Nightshift:call center agent’s blog

Right after lunch yesterday, around 12:15 pm, I took a jeep from my hometown in Rizal province - Baras. The trip to Kapitolyo in Pasig City took about two hours. I was not used to heavy traffic since my shift, most of the time, is at night where there were lesser vehicles. I immediately took another jeep going to Quiapo in front of the Rizal Provincial Capitol and seated in front. That was the second time I went to Quiapo from Pasig so I have to familiarize myself with the landmarks.

For fear of being held up or my phone snatched, I wasn’t able to take note of the time I arrived in the Quiapo church. I suppose it was past 3 pm. I took the underpass going to the patio of the church itself. Good thing there was a map in fire.in.the.gut that made looking for the Hidalgo Street easier.

I passed by several ambulant vendors and stalls selling cellphones, fruits, vegetables, fake bags, toys, pirated DVDs, masseurs, manghuhulas, and vendors of pamparegla, pampalaglag and pampayaman.

Thanks to the street sign that says R. Hidalgo, I verified that indeed, I was already in the street known as photographer’s haven. There was sudden silence the moment I turned right to the street. Vendors are more behaved as they do not shout just to attract attention. I kept looking left and right for the famous stores I read in several blogs and forums - Mayers, Henrys and Watson. I saw a stall for photo printing that has cheap rates.

I first saw Watson and inquired about their D40X. It’s P 29, 000. I said I will get back to them as I have to withdraw money first. By the way, I brought P 16, 000 of cash, the P 15, 000 of which came from the prize I got in Kapamilya Deal or No Deal text promo December last year. I waited until Nov. 30 to make sure that I have my 13th month pay. As I look for the nearest BPI ATM, I saw the Henry’s Photo supply. It’s an airconditioned store where you could see the different cameras displayed. Their D40X is P 28, 000 with a free bag. I told them the same thing, that I would get back to them and will look for an ATM first. Not too far from their place is Mayer. They had the same price as that of Henry’s.

I decided to buy in Henry’s.

Their package already includes 1 gig memory card. I decided to upgrade it to 2 gigs, knowing that I am lazy in uploading photos to the PC and Internet. I added P 500, as a 2 gig card purchased separately costs P 1, 500. Total amount of course, is P 28, 500 and I paid the saleslady crispy P 500 bills.

The camera box was covered with a page of Philippine Star and was placed in a green plastic bag. On top of the box is the black bag.

I went back to the stall where I will have my sister’s wedding photos printed. The stall is Piktoryal. Their rates are cheap - P 3.5 for 3R, P 4.5 for 4R and P 6 for 5R. Printing for 8Rs is P30. My photos were already saved in a thumbdrive. The folder is named Hidalgo with subfolder Misc, for my other photos. The moment the attendant copied the files from the thumbdrive to the computer, I saw another Hidalgo folder inside the Hidalgo folder. This means only one thing. The drive still has a Brontok, a worm which creates a folder inside another folder. I used the same drive before in our PC in Makati. I infected that PC with the Brontok when I used my Creative MP3 Player in a public computer and saved a PDF file. This also means that this PC might have the same Brontok worm. Good thing there was none.

Total photos to be printed - 215. Aside from the wedding photos, it has the photos of my training in the current call center I’m working with, my crushes who happens to be all nurses, and some photos of my high school classmates. Piktoryal requires a deposit so I paid them P 700. Photos can be picked up by 5:30 pm. It was already 4:03 pm.

So where did I go to kill time? I ate in Jollibee, dropped by the Quiapo church, Shoemart and scouted the place for a transfer paper. Earlier, I mentioned that there was silence when I entered the Hidalgo street. I thought it was just my imagination. I entered there three times and there was indeed a sudden change of environment once you enter the street.

Before 6 pm, I was able to get my photos. Total amount for 215 photos is P 992.50.