Automatic Health Card
One of the medical benefits we have at the office is a card that we were issued. It looks like an ATM card and works pretty much the same as one, except it didn’t have any money in it. At first we did not understand how this health savings account worked, thinking that we had to deposit money into the card so that it would work. I put mine away in my drawer, thinking that it was just taking up space in my wallet.
Our boss clarified that bit for us. What we could do with the card was show it at any accredited hospital during an emergency and the hospital would either swipe the card at their terminals or call the health card provider who will verify that we are indeed bona fide members of the program. The hospital will then treat us and pass on the charges to the card provider. We could practically walk out of the hospital after the treatment, without shelling out any cash.
Sounds good, but honestly, I really don’t want the opportunity to put the card to the test.
Life within the Monitor
Years and years ago I was the queen of the Internet. Or at least I thought I was. I had my own website on Geocities, reverse-engineered html sites that I liked. I even knew every chat software there was, I operated a registered channel on IRC, setup bots and quizzes and autoresponders.
I never thought back then that chat would slowly morph into a means to take care of my clients at the office, and even have live chat software as a plugin to our website.
Nothing beats instant response. For me that holds especially true when a client has a question and the phone lines are busy. Enabling the client to click on a button that says “Live Chat” or “Online Now” and getting an instant response to one’s inquiry is a great plus for any company.
Updates from camp
I had no idea how much a lack of internet access would do to my life outside of work. I’m currently housed in an area where there is no internet, and even the WeRoam card I have can hardly get a signal above 1 bar. As a result I have not been able to keep up with my emails, both the work and the personal ones, and I haven’t been able to update my blog as much as I wanted to, with all the events at the new places I’ve been to in the past two weeks.
I’ve been to three new schools here in Masbate for this tour. One is within the vast compound of the company that is our client at work. The other two are in Masbate City and Palanas respectively. Masbate City is roughly two hours drive away, and Palanas around four.
I was expecting that schools in Masbate City would be quite up to date with computers and the internet, but apparently it isn’t. I have also found out that some schools have acquired the services of computer providers who lease computer sets along with an instructor, to schools who do not have both. These computer providers do not have insurance online to make sure the computers they lease out stay in good working condition, so they send “instructors” along with the lease.
The thing is, these “instructors” aren’t really instructors, they are guys who are probably ComSci graduates or Computer Technicians who know a thing or two about Windows and the internal parts of a computer, but have had absolutely no experience or training as instructors. In my opinion these companies are taking advantage of the schools’ need to have computer facilities as mandated by the Department of Education.
The command centre
These are the tech boys at the command centre at the office. From here they monitor the networks of our clients. And those are various models of Samsung monitors held to the wall by plasma tv mount which we got direct from a supplier at almost half of what it cost if we had bought them at a store.
You’d think a setup like this would be confusing, so many things to look at you wouldn’t know where to look first, but the boys have this down to a science. One monitor for Facebook, one for Friendster, one for updating their Plurk accounts …
*joke*
About Me
