Superstah!

It's hard being famous.

I was having dinner last night with a couple of friends in Nobu, one of our usual haunts when we're in NYC. The wait list could be so loooonng, but since I was with superstars that night, I easily slipped into the velvet rope. That dinner was also a business meeting since both Katie Couric and Oprah Winfrey (which are two of my closest friends) wanted to score an exclusive about me. I was torn between the two of them.

We were starting to discuss the idea of just making a special about me where the two would just interview me together a'la The View when Mama Madonna stepped into the restaurant. She was so divine and fabulous as always. She dropped by our table to say hi and confirmed a schedule with Oprah then proceeded to one of the exclusive rooms reserved for her and yummy hubby, Guy.

The Japanese - Zen atmosphere of the restaurant was about to return to normal when we heard shouting and screaming from the front door. Apparently, celebrity couples Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes also booked a night at Nobu. The razzi's were all over them hoping to get a glimpse of their alien-baby Suri (or is it Suree?). Oprah has probably not recovered from what Tom did in her show last year (you know, the jumping in the couch scene) so we decided not to pay attention to them. Katie was also not so thrilled with meeting the soon-to-be B-List couple.

Anyway, we returned to our usual discussion about saving lives in Africa, our charity work for Katrina victims as well as our Gay advocacy programs when UN General Secretary Kofi Annan called Oprah and invited her over coffee at his upstate New York apartment to hear her opinion on matters of global proportion. Knowing her, she would not resist an opportunity like that, so we decided to cut our dinner short and meet Kofi. Little did we know that Harrison Ford and Calista Flockhart was also there. Actually, it was like the Oscar's that night - just over coffee. Leo Di Caprio was there, so as best buds Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. Barbara Walters said hi to us before leaving. Rosie O'Donnell was her usual lezzie self while ex-President Clinton and soon-to-be President Hillary Clinton got cozy with P. Diddy and Kanye West. It was so boring I decided to grab my specially-imported from Kenya's forest coffee outside for a few drags. In the terrace was George Clooney smoking with Julia Roberts (what's with her "The Crow" look recently?). Maya Angelou was deep in philosophical conversation with the wonderful Mr. Phillip Seymour-Hoffman. Merryll Streep was not the devil that night but a very delightful woman sharing stories with Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn.

It was about 1am when Katie came out loooking for me. She wanted to go home already.

I went from the party straight to work. I still had a shift that day.

The guards told me that I have a mail from one of my just-recently-ex-agent. I read the mail and was surprised to realize that I have just received my first hate-mail.

If hate-mails and threats to sue you are signs that you have arrived, baby, I AM HERE!

Lemme give you background of what I do. Since the informaton I am sharing is very confidential, I won't give you the specifics but just vague description.

Basically, I lead a team or highly trained Deep Penetration Agents that handles sensitive and difficult operations. My team performs clandestine termination (assasinations) of dangerous personalities that threatens to end the world as we know it. We operate under high secrecy and top secret mission. We report to a personality that only me can interact. We simply call her "O". Simply put, we are almost non-existent unless events that can lead to a global-scale catasprophe is going to happen. My team is called Extermination Specials Council or ESC. My team works under the disguise of a non-assuming customer service operations, under a fake company named Convergence, located near the mountain ranges of a little known island, south of the Philippines.

Anyway, going back to the hate mail. One of the few mediocre agents that I have decided that she is not happy with what she's doing. Let's call her by the codename: Efoelc. She claimed that she wants to lead a normal life and be a mother to her children. Of course, I did not believe a single word that bitch said. Being the head of a secret information agency, I commisioned one of my top agents to do a background check and surveilance. It turned out that Efoelc applied as an apprentice agent to a Russian-funded special operatives team called Parallel Somnambulism. "O" did not approve her immediate departure from the team and wanted her to serve at least 15 days to train an apprentice agent. Apparently, she has signed a deal with PS already and cannot afford to withdraw since her family would be in grave danger. When I confronted her woth the classified information that I gathered, Efoelc became defensive.

She started claiming that other operatives can leave the company immediately without the 15-day notice. I explained to her that since she in in ESC, she just cannot leave the team. I also said that it the 15-day notice is part of her contractual obligation. Then she bacame hostile with me. She pointed out that I was lying and playing innocent on why the agents are leaving the company and that the management is making a puppet out of me. I was the epitomy of calmness and professionalism during that time. I wanted to tell her "You UNGRATEFUL BITCH! but of course, being the classy supervisor that I am. I did not do it.

Instead, I said that she being offensive and that I do not appreciate what she said. I slept fitfully that night.

Then came the letter addressed to the Special Director, Susanna Sommers. In the said letter which was made to self-destruct in 1 minute, agent Efoelc stated that she would not let the company make a sample out of her and that I am pushing her around. She also sighted some laws from the constituion that particaly means nothing to me for the fact that she signed a contract with PS while still connected with Convergence, so that constitutes breach of contract on her end. She threatened to sue the company.

Let me read to you excerpts of her letter:

"This is to request for resolution from your level and to seek which action would you prefer."

then she said:

"The option that was given to me was termination which made me seek legal advice. I have talked to DOLE about this situation."

"Should you terminate me, I would be forced to file a case, as per advice of DOLE."

