Globe's New Transfer to Supervisor Policy

Just when you thought things couldn't get any worse, Globe surprises you. Beginning 2017, when you ask to speak to a supervisor, you are given a Reference Number instead of being able to speak to the supervisor immediately. You are then transferred to a queue where you might have to wait indefinitely. This is in the hope that you probably have something more important to do and decide to end the call. All this does is adds more delays to the dispute resolution process.

Globe's customer care policy seems to revolve around creating more delays in the process than actually resolving issues immediately.

"Globe. Mahirap kausap." should be their new slogan.

I think the reason why supervisors probably came up with this new policy is because agents have been flooding them with transfers. But a probable reason for that is that agents are not empowered to resolve issues. Take a Bill Dispute. An agent can only request a Bill Adjustment, but some other department approves it. And that department will most likely reject the Bill Adjustment. So, after a month, if the customer thinks that his bill has already been adjusted, he ends up seeing an even bigger bill. So he has to repeat the same process, but ask for a supervisor so that the adjustment is immediately approved. The customer has to waste a lot of time just to get an adjustment done.

So if you take out the supervisor out of the equation, the bill adjustment never happens. After three months of non-payment, the customer's service is cut. And if the customer wants to continue the service, he has to pay a re-connection fee. More money for Globe at the expense of an unhappy customer.

At some point, if Globe wants to lose their customers, they will. For the customer, it's only a matter of finding an alternative service provider.

.lnk USB Virus

It seems like every year, this USB Virus mutates and becomes more and more difficult to remove. Here are some steps I found online to remove it.

1. Try to scan your USB drive first with your anti-virus software
2. If no threats are found, go to Start and type cmd on the search bar
3. When it appears, right click on it and choose the option Run as Administrator 
4. Navigate to Flash Drive by typing its assigned drive letter, then colon, and hit Enter (i.e. H:)
5. Type dir /w/a to check what files are present. This virus usually tries to hide all your original files in the USB and will only show two files - an autorun.inf.lnk file and another .lnk file
6. Type del *.lnk in the cmd window and hit Enter on your Keyboard.
7. Now type attrib -s -r -h *.* /s /d /l and hit Ente
8. Your now might see two folders, one named _ (underscore) and another called System Volume. One of the folders should contain all your original files. Just copy your original files to a different storage device and delete everything else you don't recognize. You can also just format your USB drive once you've retrieved the original files.

The Old Woman at Crystal Beach

It was a hot day at Crystal Beach in San Narciso, Zambales. The time was around 2:00 pm. There was hardly any people at the beach. There were two young men wake boarding several meters away, while my friends were having fun taking selfies, and frolicking in the sand as white foam from new waves swept ashore. I needed some respite from the sun's heat, so I sat at one of the nearby cottages built by the local fishermen.

I saw her approach from the distance and I knew she was going to sell me something. I just didn't know if it was local produce, like dried fish, or souvenirs. It became clear when she was able to take refuge from the sun's heat under the shed.

"Would you like to buy some key chains or some necklaces?" she asked. I looked at the items she was selling and asked how much each one was. The key-chains sold for 35 pesos a piece but she was willing to sell three for 100 pesos. The necklaces were 80 pesos a piece.

I asked her how long she had been selling these items at Crystal Beach. She started out more than thirty years ago. Her family was originally from Zamboanga in Mindanao, but her grandparents decided to take a risk in Luzon, and they ended up in Subic. That's where she still lives up to this day, but there are times when she travels to near-by towns to try to sell her wares since tourism at Subic beach has dwindled because the shores there are no longer as clean as they used to be. She even used to sell sea shells when she was starting out. But now, her items are key chains, necklaces, refrigerator magnets, and pouches - a reflection of the changing times.

She only has one child, a boy, who finished high school and had a family early. Now, she has six grandchildren - potentially serving as motivation for her to work despite nearing the age of retirement. She wakes up at around 5 in the morning and travels to her target selling spot and stays there until she is able to meet her daily quota. During the summer, when there are plenty of tourists, her daily sales can reach thousands of pesos. But during off-peak seasons, she tries to make sure she at least comes home with around 400 pesos. There are days when she doesn't come home with anything at all. That means she still loses money since she has to spend around 100 pesos for transportation to and from the beaches she goes to.

Her son also does what she does, selling the same items to tourists at a beach. One wonders sometimes, if we are to end up doing the same things our parents are doing, why then do we even need to study in school? Aren't we better off shadowing our parents until we become good at their craft?

Her husband is a fisherman who also tries his best to earn a living. Sometimes, there are good days when they catch plenty of fish. But there are also days where they end up catching nothing, and losing money on gasoline for the boats.

But despite their hardships in life, I saw an old woman who is relatively happy in life. She has a family who loves her, and she loves and strives for in return. And she gets to spend her days at the beach, something most people working at an office cubicle would probably trade for. And the fact that she has lasted in her business for more than three decades must mean that she has developed a love for her work. Perhaps she has mastered the simplicity to life.