Today’s my first day at my new job. I reported for work after lunch but not after reporting to my old workplace first.

I had to drop by my old workplace first thing this morning to conduct a scheduled panel interview, together with my officemates (Cocoy and Gerald), for my replacement. Unfortunately, the guy didn’t show up and so I just had to spend the entire morning creating a list of my turnover and training activities. Gerald, on the other hand, went on with another scheduled applicant interview but for a different position, of which he had a funny and interesting story to tell us afterwards.

He came into the interview room and saw a female applicant stooping down, fidgeting with something. It turned out that the applicant was in front of a wall outlet with a phone charger in hand, apparently charging her mobile phone. Thereafter, during the interview process, Gerald was interrupted midway through one of his questions, when the applicant asked if they could cut short the interview since she had to rush to her current work to avoid being late! Ha! Yikes!

Can you believe it? I thought I heard it all. Oh well, I guess it’s all in a day’s work. Cheers!

Is subscribing to cable TV really worth it? Sometimes it is, but most often it isn’t.

You see, it all starts with the way it’s marketed. You can see it everywhere. One of the marketing points being touted by competing cable TV providers is by stating how many channels they serve. In this case, the usual spiel would be for them to: 1) list how many channels they have; 2) list some of their well known programs such as HBO, Star TV and ESPN; and 3) list channels that are targeted for a specific demographic community (Chinese, Indian, Arab, Filipino, etc).

Not that this is bad in any way. It’s actually good – if you’re a motel or realty owner and plan to resell it, that is!

You see, the Pinoy Juan’s instinctive reaction to these ads is to see which deal offers more bang for the buck. He does this by computing for the effective cost per channel by dividing the subscriber’s monthly subscription fee over the number of channels they offer. So if Cable Provider A offers a monthly cost of Php 600 for 60 channels, and Provider B offers a monthly cost of Php 700 for 80 channels, then the cost per channel of each provider would be as follows:

Provider A: Php 600 / 60 channels = Php 10 per channel
Provider B: @ Php 700 / 80 channels = Php 8.75 per channel

At first glance, this makes Provider B the better deal. And so Juan opts for Subscriber B. He even pats himself on the back for making such an astute choice, only to find out later on, to much consternation, that he might have ended up with a lemon.

You see, everything changes once the subscription starts. Why? Well, for starters, of the 80 channels, half of which use foreign language. Of the remaining 40, roughly half of this is pretty much useless stuff such as virtual aquariums, flight scheds, race results and the like. So what’s left? Oh, just about a dozen or so local VHF/UHF channels that could be seen even without cable, and about 7 or 8 channels that are good enough (at least until they start showing re-runs for the duration of the month’s program schedule) for viewing.

Juan suddenly feels gypped. He just spent 700 bucks for a measly 7 watchable channels on top of the local ones – that’s a hundred bucks per channel!

Don’t you ever wonder why won’t cable companies just sell us channels of our own choosing, a la carte style, instead of the unpalatable smorgasbord gunk of what they call intelligent programming.

Oh well, just imagine what Juan would do if it were his day off or he called in sick. You can almost picture him either catching up on a good read or just snoozing the day off.

As promised, this is the second and final part of my blog entry entitled “7 Ways to Avoid Road Rage”. The first four points covered in Part One are:

1. Be courteous.
2. Observe traffic rules.
3. Always signal your intentions.
4. Don’t tailgate.

Here are the remaining tips:

5. Observe the proper parking lot etiquette. – This is one of the most important tips to remember, since a lot of people have died just because of parking lot scuffles. Some of the parking lot rules of thumb to consider are: observe the first-come-first-served basis; if a space opens up, turn on your signal light to the direction where the parking space is to indicate your intentions, in turn, drivers who see this should understand not to take that space; when a parking space suddenly opens up behind you, don’t back up anymore and just move on; and stick to the lane you are in and try not to get too greedy with the area you are surveying.

6. Watch your high beams. – When driving at night, nothing pisses me off more than some half-blind driver forgetting to switch to low beams when approaching cars or tailing them. (In the Philippines: Jeepney drivers do the extreme opposite. Most of them drive around at night with their headlights turned off, only relying on their darned park lights!)

