Archive for November 23rd, 2008

X-List: Local Celebrity Crushes

X-List: Local Celebrity Crushes

I won’t make some complicated and convoluted excuse for it: I am very showbiz.  Whenever I have nothing better to do, I keep abreast of local showbiz news, or ogle at billboards.  Some people chalk it up to repression, but I’ve been following local showbiz for so long now that I think (italicized, boldfaced, and underlined) I can have a career in being a showbiz intrigero.

I was talking with a friend the other day about how difficult it is to name ten Filipino male celebrities who would make it to a top ten list of crushables.  There are three problems with this scenario:

  1. I’d have to be a girl or be gay to have an opinion on that (no offense).
  2. You would automatically have an opinion that a male celebrity of any nationality is very probably gay (it’s easy to name ten local celebrities who have had the gay card played against them).
  3. The bulk of our local male celebrities strike me to be dockworker macho (OMFG).

That idea got me thinking into making this week’s completely subjective X-List of my local celebrity crushes.  Pictures are linked as source… and no, this has absolutely nothing to do with politics.

November 23, 2008 12 comments Read More
Shikata Ga Nai

Shikata Ga Nai

I was walking at a mall last night when I ran into an old friend.  Her walk was more of a trudge; the look of a woman who, in her prime, was dealt a heavy blow, knocked out and defeated.  Not too long ago, my friend had a spring in her step and a smile on her face.  That afternoon, she walked as if she carried the weight of the world on her shoulders.  When I asked her what happened, her answer was as good as my guess.

My friend lost her job.

You hear of rumors here and there that call centers and BPOs are laying off employees, but this was the first time I heard of a story that hit so close to home.  What made a call center job so tantalizing before was that when you needed a job, any given call center out there is always hiring.  These days, it’s not necessarily true: not only do you have to contend with looking for a job at the end of the year, but you also kind of wonder if call centers and BPOs still have openings.  What makes things worse for my friend – and perhaps any random call center employee out there – is that her career plans have so far led her to three or four call centers.

The Japanese have a saying for it: shikata ga nai, or “it cannot be helped.”  For everything that has been said about outsourcing – the unsustainable, unstable, and exploitative business and economic model as it is – you can only take your hat off to employees who put up with repetitive work, low pay, job insecurity, and workers’ rights.  At the end of the day, these are things that can be compromised, and have already been compromised.

And yet… shikata ga nai.

November 23, 2008 0 comments Read More