Define: time-out

In nostalgic moments in movies or books or any other romantic media, we always hear or see the phrase "this can change your life". Now that I am working with people, I realize that there really are moments that can change a person's life. One tiny decision that someone else makes for them, can spell the difference between success and failure in the future.

Therefore, if you are tasked to lead a team or work with people, remember these words: this can change some one's life.  Take the context of corrective action memos. Oftentimes, we issue them to team members who, in a nutshell, have screwed up. However, it's important to realize that while for us, it may be just another company protocol we need to follow, for the person, it is an important, singular learning event.

One of the things I haven't done in my life before 2011 is issue corrective action memos to people. I had always been an individual contributor, and never had to coach, motivate nor penalize anyone in my teams at work. I had feared that the confrontation involved in these kinds of interactions can be intense and pressurizing. That I have to be on edge and alert to attack on these moments.

When I remembered that a few years back, these people were me, all of a sudden, coaching became easy. I tried to think back to the times when I would screw up at work and get very anxious at what sermon the boss is going to give me, and think back to how my superiors then handled the situation. Some did well, others didn't. Those who didn't do well, I can't remember anymore. I don't even remember what the screw-up was. Those who did well, I remember like they just happened yesterday. I remember what I did wrong. I remember what I was told. I remember how I improved after.

So what do we do then? Simple, take the time to put yourself in the person's shoes. Reflect on how this person is feeling now, what he/she is thinking, where he/she is coming from. More often that not, simply putting yourself in their situation for a second can remind you that you probably were in that position once, and that, consequently, will remind you of how you felt at the time. Were you embarrassed? Did you feel ashamed? Were you smug and thought you didn't do anything wrong? Were you assertive?

More importantly, you will remember how you felt about the person who gave you the coaching for it, and the corresponding memo. You would remember if you shrugged off the incident afterward because you didn't like your supervisor. Or if you cried afterwards for being yelled at or humiliated. Or if you quit out of anger.

Think of these situations as critical learning events. By the terminologies themselves, you are supposed to provide "corrective action", meaning after you have served the memo, you would expect corrected behaviour in the future to come. And for correct behaviour to happen, a person needs to learn from the experience. He/she needs to understand where the gap was, and what needs to be done to cross it.

Realizing it from this perspective has made coaching easier for me. Instead of viewing it as a session to point out mistakes, I now view it as a session to impose a time-out, a break in the system for both myself and the person, for us to think together about the screw up that happened. What I often find is that I too learn from the session always in so many ways, and it has now become a pleasant experience for me.

Of course, learning doesn't happen overnight, and that's the real reason we have "prescriptive (or -ion?) periods" for these corrective action memos. Well, OK, these roll-off/prescriptive periods are also for the benefit of tracking, so we all have a timeline of events. What we usually fail to remember though is that it's not always a prescriptive period for a corrective action to end its effectivity. In the context of learning, it's the period you're providing the person to "learn" from this mistake and prove that learning happened by demonstrating corrected behavior.

Throughout the prescriptive period, the person is going to stumble along the way, miss a few items here and there. But remember that these are all part of the learning process. We need to constantly remind the person to get on track, and tell them if they're doing a good or bad job. Even more important, we need to assure the person that their learning is important. That they are within a safe environment wherein even though we are monitoring for hits and misses as their supervisor, we are not judging them internally as human beings.

In the craziness of the daily grind, we often forget that at the end of the day, we are all the same person - someone trying to earn a living so we can go on with life. Sometimes, we get sucked into the daily motions of emails and meetings, that working with people become the last agenda in our minds, and we resort into tick-marking the items we need to do: have I conducted a 1-1? Yes. Did I document and serve a memo? Yes. Did I submit to HR? Yes. Did the person leave before I can hire a replacement? No. And afterwards think that our work in that event is done.

If it were all that easy and automatic, leading people would've been handed over to machines and computer programs. But it's not that easy. Because the tick mark that you squeezed into your busy calendar can change the course of someone else's life.

