With so many issues I am facing right now, I am asking for understanding from all the readers of this blog. The posts have been delayed and as of this date, I now have a backlog of a twelve-day posts. The past two months have been really hectic. I was given the return-to-work order after two months of no scheduled duty brought by my company-imposed suspension last 01 to 17 September. Although the suspension was officially served on the last day, circumstances were beyond my control and the silent treatment continued almost for another month.
By 12 October, by the grace of God, I was requested to come to work and help in some official documentation. The latter was more of a pencil-pushing job rather than actual supervision. Most of the time, I even would have to bring the staff work home just to complete whatever was assigned to me on a very short deadline. As the suspension memo virtually specified a three-year moratorium of blogging about the company, at least I know I am still afforded my personal right to blog about what happened to my personal life as well as my opinions about them.
On the first day when I reported back to work, I was amazed by the reception from colleagues. It was as if I came from a very long vacation: greetings of welcome, enquiring the circumstances, poring over my alternative plans, as well as suggestions on what to do. I took them all in stride, and just smiled knowing now that I was never alone in the period of personal darkness. Many claimed to have been following this blog even during my self-imposed incommunicado days.
Even my sisters were prodding that I come home this Holiday season and we’d talk about the alternatives. One of which was to take the available teaching job in my Alma Mater, an offer which had been announced back during the Liquidator days of NSC. I begged off then because I was re-hired as the Team Leader, Technical Planning. When my contract ended with the Liquidator, the same offer was laid on the table, but I chose not to accept it because I felt that I have this personal obligation to do whatever I can to help in my first line assignment at NSC as Shift-in-Charge then Maintenance Planner of Batch Annealing Furnaces. In retrospect, maybe I was hoping a renaissance of the golden age of NSC, what with rich investors fighting fiercely for majority control of NSC back then! Alas, I found out that it was really a fleeting dream.
When I was suspended last September, my eldest sister broached back the idea of just coming home and said: To hell with all this hoopla! [a loose translation from her vernacular]. The position is still for my taking, I only have to say the word: YES! She added that my former instructor in Electrical Engineering will retire by this school year and thus my chance of taking his place is indeed very positive. As an added bonus, my children could go to college at reduced school fees, and my eldest son will be a college boy next year!
My second sister even gave me feelers for another job in Makati Development Corp. But most everyone knew that I am not too keen in taking a job in the most expensive place in the Philippines: Metro Manila, particularly Makati! The rent is expensive, the food is pricey, the utilities are costly, the commute is long; then there’s the smog to contend with, the traffic jam to sit through; and the heat … ah, and even potable water is for sale! Environmentally, Iligan City is a safe place and the cost-of-living is affordable.
My youngest sister, my financier most of the time, supports every decision that I make. She wanted me to apply for a foreign assignment but unfortunately a good opportunity eludes me. Being more than 45 years old, it would be pure luck that I could be hired as a supervisor because I am now older than 45, or as a manager because I am still young at 46! I am presently in an in-between age: too old for supervisory; too young for managerial position! Or so they said!
I still have fifteen days to contemplate my immediate plans of going home for the Holidays, or for good. The last time I called home, my elderly mother wanted me to return to my roots, and she hummed the song: Mom, I’m coming home, so take my picture off the wall. I know she missed me and my youngest son terribly. Not knowing what had happened to me for the past three months from August to October might have been a consolation in part because I know that had my mother known, she would have insisted that I and my youngest son come home for good!
I had conspired with my sisters not to tell our elderly parents about my August circumstances because I believed that there is really no point in causing them worry for things I could handle myself. When I do go home for the Holidays, I would tell them myself. Such things are never to be relayed using what I consider the impersonal telephone. I want to see their facial reactions, especially my father’s face, when I tell them but only after I present them a hard-bound copy of my master’s thesis, as a panacea for whatever personal hurt I have and will cause.
Yet, I could really hear my father now: That’s what you get for your insistent frankness! I told you so, time and time again! My mother would simply say: So, better stay here for good! Everything has its reason and season. Yes, that’s the virtual parent in me saying what my parent would be saying to me! I remember the book, I’m Okay, You’re Okay!, I read sometime ago.
If only things could get better . . . but definitely there is still hope. For me and my family. Here’s hoping that everything will just fall into place, as circumstance often times do.
Notes:
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The Grey Chronicles 