Conversations...

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May the Almighty be kind and merciful to my fellow countrymen currently languishing in pain and homelessness due to Ondoy's flash floods that drenched Manila last September 26.


...on Corporate Discontent

I am having this conversation with a colleague of mine about the recent appointments that have happened at my firm, in relation to a recent take over by another firm. For lack of anything better to do, we denigrated ourselves by cribbing about life in general, but more in particular about the rank-restructuring that have happened recently in relation to the take over.

The crux of the discussion is why a colleague is being given a higher band when he is junior in all aspects of years of experience and even in tenure in our company relative to others. Whose decision was it and why are we not given the same...blah, blah....

It is a classic case of corporate discontent, one that I have seen, and had my share of being on the side of the advantaged as well as being disadvantaged, in my 13 years of working.

Yes, disparities in the corporate are both driven by supposedly objective and HR-vetted criteria and the subjectivity of the people who are influencers and decision-makers on who gets promoted and who does not. The latter being always suspected (but never proven) as the driver of discontent breeding malcontents.

It is not to say, having experienced it before, that the disparities are easy for me to swallow nor the explanation of people who may have a hand in the decision. It is always difficult. But probably age and experience have taught me more creative (and not necessarily better, and some people may say lame or sourgraping) ways to transcend these disparities.

1. You can ignore these things and move on with life with a little bit of bitterness and hope you will forget it.

2. You fight for your own recognition, and make a case for your own, which is oftentimes a double-bladed sword.

3. You shift your mindset and stop benchmarking yourself with others and compete only with yourself and move on, either within the same firm or outside.

I tried the first 2 in my first 8 years of working, with satisfactory career results but oftentimes traumatic emotional consequences. In the last few years, I have taught myself to use only the approach #3.

It is more practical and pragmatic with my own understanding of my capabilities and aligns well with my personal life values.

I guess a better and a more eloquent way of explaining the mindset in approach #3 was well put by my colleague, and I quote (in verbatim sans the specific references)...



"Life has a path. I have a destiny. A few less dollars or more, won't count...I have to make my life worth it beyond any material...how I value family, relationships, friends, live a balanced existence, no foes, no jealousy. There is more to life than XXX or XXXXXXX or XXXXX or Band X. I have many years to go and this will be some insignificant speck in the scheme of things. Who cares? I must make an honest life out of an honest living."

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65 days down, 145 days to go

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When i started my quest to quit smoking in mid-July, the first 30 days were quite exciting. Then, I had 3 sticks a day quota and I can mingle pretty much with my smoker colleagues like i usually did.

On the second month, the excitement from my side as well as from my colleagues, who probably suspected i would be succumbing to temptation soon, died down. Actually, the excitement was turning into apprehension from my side as the Zero Stick a day timeline approaches. Those times, i will always thought while savoring my single stick with a colleague, that the true suffering will kick in when i no longer have the option to any cigarette at all.

Now, i have crossed the 3rd month and i am in the Zero Stick a day timeline now and will be for the next 5 months. I thought I would be experiencing anxiety, not because I want to smoke but could not, but because I don't have that option to smoke anymore when i want to. So far the anxiety attacks have not crept in. Ok, a little bit probably, but not really so much that I got restless as i imagined.

To be honest, I get tempted and at one point yesterday I even asked a collegue if i can take a puff....after getting enough sniffing the smoke from his cigarette.

(Don't worry Ariel...Chintan did not let me...By the way, I think Cigars are not included in the deal right?...Can i get that clarified please!)


So on with my 7 month struggle, mid-February is still far from today, but I think I can get there...smoke free!

Struggles of a Chronic Smoker - 30 days out, 180 days to go

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Today, i conclude the first month of a 7-month deal to quit smoking.

The deal which i agreed with my colleague Ariel, is a gradual process of making me permanently kick off a 21 year old habit of smoking.