I opened my iGoogle account to get to my shortcut for my school's website, and got digressed instead to reading the Tumbleblog. Reading 'The One with the Online Dating Game' inspired me to take a few minutes to reflect and write, and maybe change some one's life. Thanks, Megzy, for always keeping me focused on what matter most :)

Define: free gift

I got a very belated Christmas gift of a laptop bag a week back. Since we paid by credit card, we got a scratch card from Citibank that revealed a fabulous prize - a pen set!

Anything free is great, so we hopped off to the redemption booth to claim our prize. Two ladies were already waiting at the booth for their pen sets as well. Unfortunately, the booth was out of pen sets, they only had a delivery of the school supplies set - a goodie bag of crayons, pencils and art materials.

The ladies started complaining on how inconvenient the whole process is - you go to the redemption booth, which is a floor above the scratch card booth. Then, upon getting there, you don't get the prize you were promised. What if the pen set is more expensive than the school supplies set? When will the pen set be available? This is an outrageous program you have! Buti pang di na kayo nagpa-promo!

After apologizing profusely to the two customers who left greatly dissatisfied with their new Crayolas, the redemption booth lady finally turned to assist me and immediately launched into pleading explanations because she can only provide me the school supplies set.

It's a fast-paced life we live in. Our generation is used to having everything we want quickly. With the freedom of the internet and quick-changing technology, we can easily search for alternatives if companies don't give us what we want. That means companies always have to be on their toes and be ready with stuff to lure us in. Hence, the free gift.

And I am all for the free gift.

Eventually though, we get into the habit of thinking we deserve so many things in life, up to the point when we refuse to reciprocate opportunities with hard work and diligence. When we start thinking that others owe us something, simply because we exist. We get into the attitude of ingratitude.

There are so many things in life that are much worse than being given a school supplies set instead of a pen set. We have to choose our battles, and reserve our energies to fight for the things that will matter in the greater scheme of life. Sometimes the inconvenience of a situation gets the better of us, and we start to complain for the sake of complaining. But really, what is wrong with a school supplies set?

Especially if you've just been out shopping for school supplies with your kid, who looks to be at the age when crayolas are the best thing on the planet.

Define: effortless

I didn't plan on going online this afternoon, and wanted to get enough sleep before work, but a friend texted about a tsunami alert. He doesn't have a TV at home, nor internet, so I went online and turned on the TV to check the news, and pass on what I see.

The news wasn't pretty at all.

And everywhere else in social networking-dom, news of the Japan earthquake and resulting tsunami are posted.

In between checking for new updates and texting people to be safe, I go over random people's profiles, old and new: old friends, new friends, past relationships, current relationships, close family, not-so-close family, and everyone else in between. The chaos outside is a reflection of the chaos within. In between status updates of the breaking news are updates of heartbreak, triumph, lost love, found love, lost hope, new hope, bad news and good news, and everything else in between.

While pictures don't represent real life, they capture moments. Even if in real life we're not smiling all the time, the pictures tell that for those moments captured by the lens, we are smiling and happy because of whatever little thing that that moment was about.

When you find people you're comfortable working with, you grab the opportunity to work with them more.

When you meet friends who are good to you and help you be better, you stay friends with them beyond geography, age or marital status.

When you are given a family to take care of, and who takes care of you, you protect them and look after them.

When you meet people who can make you smile and laugh, you talk to them often until you can't remember what you look like frowning.

When you cross paths with someone who loves you even when you're not at your spectacular best, you stay with that person and give each other strength.

Relationships are supposed to be simple and effortless. If what you're in now is not, leave. Your time is best spent with someone else. If what you're in now is, stay. Savor the moments that make this short and unpredictable life worthwhile.

Define: disappointment

You and your boyfriend are reaching that all-important first month anniversary. You both plan for a nice candlelit dinner, a walk in the park, and a movie after. You bought the movie tickets for the best seats and checked the park opening hours. All your boyfriend needs to do is to reserve a table for two.

