Life is a feast

But I just couldn’t stop it. Well, I was doing a hell of a good job at first but I couldn’t sustain it. What I am talking about is that last night, June 13 2008, was Ronan Meligrito Miranda’s last day as our Lead Trainer. The Ronan Miranda. At 4:30 AM we were called forth at our old area in Bay 2 for an “ambush meeting” with Ronan. And since we were trainers, the terminal objective was to make Ronan cry, which by the way was attained. Hahahaha. But before that we had a session about Managing KPIs, which I so love. I realized a lot of things though and it made me think about a lot of things too. And that Quality and AHT won’t, most often than not, go together. Anyhow, after the very interesting discussion, we everybody gathered around and we talked about how Ronan and that each of us were to answer the following questions:

1. How did Ronan influence you as a trainer?
2. What are you thankful about Ronan?
3. Name one thing that you will never forget about Ronan.

Well, here’s what I have to say:

1. Ronan made me realize that I can do more and that I can be better at what I do. I didn’t even know that I can do these things that I do as a trainer. Before this, even back in college, I had fears talking in front of a lot of people. But since we have to do some reporting and stuff, I was compelled to do it but I didn’t enjoy it. I can’t stare at people and I hate it if people would stare at me or even look at me. I just don’t know why or I feel that they are scrutinizing every inch of me. But since I had to talk, what I do is I just stare at their foreheads, my lame attempt to have that visual “connection” with your audience. Read: LAME. And I lived through college reporting doing that. But now I feel a differnt kind of comfort when I talk to people, like during my classes and more so if my trainees ask me questions and that leads to the “a-ha!” moment for him. Such fulfillment. But I would always admire how Ronan would take over things and really reel people in during discussion and create that kind of amazing silence (that together with the hand gestures hehehe).
2. I am thankful that Ronan is Ronan. I guess that really sums everything up if you know him as a person and as a mentor.
3. There are a lot of things that I won’t ever forget about Ronan, to wit:

• I remember that night (I was still an agent) and I was having my dinner he and my supervisor barged into the food establishment where I was eating and he asked me to be a peer trainer for an upcoming new hire class. Since I don’t have any concrete idea of a peer trainer’s responsibility, I said no. But he went on to say that I wouldn’t do much except to check papers and walk around the training room to check if the trainees are able to follow, so I said yes. Chicken. But no, on his way out, he calmly said “oh, you also have to teach some modules for the class and take over in case the trainer is not available” and then went out. I was starting to think that I made a bad decision, but still I went on with it. Also with the ATT position open, he kept on dropping by at my station and ask for my IJAF. Because he was so kulit, I relented and created my application. I was scheduled for an interview, had my demo September 11 5AM, topic: Destination Florida. Lo and behold, I was hired September 16 2007, and they tricked me that I wasn’t hired. Arrgg!! I can just imagine that time, makes me smile.
• I remember the time when I was a peer trainer, he gave me two (2) copies of his 2×2 ID picture and that I need to place it in my wallet. hahaha, I did but not on the space allocated for wallet size pictures, okay? heheheh.
• And lastly, i remember that night when I really had some things on my mind and was bothered, Ronan was there to talk to me. We were just outside the office entrance and talked for almost 2 hours. I told him the things that were bothering me. And he made me realize that I need to think hard about my decisions and to plan because when all else fails you only have yourself to pick up the broken pieces. You don’t rely on other people plan your life, think about what you want to do and work hard to get it. Get the plan into action. So yeah, the word: PLAN.

All these and more, Ronan will be surely missed by the team. The working lunch, the professional and personal advises, the outrageous dances that we do if both of us are bored, his guy radar and he just have to say something out loud so the guy who passed by will look at him, the Mossimo underwaresss on sale, the talks that we have whenever he is bored, the $1 salary discussion we had one time and I can go on with the list.

This is me missing Ronan as a mentor, and I think that is one of the reasons why I find it hard to cope up with the recent changes at work. I am slowly getting back, I am. And I will. And I’ll never fail Ronan. And I’ll never fail myself.

Thank you Ronan, really, for taking me on board. Accepting me with minute, if any, trainer competencies. Thank you for accepting me as a coal, and hopefully one day I would turn into the diamond that you hoped I would be.

See you around! The bears and the team will make you proud.

Just came from lunch, we had team lunch at YellowCab. Treat, care of Ronan-sama. Birthday. Pa-burger/ pa-pizza. And the following things happened, thus the title:

• We had a TTT on a training that we are to run here in Cebu. And it sure was hard getting our feedback on the material across. It was like a verbal joust of what needs to be taken out or edited on the material. At the end of the conference call, my headache increased a notch up. Bummer. Good thing the team decided to go out for lunch. And while at Yellow Cab…
• While busy talking I didn’t notice the stopper of the hot sauce bottle came loose. Thus I spilled it all over my pants. Yuck. Now it’s dried and smells like sh*t. It looks like blood spattered all over the crotch area. OMG.
• And as if the hot sauce accident isn’t enough, I learned that Lanie will now be transferred back to the CS LOB. So all three of us will be left to do the fire fighting. When it was announced, I suddenly fell silent and lost my appetite (imagine I didn’t even finish my 2nd slice of the pie, so not me). I’m just a bit depressed since Lanie is really the senior of us sales trainers, she deserves to be the Lead. But I know how she feels about the changes that had taken place on the second quarter of this year. Same here. They say change is inevitable, but indeed it’s hard. I have yet to realize that this is for a good reason. It will take time.
• I seriously am contemplating about my plans for this year or early next year: to look for greener pastures and independence. Which reminds me, I need to revise my resumé.
• I started and will end this day with a headache. Good luck.

Dili lagi mag-binayot… (time to prepare the sadist “contraction” workers)

Outlook at the office is down so the emails have been quiet. Thank God. But the thing is I feel and the team feels disabled without it. Like we couldn’t work or something. Then again, it’s just a feeling hehehe if truth be told, there are a lot of stuff to do. Pending stuff that we need to “unpend” (I don’t think there is such a word…), unaccomplished task that we need to, well, accomplish of course and the like.

About work still, I had a meeting with our Vertical Training Manager yesterday that lasted for almost 1.5 hours when it was scheduled for 30 mins to 45 mins only. And when I went out, my peers were like: “What took you so long?”  well, I just had a lot of questions and she was accommodating enough to answer each of them (not that I have any intentions of replacing her, none as of the moment hehehe ). Another thing, I already met our new Lead. She’s nice. We get to chitchat with her later on.

Gotta go. Have a class, an impromptu one.

This, just in.

• We found out that we have a new lead trainer for the sales team. The news didn’t surprise us as the choice was already evident two weeks before the decision was made. But heck, team Cebu is doing well. I was just a bit sad when I heard about it from Lanie since she talked to our account training manager regarding her application for the same position. And it’s not just me, my team mates as well. Maybe we just misunderstood her or misconstrue how she communicates with us through email. Yeah, that maybe is the reason – to make things easier. Give chance hehehe However there are still gray areas that needs clarification and it will be discussed by next week, I suppose, when the new lead visits Cebu. But for us, Ronan is still our all-out, full support lead.
• Congratulations to Ronan for passing the CIAC exam!! A whopping 98% score (50 out of 51).