Condition for the first month was a maximum quota of 3 sticks of cigarettes a day, which I have passed with flying colors averaging 2 sticks a day for 5 days in a week. I have managed not to smoke at all on weekends in the last 30 days. I believe it's quite a feat. But of course I was also aided by fate and by my frail health, having been sidelined for a week due to flu and cough, which all the more made the thought of smoking undesirable. When you are coughing like hell and your throat is burning, smoking is probably the last thing you desire.

I am celebrating not only because i have managed to cut down my smoking drastically, but also because I have survived the first tier of penalty that the deal imposes if i violated the 3 sticks a day condition. If i did, I would have lost a new IPhone 3GS and a thousand dollars to a worthy charitable institution.

Now I am in my second month in the deal. I am down to 1 cigarette a day quota. This will be the harder part and I am hoping i will survive this in a breeze, just like I did in the past 30 days. Else, i would have to give up the IPhone and pay up 800 dollars to a charitable institution. Not that I can't give up an IPhone or don't want to donate to the needy. I am no quitter (no pun intended!). I hate losing a bet, especially if its about a commitment to a better health and probably a smoking free future.

As the old Zen Master says in the movie Charlie Wilson's War, "We shall see..."

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Smoking - When You Say You Want to Quit

As far as i can remember, I have been smoking since i was about 14 years old. I probably started too early but whether it is good or bad, i have actually got into that habit gradually.

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It is not that i started smoking packs of cigarettes that early. At that time, it was just experimenting with any cigarette i can steal from Papa's Hope menthol pack or any cigarette that some 'cool' friends would have in school.

But its been 21 years now, and the amount of tobacco i have smoked, excluding the cigars i have smoked in between' would have amounted to a truckload of tobacco by now.

How many times in the past did i ever get into a conversation with friends who tried convincing me that quitting means potentially avoiding a debilitating cancer that can cripple me for life. Wouldn't it be good for your kids? (hell, yeah!)



Or having a conversation that goes like this. "If one day God appear in front of you and say that one more cigarette you smoke would mean you will lose your kids? Would you quit?" And i would always say, "Of course, what kind of father in his right mind would not. But would God really appear in front of me and say that?" (The gall of a smoker can extend to blasphemy, i tell you!)

But then these conversations and the fear of the consequences of long term smoking never really sink in. There is just no will and real determination on my part to take it seriously. But did i ever think for a second that what if i actually get cancer for my years of smoking. What happens now with my life, my family, and my kids?

Of course, I do get scared. But again I have always chosen to forget about it and assured that my genes are far superior than most smokers who get cancer from smoking, taking on from the ages most of my ancestors have reached before they expired. From both sides, my grandparents have died in their late 80s and 90s. My maternal grandmother died at 99. I don't know though whether they smoked or not. :-)

There are days that I think of the consequences of my smoking. And I tell you, these would fleetingly scare me out of my wits but just like as always i have always gone back to the habit of smoking.

I don't consider myself an addict. I don't really feel any palpitation or uneasiness if i don't get to smoke when i want to. I believe i am not, by the number of cigarettes i smoke on a daily basis, which is about 5-7 sticks, i don't think I am.

But i think i am (sorry for the contradictions, maybe the years of smoking have totally fucked up my logic), considering i have not really kicked the habit in the last 21 years (well, i hope i am making sense now!).

I can't remember how many times I have tried quitting and failed.

Now I am back to trying to quit again. I am doing it gradually though, but this time i have cornered myself by putting an expensive stake if i fail again.

This one will cost me a thousand bucks and an I-Phone, courtesy of a good friend and colleague, who is hell bent in saving my wretched life from smoking, for all its worth. Let me see what happens in the next 6 months. If i get to write about it regularly in the next 6 months, I am probably surviving and is seriously internalizing the shame of smoking.

You know what would be easier for all smokers? Just an idea, why doesn't the Singapore Government just ban smoking in the entire Island Republic.