7. Turn down the bass. – As with tip number 6 above, here’s another example of drivers with defective senses, and this time it involves their sense of hearing. I don’t understand how people driving boom boxes for cars can drive properly and responsibly if they can’t hear what’s going on outside. Along with the sense of sight, I was made to understand that a good sense of hearing is also a prerequisite for safe and defensive driving. Not only is the half-deaf driver not able to hear cars honking at him or ambulance/police car sirens begging for road space, but some studies have shown that loud music with fast beats tend to draw out aggressiveness in people as opposed to soft, slow soothing music. This makes people more prone to succumbing to road rage. (In the Philippines: Again, a lot of Jeepney drivers are guilty of this. Heck, these drivers can’t even hear their passengers shouting “Mama, para po!!!” (to indicate that they want to be dropped off at a certain spot) or “Mama, eto pong bayad ko!!! (to indicate that they are about to pay their fare) at the top of their lungs. Mind you, a driver-passenger road rage confrontation can and does happen because of this!)

Following these tips does not guarantee that you won’t succumb to road rage or be in the receiving end of one, but it does help make the streets safer and more peaceful for everyone. Do you have anything else to add?

Happy driving!

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Related Blog Entries:
7 Ways to Avoid Road Rage – Part 1
Pasig Road Rage: Justice and Peace for Ed and Kay
Pasig Road Rage: Pasig Road Rage: Lawyer Released on Bail

What’s the popular buzzword nowadays? The term “road rage” is one of the most popular terms being used today in the Philippines, particularly in Manila. This is mainly because of the recent spate of unfortunate road rage-related crimes happening across the metropolis. It’s such a major concern, especially in this traffic forsaken land of ours where machismo, pride and ego predominate.

So how can we lessen or contribute to the elimination of road rage in the Philippines?

Here’s Part One of: “7 Ways to Avoid Road Rage”.

1. Be courteous. It pays to be a courteous driver. Just imagine what the world would be like if every driver followed the “Golden Rule”, which simply means “Do unto others what you want others to do to you”. The increase in the number of courteous drivers will help decrease of road rage incidents, which means safer streets for our everyone to ply on. But it’s quite unfortunate that a lot of stupid drivers still follow the “Do unto others before they do it to you” maxim, which really sucks.

2. Observe traffic rules. – Traffic rules were meant to aid people and help improve our overall driving experience, not limit them. Just imagine how organized and efficient our roadways will be if all drivers obey existing traffic rules – one ways, no overtaking, speed limits, no parking, etc. This leads to lesser headaches. (In the Philippines: You’d expect law makers and law enforcers to set an example, but this is more often not the case. With heavily tinted windshields, diplomatic or special plates, blaring sirens, and police escorts, they seem to think that they’re above the law, those fu#*@rs!)

3. Always signal your intentions. – If you can’t do the simple task of engaging your signal lights prior to turning or changing lanes then you shouldn’t be driving at all. Admit it, your brain just can’t handle simple multi-tasking tasks so much so that it’s eating up all of your concentration just to focus on the road ahead and not anything else. How can people expect you to handle complicated tasks such as making good driving judgment calls or performing successful evasive maneuvers? Your brain will probably be overwhelmed and “lock up” when situations like these occur. It gives a whole new meaning to the term “pea brained.” Ha!

4. Don’t tailgate. – Some people just have a fixation for trains. They seem to think that they’re the train’s caboose. (In the Philippines: You’d see these tailgate jerks swerving around, nipping at your rear, stuck to you like glue and driving in the wake of speeding ambulances, diplomatic convoys and, if they happen to have color-code violating license plates, right smack at the tail end of just about any car they come across so as to hide their plates from those “ever vigilant” law enforcers!)

Part Two’s coming up in my next post. Can you figure out what the remaining three are?

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Related Blog Entries:
7 Ways to Avoid Road Rage – Part 2
Pasig Road Rage: Justice and Peace for Ed and Kay
Pasig Road Rage: Pasig Road Rage: Lawyer Released on Bail