The long-awaited night comes, but alas – the restaurant tells you that you do not have a table. You could wait an hour though, says the maître d’, which would mean you’ll miss the entire set of coming-soon-movie trailers they always show at the start of the film. You are livid with anger! You turn to your boyfriend and ask, “how could this happen? We called!” Your boyfriend then looks at you and starts with, “ah honey…”

Your instinct is to spend the next few hours pulling your hair and muttering could-have-beens under your breath, withering away in anger at your monthsary being sabotaged. But how angry should you be? Let’s find out. It all depends on how the boyfriend delivers his first reaction to this faux –pas:

• Reaction #1: “I’m so sorry, hon. This is all my fault. I was going to call them yesterday but got pulled into so many other things at work. How about getting a quick snack now, and then maybe they’ll have a table for us after the movie?” Would you be so angry at this explanation? I’m guessing not very much. He admitted it’s his fault, gave a reason as to why he didn’t call, and offered a possible solution. A quick snack at Mcdonalds does sound fine, right?
• Reaction #2: “Hmmm. I wasn’t able to call them. But let me talk to the maitre d’. Surely she can do something for us.” And then boyfriend walks off to talk to Madame maitre d’. You’d probably still be angry, he obviously forgot… and he didn’t even say that all important word – SORRY. But he’s going to do something. So until he can’t get you that table, simmer down for the meantime.
• Reaction #3: "Hmmm. I wasn’t able to call them. I wanted to though, I wrote a to-do in my planner.” And then boyfriend joins you and you both sulk on the side walk. Oh I’m sure you are angry by now. Not only was there no call AND no sorry, he didn’t even try calling in the first place! But he did want to. He said so himself. Maybe he just got pulled to save the world just when he was about to pick up the phone in the phonebooth. Always happens to Clark Kent.
• Reaction #4: “Hmmm. I wasn’t able to call them. I didn’t think I should have. They usually have so many tables available anyway.” And then boyfriend joins you on the side walk and gives you a paper heart he fashioned out of a gum wrapper. Now he tells you that! Right when the damage is already done??? Not only was there no call, no sorry, no effort, he never really intended to call the restaurant. BUT, he’s considering now the error of his ways and has given you this gem that deserves a place in that scrapbook you started the first time you went out.
• Reaction #5: "That was tonight? Oh well, McDonalds is just over there.” And boyfriend takes out his iPhone and starts the next level of Tap-Tap Revenge. I’m not even going to enumerate what was lacking in this reaction, there are sooo many. But let’s zero in on the number one thing that this reaction lacked - care. He simply didn’t seem like he cared. Not even a false, pretend-care, which the boyfriend who gave you the gum-wrapper-heart-origami at least showed. Clearly, he doesn’t see how much this evening meant to you. And even now, when you’re angry, he still can’t see it because Tap-Tap Revenge just used Katy Perry’s Firework in the next game.

It could be your boyfriend. Or girlfriend. It could be your mom, your son, your boss, your colleague. Lots of people have disappointed us, and lots of them are about to. It’s just how the world works. Sometimes, our disappointment reaches that stage of blind anger – you’re just angry at everyone and anyone, you just can’t remember anymore why. And most of the time, a huge chunk of our anger is not about the person not being able to deliver what you expect him or her to do. It’s because they didn’t seem to care. Their initial reaction to your disappointment is all wrong, and not at all what you wanted to hear.

So next time someone does not deliver according to expectations, and further disappoints you with his/her reaction, ask yourself:

• Did the person admit the mistake? If yes, get over it, move on.
•  If not, did the person try to do his/her part? If yes, get over it, move on.
• If not, did the person intend to do what you expected? If yes, get over it, move on.
• If not, did the person consider your feelings/the consequences/that possibly you’re right? If yes, get over it, move on.
• If not, did the person at least pretended to care? If yes, get over it, move on.

If not, then, by all means, be angry. Then get over it, move on.

