Friday post

I wrote this while I was at work yesterday, Friday.

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TEMPER FUGIT

I lost my temper today. It may not be a big deal for some people but it’s a big deal for me. I consider myself good-natured and well-equipped with a pleasing personality. I seldom get angry and rarely do I raise my voice at people—whether they deserve it or not. But this morning I totally lost my cool and gave our local IT a piece of my mind. I know, I have lots of friends in the IT industry but I think I had the right to really get mad.

Last November 24, our new staff (internally hired) started. Since he already has the mandatory LAN ID’s and emails, I just requested for the transfer—and that was last November 24. I received an email that the request will be resolved by the end of the week which was fine by me. But on that day, I receive another email saying that our request will be rescheduled. Again, I have no problem with that. Then I went on leave. I just got back last Monday and much to my surprise, I saw an email that our request has been rescheduled again. I saw the history and much to my consternation, our activity was rescheduled five times. I do not think that it would take 5 weeks to transfer a Lotus Notes ID and archive. I sent an email to the officer in charge requesting for immediate resolution of our application. He emailed back and said he’ll have it done within the week. I was fine with that. However, I got an email this morning that our activity is AGAIN rescheduled for next week! I knew I had to do something so I sent an email asking for reasons why it’s rescheduled. Not contented, I called the officer in charge but there was no answer. I was very worked up by then and I knew I had to talk to someone. So I called the person in charge of assigning IT requests and asked what happened. She said that they only have one person to do the requests. I said that for the past five weeks they only have one person?! I don't think that's true. I really tried to hold onto my temper but I found myself talking and even raising my voice a bit. I told her that my staff had to go upstairs just to retrieve email and his files and it was a very big inconvenience in his part due to lost productivity and inefficiency. I could not understand why we were put on hold for so long and being rescheduled again. And so on and so forth. She assured me that she’ll give the request today and I grudgingly thanked her. Five minutes after I put the phone down, an IT guy showed up in my workstation and it took him less than an hour to install everything on my staff's computer.

I thanked the IT guy profusely. My bone of contention was the number of reschedules and the loss of productivity of my staff as well as the lack of communication. Email is a very important internal communication tool for us and keeping my staff in the loop has been very difficult. I also hated it that I had to show them my temper just for them to act on our request. It’s not the appropriate way to have things done. I even cried after my outburst—which happens after I lose my temper. My colleagues who heard my outburst were very supportive afterwards.

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DOCTOR'S ORDERS

I got the final results of my APE this Monday. Good news is that my cholesterol, uric acid and blood sugar levels are normal. My triglycerides though, are a bit high. Am already happy with that since last year, the aforementioned blood levels were high. Since our work volume is quite low, I asked permission from my boss to visit my doctors. Unfortunately, I missed the cardiologist who I was referred to, so I decided to visit my OB-Gyne instead.

I don't know if I mentioned it before, but when I got sick of UTI some months ago, I went to my HMO-accredited OB-Gyne at Asian Hospital. She's a nice doctor with a very congenial bedside manner (Dr. Regina Manahan. Would recommend my friends to her). She explains everything she does and ensures that her patients are comfortable. I was very happy when I learned that she also has a clinic at Makati Med which can enable me to see her during weekedays. So I called up her nice secretary at Asian Hospital and asked that my record be forwarded to Makati Med. She arrived on time at 3 pm and there were a couple of patients ahead of me. I still waited for an hour and when my turn came, she apologized and thanked me for waiting (now that's gracious!). We discussed my previous blood tests (FSH, TSH, LH) and she initially concluded that I do not have polycystic ovaries. However, she requested for additional tests to check why am still experiencing ammenorhea. She also referred me to an endocrinologist to check if I have hypo-thyroid something (which can also explain my sudden weight gain). She also asked me to schedule a breast ultrasound to check on the lump that was found in my breast. These are the times that I'm thankful for my HMO else I might have spent thousands of pesos on those tests alone. Although am still not happy with our current HMO. Maxicare is still the best for me.

It has been a very productive meeting with my doctor. Hopefully we can figure out what's wrong with me so if ever I decide to have children in the future, I won't have any problems. So now, I just have to finish those tests that my doctor requested and see the cardiologist on Monday (for my triglycerides).