OJT woes

Hindi na 'to nakakatuwa, ha.

I am about to break my neck and lose my already poor eyesight to this "work" given to me by my OJT supervisor. I was requested to tally the job openings posted at Jobstreet from April 17-19. In my conservative estimate, there were about 200 jobs (4 pages, 50 posts each) posted per day, so I spent the whole day looking at the monitor then at the record sheet, my head bobbing up and down like a dashboard doggie decoration (wow, alliteration).

Ah, I am in Business Mirror now. I was effectively banished from the Philippine Graphic. I was sent down to the Biz Mirror office after I was caught up in a paper mess. No, I did not do anything stupid. It turned out that Sir Louie, my first editor, was busy with his resignation and I surmise that was the reason why "hindi niya ako ma-train."

Now that I think about it, I spent five straight days in the office waiting for any assignment to fall on my lap, which never occurred. My editor and I had this agreement that he would put "6:00 pm" as my "out time" in my log card. That's because I was supposed to be out there in the field, sniffing for stories (which can last the whole day, hence the logout time). But since he was not able to give me any fieldwork, and with the agreement still on, I wasted a big chunk of time in my OJT. Now I don't know if that's any good because the time is an automatic deduction from the required 150-hours. But then again, those precious 20-plus hours could have been used to interview a candidate or what.

So to save me from further intellectual inadequacy, not to mention boredom, my editor sent me to Ma'am Leah, senior editor of the Mirror. There, my agony was relieved.. or maybe not. After a short lecture on Philippine Stock Exchange, I was assigned to write a news story based on a PSE memo. To my chagrin, the article did not come out the next day. Obviously, no byline.

Speaking of issues and byline, the Labor Day article that I painstakingly did never came out in this week's issue of Philippine Graphic. Sir Louie promised to review the article so it can be published. But I bet he hadn't even read it, because the last time I reminded him, he hadn't opened his mail. Hayyy.

Oh well, I am procrastinating. I can move my neck a little now. I'll write more about my not-so-exciting OJT later. That is, after 10 years of tallying these job openings which I hope I have taken instead.

It sucks, I know.