Thursday, May 31, 2007

Call Waiting

It's not the meetings, really... it's the fact that I have to plunk down a sizeable chunk of change for an Internet connection around here. Whatever the case, it'll be a challenge for me to get online before I get back next Saturday.

What's really weird is that I've been getting at least one text message from back home each day since I first arrived. First it was a business colleague asking if I had already left for Warsaw. Then it was one of my editors, asking if I had finished a manuscript that I had promised to him by the end of this month (which I haven't done yet). Then it was a close friend asking if I could meet up with everyone for dinner back in Manila. And finally, earlier today, it was another close friend who asked if I was interested in purchasing some components for a Mac (which I don't own, by the way).

Things eventually came to a head at 2:30 one morning when somebody actually called me on the cellphone, asking if we could meet up sometime next weekend for a business proposal. He was extremely surprised (and just as rightfully apologetic) to find that I was groggily answering him from a third of the way across the world.

On top of all that, I've found that I can't seem to send text messages to my counterparts back home in the Philippines. As it turns out, this doesn't just mean that I can't immediately answer anyone who texts me -- it also means that anyone who fails to get a response from me inevitably continues to send messages, hoping to get my attention. I've had to make at least three calls in the last three days just to rectify the issue.

I suppose I shouldn't be angry about the situation, and I'm not. I can't expect to inform everybody I know as to my actual whereabouts, after all. And beyond that, who would possibly buy the excuse that my company decided to send me to Poland on a business trip? I'm probably going to get quite a few stares of disbelief once I get back home.

I suppose that I am grateful for the attention, though. There's probably no better way for a man to find out just how often people try to contact him on a regular basis. (Now, if it only didn't cost me so much...)

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

a-i-yihee! so popular naman! :D

Sean said...

Ida: And they're all trying to contact me in the wee hours of the morning. :( I need a professional messenger service, or something.

Anonymous said...

Silent mode mo na lang para mas-mura. ;)

banzai cat said...

Hehe which goes to show that at least 80% of the people in our lives don't know about the online updates we constantly put up.

For example:

"You were sick?"
"Yep."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"I blogged about it."
"I don't go online."

*sigh*

Sean said...

Ida: Silent mode or not, there's still the compulsion to answer these messages, if only to figure out why they don't know that I'm out of town. :)

Banzai Cat: After this trip, I'll conclude that 80% of the people in my life don't know what I'm up to at any given time, period. :)