Dogbert’s Whip

For almost a year now, I’ve tried so hard to beat out the call time of my company—an inhuman and ungodly hour of 7:00 in the morning. I have succeeded on a number of occasions, but have obviously failed miserably for the most part.

To justify my habitual tardiness, I once argued that it takes so much time to travel from my boarding house in UP Diliman to my workplace at the Citibank Towers in Makati City. The problem is, this excuse is so flimsy that a number of arguments could easily quash it. These arguments could be lumped into three main bullets:

1. The company’s early call time is meant to avoid the early morning rush that clogs Manila’s thoroughfares by mid-morning. And since the Metropolitan Railway Transport (MRT) takes less than 20 minutes to travel from the Quezon Ave. Station to the Buendia Station, there’s no reason for me to be late if I leave home an hour before seven.

2. A good number of my workmates live in places considerably farther than Quezon City but still manage to get in the office on time. For instance, my boss hails from a far-flung town somewhere in Rizal province and yet, he’s consistently the first person to report for work everyday (gasp!).

3. This is a personal favorite of mine: My contract requires me to report for work from 7AM-4PM on weekdays, and I’m supposed to follow this unconditionally or risk increasing the unemployment rate of this country. In other words, it’s comply or “We’ll kick your butt out of here.” It doesn’t get simpler than that.

As far as I can remember, I was never the prompt kind. Back in grade school, teachers would often tell us that “The early bird gets the worm.” Somehow, being the cynical and rebellious person that I am, I never really cared if I won’t get the worm. Even at a young age, I found it rather disgusting that adults had to lie about birds feasting exclusively on wriggly annelids. I guess the Combantrin commercials aired on television made a huge impact on my formative years.

I must admit that that I could’ve done or achieved more, whether these are higher grades or better job performance reviews, if not for my recurring tardiness. But the inner procrastinator in me rationalize the misdeed by concurring that although I raise eyebrows when I dash to the office all sweaty and rumpled, at least I kick ass with my performance (or so I think). And certainly, there’s nothing more satisfying than getting the most out of my nightly dates with the Sandman.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 27th, 2005 at 7:47 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.