The Working Girl Blogs Revision 2.0 Blog #43: Getting used to things To see all of Bobbie's Working Girl Blogs, click on this link: http://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/book/19261/working-girl-blogs

There are four things I'm putting in tonight's blog: one - I've been in the Philippines over five days now, on a business trip for my company, to help set up a new call center; two - I'm getting to know the place and the people (and the shopping!) and am enjoying it so far; three - there was a metro-wide blackout due to downed power lines because of a typhoon, and: four - apparently I look like someone named Nancy.

Like I said, I've been here more than five days, and I'm getting used to everything and settling in. The company has us living in a residential apartment it maintains for local and visiting company VIPs (I'm a VIP now. Cool!). The rooms assigned to each of us are big (I counted the tiles, and I estimated my room to be about twenty feet by twenty), well appointed, with its own cable TV, wifi (though all four of us are sharing the relatively tiny 1.3 mbps bandwidth that's tapped into the company's comm pipe, I've been getting fairly decent performance since we started using it), a mini-fridge and an en-suite bathroom. It's on the sixth floor of the building and I got a great view of the city - not the city where my company is but the city adjacent to it. We're near the global HQ of the Asian Development Bank, and we're just a block away from a ginormous shopping mall called the SM Megamall (SM, I'm told, means "Shoemart" - the name of the original company from the fifties, which was, of course, a shoe store). Megamall is the sixth largest in the world (Apparently, three of the ten largest malls in the world are in the Philippines), which doesn't hold a candle to the one in Manila, called Mall of Asia (which is the third largest), and where my new officemates will be bringing me to this weekend (wheeee!), and maybe catch a movie at the IMAX movie house there, and shop a bit. (Did I mention shopping?)

Ahem... So. Enough of this shopping fixation.

I was also assigned my own car and driver, which would be at my beck and call the whole time I would be here. And before my head started swelling from all of these perks and benefits the company was regaling us, the country branch manager explained that it was cheaper to house us in the company-owned apartment rather than put us up somewhere else, and the car & driver was a security requirement - apparently, expats are sometimes targeted by kidnap-for-ransom gangs. I got scared at that, but the manager said it's really not dangerous - all we needed to do was exercise a little care, as we would in any big city back home, and we'll be fine.

That made me feel fine until I read the pamphlet the company printed up for us (although, given the kind of typos that they forgot to fix, I suspected it was made up by Sammi back in the office heehee), and we were given our short briefing our first day at the office. Our drivers will be with us at all times so long as we were not in the company offices or the apartment (they're trained undercover security professionals. Manny, my driver, is a really big, intimidating-looking guy, a deputized Fil-Am ex-US marine, and keeps a licensed and registered sidearm hidden under his windbreaker), and we are to use the car they provided at all times. Also, we are to keep the company-provided celphones turned on at all times for communication and tracking purposes, and we are to minimize talking with strangers.

This was all very cloak-and-dagger scary, but the branch manager said it's just the company over-reacting and protecting itself from liability. He also said I didn't look like a typical Caucasian, and that Manny and I looked just enough like the locals that he thinks I wouldn't be bugged too much. So long as I don't speak too loudly with my accent, the only interest that people would show is the typical passing glance that guys do with girls.

That first day at the office, my new officemates wracked their brains for a unique place to take us to for late lunch and, though it was not upscale at all (in fact it was very down-scale, I suppose down to the level of a greasy-spoon diner back home), they decided to bring the four of us to a place called Harbor View: it was a long, old wooden pier sticking out over the water of Manila Bay, with an awning and tables & chairs, and they served local seafood dishes. Lots of wind and spray, great view of the bay, passing ships and the sun & clouds, plus the great food. Although I was a little scared about all the locals that hovered around us. Some kids hung around us, panhandling, but Manny said not to give them any money and allow the government folks from social services to take care of it. I felt overwhelmingly sad that, with all my woes, and all the woes of my country, here are a gaggle of scruffy little kids in these circumstances, who've probably gone though more than any people I know have gone through. Despite the problems of our present economy, we don't really know how good we have it.

The weather was pretty hot. Not substantially hotter than back home but the near 100% humidity is the killer. But Tuesday was overcast the whole day. By evening, it started to rain, and apparently there was a typhoon on its way (that's what they call cyclones here), and because of downed power lines, there was a metro-wide blackout most of Wednesday. Good thing our building had a generator (call center, y'know). Wednesday, the metro was covered in tree branches, fallen billboards and the detritus of a fairly strong storm. But to these people, it was like they were used to it. Normal work and activities happened despite these things - for example, cars would drive around the fallen trees as everyone waited for the highway people to clear them up. One has to think of the difference in the lives of people living in the tropics, where typhoons are a regular part of life.

