'm the person who'd sleep every chance she gets, and lists down "sleeping" as one of her hobbies. so for some reason, i've always taken jobs that would allow me to work flexi-time, or at least one that wouldn't require me to time in and time out every day.

until now. while one of the perks of my position is that i don't get deductions for tardiness (or at least i believe it's one of the perks, i've never tested it yet), i have to ideally be in by 8 am.

that's everyday. from monday to friday.

and oh, my work is in qc. and i live in las pinas. that's 28.5 kilometers. with traffic.

since driving almost 60 kilometers (roughly the distance from my house to tagaytay) every single day with all the maynilad diggings and skyway construction and holiday traffic isn't exactly something that i relish, i've taken to riding the mrt. as a girl, i get to ride the first car which is generally less stressful than taking the cars with mixed genders. but getting to the mrt requires a trike ride then an fx ride then a bus ride, then a 300 meter walk, before i actually get to board the train. and once i get to my stop, i have to walk around a kilometer before i can finally place my finger on the machine that'll log my arrival at work.

on my first month at work, i did great. i even arrived an hour before work starts on my first two days of work. and, while it went downhill from there, i arrived before 8 every single working day of october.

which isn't what i could say for november. 3 lates. or 4. i can't exactly remember. one happened though on the day my key broke.

so come december 1, i said i'd aim for a no-late record once more. except that the first day of the month happened to fall on a wednesday, baclaran day. and the diggings in the area have begun to cause major traffic. so, notwithstanding the lead time i had, i was five minutes behind schedule by the time i got to the mrt.

thus, it should be quite understandable if i was not only impatient with, but downright furious with this group of guys who attempted to cut in line in front of me. when they wouldn't take the hint with "excuse me, may pila po," i resorted to violence.

yes, violence. i actually pushed-hit the guy cutting in front of me and shoved him aside. and i did not mince any words at all. i did not curse, but i think telling someone how he is uneducated and hindi na aasenso is equally stinging.

i'd like to defend myself and say that i'm under a lot of stress, with KAP obligations and with my former firm still asking me to do stuff. plus it's less than a month till christmas and i haven't even begun shopping. but ultimately, i really have a short temper, and it's even shorter these days, and yesterday, as i was mulling over the sheer inefficiency of this person who shall not be named, the guy cut in front of me ... and i snapped.

i arrived three minutes - THREE MINUTES!!! -- late for work, and there being no grace period in our employee handbook, i was late, late, late. so much for being a model employee for november.

so there, i almost had an early start, and i physically hurt someone to ensure i got to work on time.

as for the super late night, let's just say i finished up at work a little before 11 p.m. and got home half past twelve. as to what happened on my trip home, that's the subject of yet another post.