Chit chatty

When my sister left for Bohol early this month, I felt alone suddenly. Whenever I feel down, I just ask her out to the mall or we just stress-eat out. I miss her a lot but she had to leave to improve her career. Hopefully when she returns she will already be the bank manager in her branch. Since she returned in 2013, I became happy again knowing my sister best friend will always be there for me and will always have my back. When my marriage started to go awry and I have had another bun in the oven, she was there for me, and patiently tended to my then troubled self. I owe her a lot and despite our seldom misunderstandings, we try to fix things quickly because who else would care for each other like sisters do?

I really miss ate. My best friend Robi is also back in Calapan. Ate told me whenever I fell blue I should just visit my best friend too. However, I cannot visit her as often I could with my ate since she is also busy checking her patients in their family optical. We still chat thru facebook and check on each other despite their busy schedules. While lazily browsing some sites, I noticed a sort of friend, wholesome online site where you could sign up to find virtual friends or for dating purposes. I did sign up but specifically mentioned I am only looking for friends. I used my real photo but different username. I used a name I hold dear to my heart. It is a name that I wanted to give Tyler had he been a girl.

Bye bye, cold caller me

For almost 2 years I've worked as a cold caller or as a Lead Generation Specialist for a realty team based in Kitchener and Toronto, Canada. I didn't get the job easily as I have no call center background. After giving birth to Tyler in late 2015, my sister sent me a link which might could allow me to work from home for only 4 hours a day. I submitted my resume, aced the pre qualification exams and bested 83 other applicants in the written and oral interviews. Only 3 of us made it to the training stage, and admittedly, I lag behind the other two since they both have had call center work experience. I extended my training hours and honed my skills in cold calling until I ended up as the only one hired after 2 weeks.

I have been with the company for almost 2 years now. It did reward me with a good pay and has helped me sharpen my English speaking skills since I had to speak in straight English at least 3 hours a day. However, there were also downsides. I gained a lot of weight from lack of sleep, my skin became more oily and prone to pimples which gave me acne scars over my T zone area and most notably, I started having crow's feet, furrows and lines around my eyes! Que horror! I realized I could not handle a straight 8 hr shift despite earning more from such hence I stayed with only 4 hour shift. With as little as 4 hour shift I could earn at least $11.50 a day and still tend to my kids off shift. Everything is going smoothly until my body started to give up from stress and lack of sleep. I normally rouse after only having 3 hours of sleep just to report for work then stay up all day to look after my kids and perform other household chores such as cooking and preparing Evo for school. It was then that I realized that sleep is the most important thing that I need and earning should not be a priority when your total whole being is at risk.

It has been an amazing experience with them and I truly and sincerely wish that I could have done more for my understanding client. It was difficult competing with other cold callers in Canada but I am glad to have had listed a few houses for sale for some of the realtors I worked with. To my team leaders and bosses, thanks and my heartfelt gratitude to all of you. Cheerios!