Anyway, during break, I try my best to hang out and talk with the local staff, get to know them and start getting a feel of their working style. Doing this kind of thing back home took me months just to feel at ease, deliberately holding my insecurities in check, and just trying to be normal (I'm sure some of you know what I mean). Now I'm doing it here, among foreigners (although, I suppose, I am the foreigner here, which makes it doubly difficult). Well, as Paul said, "fear is the mind killer." And, I found them paradoxically easier to talk to than the guys back home. It's like they're bending over backwards to be more accommodating. With what I'm trying to do, this seems to have made it easier.

I noticed that most of them would become quiet as I carried on conversations, like they were hanging on every word I said. Well, true, most of the time I was "lecturing" them how things are mostly done back home and back in the main office, and that I am nominally one of their bosses at the moment, so I guess that's part why. But I felt it was more than just that. Or am I just being paranoid?

Before end-of-day, I discretely pulled a couple of the girls aside and asked what was up. After a lot of hemming and hawing, one of them said that the guys were a little shy around pretty girls, and I unbelievingly pshawed that. The other one said I looked like someone named Nancy Castiglione. I wracked my brain trying to think if I knew any Italian actress or other celebrity by that name, but I was totally clueless. Still, I waved that away and said that isn't true. I guess I really didn't believe it - and in any case, what these people see is eighty percent the result of some surgeon's scalpel. Inside, I guess I thought my outside was mostly artificial or manufactured, and what these people see, or think they see, didn't count.

That night, I googled that girl, and I don't see the resemblance. She's a print model that's quite popular here, and in Singapore and Hong Kong. Very, very pretty. But I don't see the resemblance at all, despite how much I wanted there to be. Liz says it might be the bearing rather than a literal resemblance. She's probably right. But in any case, I'm extremely, extreeemely flattered, but I don't believe it. (The pics in this blog are pics of Nancy and not me, 'kay? Though I wish it was me...)

The following day, I had released the proposed TO that I had drawn up and, upon instruction of the higher ups, the country branch manager implemented it right away. You can imagine the brouhaha that ensued. I tried to be inconspicuous and left with Manny and some of the staff as early as possible, and avoid the questions. Good thing the call center hasn't officially started operations. My new local friends brought me to a place called Makati Cinema Square after work, and it was a series of little stores and kiosks, almost like a flea market type of place, except that they specialized in celphones and celphone peripherals. Imagine a nice Motorola or Nokia phone for less than the equivalent of $50. Anyway, we moved from store to store, and I dutifully wrote the model and price of the phones I liked, and, if I don't find a nicely-priced iPhone, I'm getting a nice Motorola or Nokia. I am trying not to speak too much, though, because when the people hear my accent, they start becoming shy. My problem is that I seemed to be trailing a bunch of people, which got Manny agitated enough to say we should go, already. I guess business is slow, and any potential customer immediately catches their attention.

The people here are a trifle shorter than back home - the girls especially. I found that they are around my height range, which made me feel good since I felt I wasn't singled out anymore (as some out there know, I have a bit of a thing about my height, or lack of it). And I found myself being more outgoing, since I was so much more at ease, or perhaps less insecure. And, come to think of it, I felt less insecure about almost everything since, in my mind, I am among strangers and therefore they don't know me from before - they just know me as how I am now. It is quite liberating, actually.

Intellectually, though, I know that's just a load of bull - back home, the people I meet on the street are total strangers as well: they also don't know me from before. But that's how I feel. Some psychiatrist out there can probably understand why that is, but I can't. Guess it shows how screwed up I am.

The long and short of it is that I am enjoying myself here. I'm gonna be real disappointed when I have to leave.

Today, we four expats needed to handle the fallout of the new policies that we just released, my new business processes and TO being just two of them. The questions were coming fast and furious, and our VP for BPO Operations, and the other two directors were making hash of everything, explaining the details of the changes, and just confusing everyone instead of answering their concerns. During a lull, I asked to take the podium, and the first three things I said were: there won't be anyone fired, there won't be any changes in anyone's salary or compensations, and that for details of their restructured responsibilities, they should talk to their immediate supervisors. From then on the staff was a lot calmer and the meeting went ten times more smoothly and less ugly.

Afterwards, still not liking confrontational situations, I retreated to my temporary office to sort of take a breather, and, aside from the twenty or so people who said "hi," I got to spend the rest of the afternoon quietly doing some more paperwork and working on this blog. Our VP passed by and said, "good work," which made me inordinately cheery, and went home early, passing by a "Jollibee" for some takeout (imagine a McDonald's, but instead of a clown, think of a big bumblebee in a red busboy jacket... and no pants...).

When we got to the apartment and I had sent Manny home, I retreated to my room with my "yumburger" with cheese, fries, and large Coke Zero, and proceeded to finish up the blog.

Pretty okay day. Actually, pretty okay week. Like I said, I'm gonna be sad when I have to leave.

Author's note: The pictures are public-access internet pictures of Nancy Castiglione, the magazine model, and not me. 'Kay?

To see ALL of Bobbie's blogposts, click this link: http://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/blog/bobbie-c To see Bobbie's stories in BCTS, click this link: http://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/book/14775/roberta-j-cabot