Down Memory Lane
In the corporate world, you could either make the most out of crappy situations or just do the next most logical thing, quit. I was updating a locally maintained database for a regional affiliate which apparently required of me to get down and dirty with a 20-year-old-or-so-and-still-getting-thicker 201 file of an employee. Dirty because I should scan each and every page of the 2 decades old file. I didn't want to do it but the task gave me no alternative.
I started off with the backmost set of papers in binder-clip about more than an inch thick. And sheet-by-fucking-sheet I got a glimpse of history. I could have sworn the overture of The Way We Were performed by a-female-artist-I-who-I-won't-give-an-arse-searching* automatically played in my mind to set the mood for my unexpected visit down memory lane.
Picture me sprawled on the floor, haunched over old paper and peering at the pages one by one, seeing the following in chronological order (I can't seem to put logic on the way I laughed out loud over these but it just seemed for me to be the natural thing to happen at the time):
Typewritten correspondences between the then HR personnel and the headhunter tasked to look for the appropriate person for a vacant and much needed position.
...memries...
Typewritten biodata of qualified applicants together with a cut-out of the published newspaper ad for the job opening circa 1980s.
...light the corners of my mind...
Scribbled notes of the interviewer on yellow colored pad paper on what he thought about the applicant.
...misty water color memries...
A telegram archiving the correspondence between the local office and the regional office for the position, provided by Eastern Telecoms (from abroad) on thin newsprint paper in red carbon-paper-transfered all-capital robotic fonts.
...of the way we were...
A hand-written copy of the employee's annual performance appraisal form, four pages long of a year's worth of ego-boosting, which we currently do via the net.
...scattered pictures...
Carbon copied filed letters on onion skin paper.
...of the smiles we left behind...
Hand-written salary review notices, having three-year comparative salaries given out yearly to each of all the company's employees.
...smiles we gave to one another...
Yellow-to-brownish intermediate-pads with scribbles of comments on the employee's performance in thick, possibly from Bic, blue-ballpoint pen ink.
...for the way we were...
The telegram and onion skin literally gave me tummy cramps with all-out laughter. Panalo!
*who I later found out to be Barbara Streisand as I fished the lyrics out for the sole purpose of getting it right for this entry. Sorry for judging the artist too soon. Peace!
posted by Fritz @ 5:35 AM
:
Nag-recount nga ako nun sa iba pang taga-office, tawa ng tawa yung isang manager kasi habang pinapakita ko I was humming yung instrumental ng song, biglang crescendo paglabas ng telegrama, hehehe.
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