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.

tabi tabi po

as the lady beside me adjusted herself for the 27th time since the bus started moving five minutes ago, i couldn't help but ask myself, aren't there commuting rules that one, by mere common sense and etiquette, knows?

i mean, considering that we were all squished together like sardines in a too-tight row, it makes sense to wiggle at least once (to find a comfortable position) and then stay put for the rest of the trip, thereby allowing one's seatmates to continue on with the bus ride in peace. while i generally make exceptions for (1) parents with kids; (2) sleeping people; and (3) elderly, i couldn't, for the life of me, understand why the lady beside me kept moving, and moving, and moving, and moving. i was <--this--> close to elbowing her and asking her to stop.

then again, elbowing one's seatmate while confined in sardine-like manner is also against the commuter's bible.

in the beginning, i thought i was alone in thinking that there's some unwritten set of rules out there regarding commuting, until a friend brought up during conversation how she already had the "seat of honor" in front of the FX, thereby giving her the choice whether to scoot near the driver or to get off and make the second person scoot towards the inner seat. apparently, she chose to make the second person sit near the driver, which made said person complain and argue that it was she who had the right to the window seat since she came in second. my friend ended her story with a question: diba unwritten rule na ako yung may choice dapat sa situation? and you know what, i could only agree.

having commuted almost my entire adult life, i have a bazillion and one experiences with commuting. i also have a bazillion and one "rules" floating around in my head. (1) no one should play music that can be heard by others on the bus, especially if there's a movie playing; (2) if one is standing, one should mind her bag to make sure that said bag does not hit the poor passenger sitting down; (3) if you won't be getting off in the next five kilometers, it does not make any sense why you won't accede to the conductor's request to move further inside the bus; (4) if your kids have motion sickness, you better make preparations way ahead of time; (5) the bus is not a trash can; (6) neither are the streets outside the window; (7) if you can't keep your hands each other, get a room; (8) shower; (9) i don't like to hear you entire life story/love life/ business dealings the entire bus ride -- a short conversation is fine, a long conversation at the top of your voice is unbearble; and (10) i am in the bus to get somewhere, not to make friends with strangers.

do you have "rules" of your own? share them please ☺

p.s. this post was written in honor of a good friend over at commuter who has recently re-started blogging and has chosen -- obviously from the blog title -- commuting as his blog theme. i am reminded of when i started to blog and wanted to do the same thing, hence the URL http://busrider.blogspot.com, but was unfortunately unable to come up with something interesting on a daily basis. go show him some love, will you?

cardriver turned busrider once more

let me let you in on a not-quite-a-secret: i love commuting, as long as commuting is an option and i can take the car when i want.

complicated? here's the long-ish explanation that i hope will make sense:

growing up, i couldn't really understand why my mom would sometimes opt to commute rather than take the car to work. she'd drive and park at a certain undisclosed location, then take the jeepney all the way to laguna. it isn't safe at all, some of her friends reminded her.

me -- i resented not being able to use the car, even more so when my mom and dad first went to the US and i was living in las pinas and commuting to ortigas on a daily basis. there were two serviceable cars in the garage, and there i was, in my teacher outfit, daring myself to go out in the pouring rain. i think more than once i almost cried at the thought that the cars were drier that i was.

and so what if i couldn't drive yet. IMHO, the reason why i couldn't drive was the fact that i didn't have any vehicle to practice on.

then my mom went home, and then she migrated to the US for real and she had no choice but to distribute the cars to her kids: one for my brother, and one for myself. and since i had to get an operation which basically left me unable to get around in jeepneys and buses, i had to learn how to drive real fast.

and you know what, i did. of course that didn't happen without a bazillion mishaps taking place, but i didn't care. a car is a thing. a thing can be replaced and/or fixed. freedom -- the kind that comes with a vehicle -- is priceless.

so i drove -- to the shopping center (from my dorm 300 meters away, but so what?), to law school, then eventually to work, then one magnificent moment -- from UP to BF. after that, sky's the limit. i had me and my car, and we were going places.

and when spike arrived, that meant more freedom -- spike was tiny, can be parked easily, and zoomed (as quickly as a 1.3 can) around the city. spike went to tagaytay. spike went to cabanatuan. spike went to subic. spike went where i wanted to go. i may have had boyfriends then, but spike, spike was (and is) my one true love.

then gas prices increased. and spike had to learn how to stay at home. or, since taking a trike was expensive, spike had to be parked in the exact undisclosed location where my mom used to park her car.

they say an apple doesn't fall far from the tree. in this particular case, as much as it pains me to admit, yes, i am very much like my own mother.

but then as i am the one who pays for insurance, regular maintenance, gasoline, and all other incidental car expenses, i finally understood the charm that comes from having a car and then not using it. when i wake up each morning, i'm faced with a dilemma -- do i take the car or not? if i'm late, i definitely take it. if i'm not, i sometimes don't. if i'm sleepy or particularly broke, i commute. and if i'm feeling rich or the skies are dark, then i take spike. i realized that freedom didn't come from car ownership; freedom came from having the choice as to what to do with the car.

so, while i still am a cardriver, i regularly dabble with being a busrider once in a while. try it ... it could be fun.