While it’s normal to feel disappointment and anger, wallowing in it and thinking about it all day is usually counter-productive. I’d rather paint my toenails than think about the multitude of ways I can do things better if I were placed in the disappointing person’s shoes. Disappointment is a part of life. So as soon as you feel it, try to break the disappointment down right away until you find out what about the incident disappoints you the most. And then after that, wallow in anger accordingly, but never long enough to miss the next episode of your favorite TV show.

Disclaimer: Of course, I’m oversimplifying. If you’re going through something more traumatic like a real loss, a breakup, sickness, and all those life-altering experiences, getting over it is usually not as simple as this. But, you can still try J .

Special thanks to Meg, James and Ivan for formulating this 5-level disappointment test with me. Meg needs a Jaguar, by the way.

Define: happiness

Yes, what a cliche - define happiness, lolol.

From a school reading assignment: In one online learning case, a teacher had difficulty to give grades because online learning involves a lot of assessing how a student is becoming better compared to him/herself before. In face to face classrooms, it's easy to get away with giving grades based on observing if a student is behind, ahead or just coping with how the rest of the students are performing. In online learning, much of the student's interaction is based on non-stop written correspondences. A teacher gets to see how the student is becoming better as he/she gets more and more feedback.

I was originally going to call this post define: free time. It is my belief that once afforded with free time, the mind wanders off to places that are not healthy - doubt, suspicion, idleness, and so on, as the common saying goes. We live in an age when it's common to be riddled with questions of self-worth, self-actualization, self-respect and all other questions that boil down to "why am I here?" and "who am I?". We live in a time when heartbreak is paraded for all to see, break-ups are common tabloid offerings, and even non-celebrities make their love affair, and the demise of it, known to anyone through social networking media. We post and re post quotes about love, heartbreak, finding the right person, losing the right person, seducing the right person, and everything else that can be done to the right person.

It's so easy to use love, or lack of a love life, as an excuse for raunchy behavior and depressed moments. That's what Sex and the City taught us, right? And all the other TV shows and movies before it. And even all the other classic love stories before it. So, I wonder, this quest of finding and defining happiness through love life, is it  something we believe, or is it because it's what we're trained to do? (question posed a-la Carrie Bradshaw).

Despite the Facebook and Twitter barrage of quotes about finding and not finding love, look around, and you will find, that we don't measure happiness so much based on whether or not a person is with someone. It's defined by how we see our life at the moment. Some people are happy because they have someone. Some people are happy because they are single and free to mingle. Some people are happy because they have kids, some happy because they have careers. Some are happy because they just bought their dream house, some because they are working abroad. Life, after all, is not a case of classroom vs. online learning. We don't have to fall into the trap of using other people's "performance" to measure if we are behind the rest of the pack.

So, I conclude, that the world is actually happy. We just often forget that we are because drama is so addicting and very Hollywood.

Define: reciprocation

Jeepney rides, my downtown Manila equivalent of long walks, are good times to think and reflect. There's something about the time spent alone confined in my own "upong siete pesos" space that allows me to brainstorm about things I need to do ("upong siete pesos" is an expression roughly saying that one should only occupy the space paid for in public transports, which in jeepneys is 7PHP, currently.) Naturally, I was thinking about what to write about in my blog, an exercise that I only do at the back of my head when inside the office premises. By the end of the jeepney ride I had several ideas jotted down in the other part of the back of my head, meant for notes.

I had a thank you message from a guest house I stayed at in Cebu last December. I wrote a review about them in Trip Advisor relating our experience with them. The message said that the honest review helped put them back in the competition. Another traveler also liked a review about a restaurant we ate at in the same city. He didn't think the dishes in my photos were appetizing, but he appreciated how the review was written, with information and descriptions.

Yesterday I met with two good friends (make that three, including their son), the brains behind Prodigal Concepts , and shared laughs about the blogosphere clique that we move in at the moment, about the shameless posts and reposts, tweets and retweets, links and promotions we do for each other.

