all of us have a thing regarding how our day or even the week will turn out. sometimes it's defined by how you wake up in the morning, what song you'll hear on the radio on the way to school or the office whether it be on your car or on public transport, or how you're being greeted by people when you arrive, yet others on the most bizarre of things, define their day or week will be good or bad at the taste of their morning coffee. well for me, i always believed that when i start my monday ok, the rest of the week will be the same and vice versa. this past week was different. entirely different. my week was defined on a friday.
for two weeks now, i'm assigned to help out with HR and their recruitment process. which meant doing interviews for applicants. i was taught on how to conduct preliminary and initial interviews. preliminaries would only last around 10-15 minutes while initials would run from 45 minutes to an hour. i had my fair share of doing both and it has been an entertaining, enlightening, informative, and interesting run so far. i have met and talked with different people and i kinda remember how i was when i started out in the corporate world.
anyhow, i started my monday this past week with the thought of "uh-oh, we had an ad again on the newspaper on sunday, so that means there'll be hordes of applicants when i come in." but surprisingly, there were fewer people applying compared to the monday before, when there were already lots of people at the lobby when i arrived at the office at 8:15am (my shift starts at 9am). so i thought to myself, "ok, maybe this week won't be so bad after all." but during the middle of the week, i suddenly had a "down" attack (as described on my last entry). for some reason, i felt so down and sad that the overtime work that i was scheduled to do on saturday (yesterday) seemed not so inviting and not worth doing anymore.
friday came and the only positive thing that came to my attention (well, next to the fact that i was expecting very few people applying that day since it was the last day of the work week) was i was dressed down for the day. sure enough, the day started slow and steady, just the way i expected and wanted it to be. things piled up after lunch when the applicants who were re-scheduled for their initial interviews yesterday started coming in. i volunteered to do all the preliminaries until they run out so the others would concentrate on the initials. at around 4:30pm, all the preliminaries for the day were done, and with a few initials on the table, i decided to help out with one, telling myself "with a staff meeting scheduled at 6pm, i could stretch this one last initial in time for that meeting." so i grabbed the paper with the resume attached and proceeded to the lobby to call that particular applicant. i usually review the resume before proceeding to the lobby so i could be prepared as to the kind of person i'm expecting to talk to, but in this case, i was tired and wanting the day to end, so i just glanced at the name on the resume.
the name was quite long, five in total, including the middle and last names. after reading the name, i looked at the group of people in the lobby, waiting for her (it was a female name) to stand up and follow me to the interview room. she then stood up and started heading my way. she was a pretty lady, tall, almost my height, very slim, simple-looking and has a complexion in which we filipinos call "morena." as she entered the interview room, i did my usual greeting and asked her to take a seat. i commented on how long her name was while writing it on the interview sheet to break the ice and asked her nickname. "just call me kyla. and yeah, i'm blaming my parents for giving me that name. do you know how hard it is when you're filling out official documents when you have a long name such as mine?" to which i jokingly replied, "it's not often that we fill out official documents, do we?" she just kept silent as i continued to finish writing down her information. "when i do have kids of my own, i also plan to give them three first names like 'angelo vincent kyle' or 'trisha nicole angela'," i added. to which she then replied, "they will then feel what i'm feeling now!" and laughed. i then noticed that she was feeling cold. i asked her if she was ok, she told me that she was indeed feeling cold. i offered her my jacket just to make her relax and feel comfortable since i had the notion that she might be nervous. she politely declined and just commented on how cold the air conditioning is in the building. i apologized to her about the temperature and still continued to offer my jacket. she still declined and mentioned that she can manage. i asked her if she was sure, and she calmly said yes. i then gave an introductory spiel and asked for a few seconds to go over her resume before starting the interview process, to which she nodded her head in agreement.
Markie's Journal 