Can you imagine that? Really. SERIOUSLY???? She thinks she stands a chance in court? Come on. This is BLACKMAIL. YOU UNGRATEFUL BITCH!!!! - and you can qoute me on that!

Fortunately for her, SD Susanna Sommers does not want to deal with lawsuits and blow up our cover. She was dismmissed as if she was useless. Well, she was. She was never a good agent. In fact, a lot people were surprised when she was chosen for the position. Her performance has always been mediocre and that she would always mess our clandestine operations. She was never meant to be in my team. In fact, her resolution to tangled situations are always questionable. I gave her a Conclusive Access Platform becuse she has made a whole lot of Invalid Communicative interaction with other special operatives team. I should have ex-terminated her when I had the chance.

Anyway, as I have mentioned earlier, I never thought that having this job would make me famous. I have lived in the shadows and is not used to be in the spotlight. Well this hate mail only goes to show that I made it and yes, I have arrived.

No matter how much she hates me, she still wants to be me someday. Quting Miranda Priestly, "Everyone wants to be us."

So, when I told my uber-rich and sosyal friends about this, they suggested I write something about it. Anna Wintour offered a Vogue exclusive, Oprah wanted to do a show about it. Katie Couric sent me flowers. Kofi Annan said that I deserve a round-trip ticket to Kenya's wildlife reserve. Rudolph Guillani sent me his book. Condoleeza Rice would be visiting me next week.
Camilla Praker Bowles invited me for an afternnon tea - I replied that I would only agree if Prince Willam is there. The hell with Queen Elizabeth.

Anyway, the saying is true...

It's windy at the top.

Dissecting a Crisis with a 6-pack

(Damn! I have not posted anything in this blog for the looooongest time!!!!)

I have read somewhere that the peak of our lucidity happens between the last seconds of sobriety before succumbing to drunkeness. This short amount of time is when our thoughts are the clearest. I think I had that experience during my last rest day.

Work pratically eats up three-quarters of my life, so during rest days, I try to get as much "me" time as possible. Last Monday night, I decided that my "me" time would mean watching DVD marathon of Grey's Anatomy (my new obsession, by the way!) and gulping a 6-pack of SMB Light while muching on Cheetos as my pulutan. I thought it was perfect night.

My fourth bottle - I was a bit tipsy. Fifth - I was TIPSY.

By the 6th bottle, I started getting philosophical. I think this is when I had that "lucid" and "clear thoughts." I asked myslef questions, questions like, "Uhm, why am I here? What's my purpose in life?"

I'm 24, this could not be mid-life crisis. I might be having my "Quarter-Life Crisis." This is a stage in life wherein people of my age (say, between 24 - 30) start digging into their deeper purpose. This is stage of our lives when we look back to the decisions that we made and look forward into the life that could be ahead of us.

"Grey's Anantomy" is series about 5 aspiring doctors trying to survive their internship. Watching them perform complicated medical stuff and save lives made me green with envy. I mean, they say fancy things like

"We have to operate on his brains to prevent the rapid spread of the paralysis, but there is a risk of the patient losing his memory since we are gonna touch his cerebral whatchamacallit and render permanent damage..."

or

"Nurse, is this the result of the High-Level MRI? Hmmm... Dr. Burke, we might need an open-heart surgery to remove the clot that's blocking the aorta, and then we would replace his valve through a complicated procedure known as the porcine method that only I can do. Do you concur?"

I mean, wouldn't it be cool to say that??? Compare that to what I usually say on a daily basis:

"Guys, handle your calls efficiently, we need to lower down our AHT!"

Oh, oh, one more:

"Guys, CSAT, remember to smile when talikng with the customer. Hey, you there, I don't like your tone, be friendly, ok?

And hear on a daily basis:

TL can you fix my TKS error? Is it okay?


DO I HAVE A CHOICE?????


BLEAK!!! AS IN MAJOR BLEAK!

I got into comparing being a surgeon and what I currently do. First of all, they get to have so much fun at work. I mean, nothing is routinary. Everyday there is something new, something weird, something exciting. The only excitement that I get from this job is when it's the 15th and the 30th.

What would you prefer, scrubbing DS or opening a skull and literally pick on a persons brain?

Second, they can make mistakes and kill someone, but they can always declare it as "natural death." Here, mistakes are counted by the instance, each mis-step means either a lashing from your boss or the most dreaded CAP. The ppside though is no one would die if we commit mistakes, the worst that can happen as a result of your mistake is a very low CSAT.

And third: They get to have sex in the workplace! I mean, they do it everywhere, in the OR, sleeping quarters, labs, just about anywhere when you can cram a person an a half! Try doing that here and you'll probably be the talk of the town to the nth level that would take a scandal like the "Take it! Take it!" for it to be forgotten.

Seriously, this got me into thinking of the decisions I made in the past. Where would I be if I have taken, let's say Medicine instead of MassComm? I would probably still in school today, but the difference is, I know my purpose.

What am I doing here? I think that's what I am trying to ask right now. I am not saying that I am not happy with my current job, but is there joy in what I do? Why can't I celebrate the fact that I have a stable job that provides for me? Am I in my right place under the sun? Why do I feel like this when tons of people would kill over the opportunities that I am getting? Why, oh, why?

While trying to get the answers for these questions, I think I'd like to grab another 6-pack and maybe we can talk it over. Whatcha think?