Cureless

It’s not so obvious that I’ve been running out of time to spend for the web lately. Aside from going to and from the business district of Makati (where I found the new job), I was also tasked during the last days of my stay to act as installer/designer/troubleshooter/whatnot at the General Headquarters. One of the things I don’t like so much about the organization is you just can’t say NO when an authority higher than your immediate boss asks you to do something.

For the past months, I’ve been doing errands from requests of former office bosses. Don’t get me wrong. I love building websites and web design, and I wanted to finish the work they’ve given me. At some point, the fact that web design is no longer a part of my job description makes me realize that I’ve been slacking off my real duties. But still some nagging thoughts come by like if I hadn’t shown my “talent” in manipulating shapes and colors through Photoshop and Flash, they wouldn’t know and I would be free from “extracurricular” work. I think its’ close to being fair if I’m doing the work for our unit. But for some other unit who are now commanded by people previously from our unit, that’s another thing.

Hay, at least can they not let me spend the rest of my days with the people I want to be with a.k.a. my officemates?

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My blood for yours. I donated blood yesterday for a co-worker but I’d like to think that I did it for the 14 Marines who were ambushed in Basilan last 11 July. Rest in Peace.

I’m not sure today. I’m feeling really lethargic even when the parade and those early-morning wake up calls to withdraw rifles from the “armory” and prepare for battle… err… formation were already over.

But this day was really special because I attended my first inspection with arms (rifle inspection) after 2 1/2 years of being in the service! I also can’t believe I performed siyasat in such a way that I won’t compromise my poise and be berated as a member of the minor gender in the troop.

(more…)

Between posting as duty, reading the OOAD book, snoozing and watching AFL on TV, I was caught in two separate conversations with senior people who have at least expressed their sentiments about our impending termination from the service. One is a Lt Colonel and the other is our own Sergeant Major.

While looking for a certain someone at the office, I mentioned about the sudden decrease in strength of officers in our command, bringing us to the topic of my batchmates and I leaving the organization for good. He suddenly popped a suggestion.

Why not get assigned at the battalion for the last month of your stay?

For sure, he’s got to be kidding because females would never be allowed take post beyond the brigade level. At least, he said, I can have a genuine experience of how it feels to take part in the war (against insurgency). And I could have something to tell the kids in the future and for that matter, share it to everyone else whom you want to inspire, like a personnel who’s about to leave the service. And so I was told the story of how that one month changed his lifetime commitment some 20 years ago.

(more…)

Perhaps it was between six months to one year ago when I last made a duty report for our network operations center. When the new privates finished their training, they took over our duty at the center. We enjoyed a month or so of duty-free weekdays and weekends. But a soldier can never go duty-less.

And then, the command’s responsibility was extended to oversee the newly-erected learning center. The weekend duties of posting at the center were assigned to us. Once or twice a month, we would spend our 8-5 at the center, waiting in vain for customers to arrive. While around 14 computer units are available, I observed only a maximum of two people ever using them during the entire length of my stay. I deem it a waste of time. But when I studied for my SCJP, weekends at the center proved to be fruitful. Unlike my previous duty, we don’t submit reports for this one.

Came the month of May, our first sergeant rearranged the details again. Excluding the NOC and driver duties, everyone else were tasked to post in either the main building or the learning center. And so I was happier since I can have duty-free weekends again.

But this morning, I was woken up by Sheen, telling me something about turn-over of duties. I slept at around 4am and I only got less than 4 hours of sleep. I had no clue why the heck was she waking me up. Then I suddenly remembered the new duty details. Uh, oh. I failed to inspect the duty postings! I am the incoming duty today. It’s already 8 and I need to relieve Sheen from her post. Tsk.

And so now, I’m reorienting myself again with making duty reports.

No aircon. Low power voltage. Electric fans. No electric fans at all. Sauna. More like it. I exist in a place where the aircon is nonexistent.

I’m supposed to rant how our office turned into hell ever since the power dropped to voltages where no airconditioner can operate but hey, this is Philippines and I am used to its summer temperatures. The office environment has lulled me to comforts and turned me into a temperature intolerant baby and so I’m whiny.

I must remember that some years ago, I used to endure four straight required summer classes in Ateneo, where all classrooms are not airconditioned classrooms (In fact, I can only recall the Bell 208 class and PLDT labs, A/V rooms, the other labs and the library as the airconditioned ones. Maybe I stayed too much in these buildings.) And back more years ago, I was living in Bicol, where temperatures are much more unforgiving than what’s here in Manila!

Hay, maybe I need not worry much about the office temperature and transfer the “concern” on my job.

I had a 2-hour and a 6.5-hour meeting yesterday. That pretty much covers my day of work and which explains why I was only able to reply now to the emails and comments I got.

Together with Fluffy and 2 others, I’ll be teaching MS PowerPoint to 3 classes of computer literacy programs. And the other work is about the upgrade of one of our current systems. My batchmates and I shall be leaving our posts in less than 6 months (yey!) and four of us were tasked to oversee the juniors.

Honestly, every amount of enthusiasm I feel with regards to the upcoming project is always coupled with an equal amount of apprehension. The problem with our organization is the organization itself… (I won’t tell, YET). We’ll never be sure if what we’re doing now will ever be used in the years to come.

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Btw, we had a “team-building” activity last Tuesday. And a huge part of it was spent swimming, playing “pusoy-dos“, and riding a Six-by-Six truck.

Hands up. I just gave up on setting up sendmail on our server. (Notice how many times I used “up”.) The WordPress user registration really gave me a huge pain in the ass. Users who register on our intranet blog aren’t able to login because the server wouldn’t send the emails containing the password set by WordPress.

And I just can’t figure out what I’ve done wrong with the sendmail configuration. I followed every step. There must be some firewall monster-of-unknown-origin hiding behind mail server from where the sendmail client is connected.

But thank goodness, there’s Google. I’m no sys admin. But I can very much assure you of my patience in “Googling” (I’m a Certified Googler ™). Guess what I found?

wpPHPMailer by Coffee2Code. This plugin “enables WordPress to send e-mail via SMTP instead of via PHP’s mail() function (aka sendmail).” And yes, it works with WordPress 2.1.2.

Although I’m not entirely giving up on sendmail, this I bet shall probably momentarily assure the bosses of their clean and sparkly countenace the next time they meet the bigger bosses.

Before I resume hardcore work and multi-tasking, I’d just like to drop by and say hi to my little web space. This week has been a very busy week for me. It’s so hard when March comes. The organization’s upcoming anniversary becomes the focus of everyone’s work. Immediate bosses began harrassing you with cram projects to make themselves look sparkly clean in the eyes of the ultimate bosses.

Just a few days ago, I began my “side job” as systems admin/webdesigner/consultant apart from being just a regular programmer. (Wait, I’ve always been like that for 3 years now, why am I complaining). Hell, up to new I haven’t finished configuring sendmail to get the enable registration in that freaking blog app (read: WordPress). My disappointment grows everytime I see the people who are supposed to be the Linux systems admins not trying to exert a single effort to function as what their job descriptions entail.

Add to the agony the situation of our comrade who’s currently MIA. Our office and barracks were surrounded by drama just a few days ago. For me, this is a case of anxiety due to uselessness. The person concerned didn’t want anyone of us involved so we better hide and cover ourselves from the smears she left on our bunks.