Thursday, November 17, 2005

Cursed are Zombies

I’m all hands up to the person who doesn’t have what I call – LIFE BACKLOGS.

If I list down all the things that I was supposed to do, but never got to doing and should still do, the list should be long enough to get me back to Manila. When I think about my life’s worth of backlogs, I stiffen like a zombie, my only salvation being a ticket back to my homeland - that of the living dead.

In the dailiness of everyday, I miss out doing many things. Whoever said an apple a day keeps a doctor away? Brush and floss your teeth at least 2x a day? Tone and moisturize at least 2x a day? Exfoliate at least 3 times a week? Exercise everyday? Fold bedsheets everyday? 8 glasses of water everyday? At least three hugs everyday? Visit the dentist at least every 6 months? Breast exam every month or so? Papsmear every year? General check-up every year? I also have to pluck my eyebrows every week. Hot oil every month. Hair cut every two months. Credit card payments every month. Membership fee every year. Cellphone bills. Rent. Electricity. Cut and clean nails every other day. Dishes everyday. Clean place and bathroom as necessary. Laundry every week. Groceries every week. The list goes on. PLUS there’s work, which supposedly, should take up 33% of the weekdays. Sleep - at least 25% of everyday.

And I thought there’s more to life than just getting by. Where the hell would all the meat go if everything else is just bread?! Maybe I was wrong all along. Maybe life is just about getting by. Or maybe while I’m doing these mundane, getting-by things I should be living life. I don’t know. There doesn’t seem to be enough time for anything.

I’m thinking now how the company I’m working for now is paying me twice my salary in my previous company for me to triple my working hours within the same amount of time. The multinational myth. Hard to picture? It’s much like getting 9 hours’ worth of work done in 3 hours. Or a quarter-year’s worth of work in a month. Three years’ worth of work in a year. Or picture this, THREE LIFETIMES’ worth of work in one lifetime. This is notwithstanding the power of technology or as my company puts it, “productivity tools” (i.e., like laptops, sales car, mobile phone, etc.). And the occasional “incentives” offered for quadrupling the amount of work in a shorter period of time (i.e., speed-to-market contests, the toothbrush hero program, etc.). I’m supposed to be worth three heads and my company is underpaying me by paying for two heads only. At the most I can do the work of two heads, but three is just too much. So they’re paying for two heads only, and nobody’s happy. They’re dissatisfied with my output, and I’m all bent up. That’s the myth I’m talking about.

Right now I’m living the life of a zombie. I declared myself half-dead this morning and now I’m locked up in this four-cornered chamber hoping I could catch up with my backlogs. It’s been 8 hours and I’m pretty sure now I won’t get to the end of the heaps of backlog because I don’t even know where to begin – where one heap ends and the other begins. If I neglect one heap, in a week or two it will explode. I’m living in a landmine of backlogs. One wrong step and I’m dead.

This morning I thought it would only take a day or two to beat this, but now that I have time to think about it (by declaring myself half-dead for a day), I might as well enjoy my last moments alive. I made a wrong move. I have intensified matters. I’m lucky to get through this month alive.

I’m bursting and I’m aching with my life backlogs. I’m thinking Stresstabs but that won’t seem to do it. These backlogs are consuming my sanity. They consume my working time, my free time, all my time. They consume my thoughts. I’m always catching up but never able to. I pant even in sleep. It is my curse, yes, that’s what it must be. My life’s curse.

This is the anatomy of a nervous breakdown. Do this zombie’s soul a favor by knock it dead, anyone, please.

P.S.
Is blog actually short for backlog? Coz if it is, darn it I’m stopping.

Posted by xam :: Thursday, November 17, 2005 :: 3 Comments:

Post a Comment

---------------------------------------