I guess being an active participant online is not just about knowing how to maximize your search engine and find the best deals/travel locations/reviews/movie schedules through the internet. It's also largely about giving back. In order to get content to search from, we need to throw back content out there. Through the back and forth sending of comments, tweets, links and posts, writers and authors can get feedback on their work and improve the material they produce online.

So, while I have a thousand other things I wanted to write about from my jeepney ride, I thought it's best to talk about the importance of giving back first. We post and repost partly because we want to help other active participants remain active, and partly to promote their cause, which in some cases may be difficult to attain, such as buying Meg a Jaguar, but hey dreams can come true, who am I to judge and all that blah blah.

Define: cramming

After spending almost my entire shift at work thinking about what to write for today, I write about something completely the opposite.

(Disclaimer: Let it be known that I was still working on my projects and tasks in the office. It was just the "back of my head" that was thinking about what to write for today, not all of it.)


Today's post would've been titled define: free time, a post about books I read, movies I've seen and some other activities that filled my idle time last year. It was a year of firsts after all, and I wanted to write about that. As you can see, I'm writing about the total opposite of having free time: cramming.

Saturday is going to be my first class ever for my Master's program in UPOU (University of the Philippines - Open University; as an Instructional Designer, I've developed a tick to define all acronyms when it appears the first time). I have a vague memory of being told that I should get my learning materials nearer the date of the first class, which in my mind, means I'm free not to think about my schooling ALL December. So there I was, reading Pride and Prejudice, watching Tron, Christmas gift shopping, snoozing and napping and visiting bazaars where I end up not buying anything but the entrance ticket.

Today, I called up the office to follow up on my "materials" and received instructions for a lot of different things instead. I neglected to check my other email account, where a welcome email was sent, detailing the many tasks I should've done during December - requesting for an account being the primary one. Without this account, I can't join the January 8 class and I can't download any of my course guides or modules.

Some things I learned from this latest cramming experience:
1. If you maintain several email addresses, check each one of them daily, or set up a filter for forwarding to a master email address.
2. Research what you need instead of waiting to be told. It's the age of forums, tweets, and constant gut-spilling by people. Surely, the information is out there.
3. Perform your tasks with open eyes, not half asleep. I'm pretty sure I was half asleep during enrollment, and so didn't bother with the details.

Jessie, a friend of very sensible and logical mind, sort of prepared me for something like this. He told me UPOU programs are self-study-intensive. You have to be willing to do the work and always be active online. I believed him this morning, and I believe him now even more.

Good bye free time, school time is here. I will try to write about you some day in between trips to the bathroom or while eating a 5-minute lunch.

Define: 2010

While doing my annual documents purge, I came across a page in my 2010 planner listing things I would like to do in 2010. Amazingly, some of them did happen!

(2011 things to do item: Do not get gigantic, hard-bound planners anymore, no matter how pretty they look. You do not use them anyway.)

1. March to the beat of my own drum - subjective item, therefore DONE!

2. Take up a course in teaching English as a second language - FAIL (I got accepted to another program on distance education, so on further studies - DONE!)

3. Go back to studying French - FAIL (I learned Spanish, so for foreign languages - DONE!)

4. Visit Boracay - DONE! (Thanks to doc Mine, boss Toni and Ivan albazaar)

5. Visit Siem Reap - FAIL

6. Finish "first decor ever", a crosstitched piece I've been working on since January 2009 (gasp!) - FAIL

7. Encode past writings into digital format - FAIL

8. Speak one language at a time (i.e. no Taglish nor Singlish) - removed due to technical difficulties. Is there another way of saying things like "Sige, text mo na lang ako" without using Taglish?

9. Complete my sentences when speaking - Partially DONE, and will carry on in the new year.

10. Reduce my "ummms" (speech nervous habit) - FAIL. In fact, I'm now worse. My training trainers will be disappointed.

11. Eat fruits everyday - DONE. Fruitas counts.

12. Bring baon everyday - FAIL