Time Off from Work Well Spent

I have been contemplating on cleaning this AC unit but I just cannot extract my niece from her favorite place at home. Where else but her bedroom. We have the same day off. She does not  want to be disturbed watching movies or playing online games on her computer. Yesterday being my vacation leave.  I took the chance after she left for work. I do not  have AC in my room to save on electricity bills. My sister bought this AC unit for my niece. My niece shares on our electricity bills. 

Accumulation of dust on AC filter balloons electricity bills.It has been four months since the last time I cleaned this AC unit.  Dust could hinder its operation. As a result it would use a lot of electricity for cooling off a room.

I cautiously scraped off the dust using used toothbrush. Then, wash the filter with bath soap and water. The bath soap made it fresh smelling when I put back the filter and covered it up. The owner of the room was very pleased. 

A Day with Glenda

Nice name, yet Filipinos dreaded this name last 15^th of July, Tuesday. This was the local name given to typhoon Rammasun.  

My sister lives in the Bicol area. We had been exchanging text messages about the situation in Bicol. Manila was also part of  signal number two then later number three.  I was telling her Monday evening the weather inside our unit was still warm. It was my day off.  I kept vigil at the news on television. I am at the inner unit and I cannot hear rains or wind from the outside. At around two in the morning I heard some neighbors talking to our lobby guard. While some were busy on their cell phones.  I went down to the lobby.  My unit is at the second floor. There it was the rain and wind.  

What Is Earth Hour 60?

Being an advocate of Earth Hour 60, I am reposting this article I wrote last March 2010.

World Wide Fund of Nature (WWF) and The Sydney Morning Herald had organized Earth Hour 60 in 2007, dedicated to the global awareness on climate change.  Residents of Sydney Australia turned off non essential lights and electrical appliances for an hour both in businesses and residential homes.  In 2008, Earth Hour 60 was participated by major key cities in the world.  Earth Hour 60 is held yearly on the last week of March.

Earth Hour 60 is to make us aware of the overuse of our non renewable resources that resulted in light and air pollution. Non renewable resources are natural resources that are limited in nature. Non renewable resources cannot be grown, reproduced or generated. These are the resources provided by nature and are consumed faster than nature could produced them. Fossil fuels are examples of these non renewable resources. Fossil fuels are coal, petroleum, oil, and natural gas. Fossil fuels particularly coal are used to produce electricity.

To generate energy these fossil fuels has to undergo process. Burning these fossils fuels produced carbon dioxide that is released in the atmosphere. Air pollution is the result of burning these fossil fuels that is not only hazardous to human health, but the environment as well. Air pollution led to global warming. Warmer temperature caused melting of ice and rising sea level. Rising sea level caused degeneration of natural ecosystem.

While major power producers have alternatives for fossil fuels, like sun, wind and water. These are renewable resources that are environment friendly. The challenge is, to have the capability to store these resources and use the energy when needed. Earth Hour 60 was conceived primarily to lessen the use and production of electricity to save planet earth.

Princess Wardrobe

I checked on my closet for my clothes if I need to add more blouses. Normally, I do not pay much attention on what I wear. I work at night I wear jacket, sweater or shawl over my blouse because of full blast air con at the office. We are required to dress in business attire Mondays and Tuesdays only. We can wear denim jeans and t-shirts, but no rugged prints after Mondays and Tuesdays. Most of my clothes are blouses, slack and legging pants. I just have to interchange my blouses that match the color of my slack and legging pants. Not sure if my officemates noticed I only have few pairs of clothing. Hush! Please do not tell them, okay?

Sunday, I had time to inspect one by one the clothes I have on hangers. I found some blouses I could wear without the color red in them. I just added some missing buttons. I appreciated my effort buying some  branded discounted sales clothing. The colors of the cloths are just as good as new. I did not notice most of my old blouses. I hang them two at time in a hanger to economize on the space. Most of my clothes are light cotton materials and t-shirt blouses. They go perfectly with my slack and legging pants. Legging pants and t-shirt blouses are no ironed. The cotton blouses and slack pants have to be graced with easy ironing. My legging pants by the way are tight-fitting pants. They are a fashion here in Manila.

Did I not say I am thrifty? I am, not only on monies but on the use of electricity. I am an advocate of Earth Hour 60. The bottom line is no more buying of blouses. I am planning to buy two light colored legging pants. To alternate with my black, dark brown and dark blue blouses.  And that is it. I have mostly dark colored slack and legging pants. It is good I have mostly plain colored blouses. What about if they are on discounted sale again you say? Try me. I have great control over temptation when it comes to shelling out monies. ☺

Few Days of Silence

Hi folks … missed me? Sorry for my silence for the past few days. Quiet frankly when I got home I felt too sleepy and tired. I managed to visit few blogs then would fall asleep in front of my computer. Now, you know another talent from your Jolly Princess. I bet you can not do it, can you? I told you I have multitude of unique talents. Kidding aside, upon reporting for work after my vacation leave I missed several updates. I had to report for work at least half an hour early before my log in time. Stayed for another half hour after I logged out to read all those updates I missed. The updates are within the computer system we are using. Updates are being loaded to a computer program and we retrieve them by logging on to the program. It has username and password. Only authorized persons could access the program.

My computer, phone and headset

The log in to start accepting calls is done through the computer. Our headset is attached to Avaya phone through a removable cord. We key in our username and password to the computer assigned to each one of us to log in. The Avaya phone and the computer have to be in sync to property capture some calls that are recorded for quality assurance purposes. Our computers have screen captures. Anyone monitoring our calls could see where we move the computer mouse by seeing the cursor within the screen. We are barred from logging on to other websites except those websites that are work related. To make sure the barring is strictly followed our technical people disabled some applications that would prevent us from accessing prohibited websites. I am not aware of on how they do it exactly. We have highly trained techs that lavished our clients with much attention when it comes to security.

Our account deals with electricity. From time to time there are updates we need to read and study for the benefits of the customers of our client. Be it updates on company policies or the regulating bodies. These are also the bases used by our quality assurance people. To them ignorance to the rules and policies is no excuse. Whether you got sick of went on vacation leave they demand our full understanding of the knowledge about the account. Difficult you may say? At first, yes it was. However, after being in this line of work for quiet a number of years, I had adapted to these demands. Knowledge is Power after all. ☺