October 17, 2021

a hundred percent

Hey friends, thanks for opening! Our favorite K-drama of late, Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha, is ending this weekend and we’re half-excited, half-unprepared. What’s got your spirit worked up this week? Hope you find something informative here. -K

Alert Level 3 in Metro Manila, and for the first time in maybe ten months, C and I have decided to finally venture out together to get some personal stuff done. For me this includes, among others, finally getting my glasses fixed–something I’d been putting off for quite some time now. Inevitably, the pandemic has hiked my daily screen time–some 8 to 10 hours for work, plus an additional 3 to 4 hours for leisure, maybe? Then some cumulative 1-2 hrs from every device with a screen perhaps. That’s a lot of eye strain, but I feel lucky my prescription did not increase as much as I had expected.

Anyway, the thing about having new glasses is that they’re super clear, and my tendency is to keep having to wipe and wipe the lens at the hint of any smudge. It’s crazy right? It’s best to probably just let it be, keep wearing it and let it help me see things clearly, perhaps, without me trying to intervene and criticize it for not being clear enough all the damn time? Goes with other things too 😅

---

from the internet

Are you a time millionaire? via The Guardian–Interesting and provocative read shared by a friend defines ‘time millionaires’ as people who “measure their worth not in terms of financial capital, but according to the seconds, minutes and hours they claw back from employment for leisure and recreation.” When it was first shared, I noted that it reminds me of Hong Du-sik’s life philosophy from Homecha (which we get a clearer look at in this weekend’s Episode 15). I think many of us are rethinking our relationship with time, value-making and money, especially with the pandemic putting everything in focus. What is important? What is critical? What is signal? What is noise? I think the post-pandemic era will require a lot of retooling, relearning and unlearning. Aside from getting vaccinated, how are we preparing for it?

Why you need an untouchable day every week via HBR–A day? Three or four? Or so we live in hope. If like me, much of your deliverables require sitting down and having to have some uninterrupted stretch of time to think and put thoughts together, meetings are the ultimate enemy. They take up valuable time, they break your concentration, and sometimes you don’t even have to be there for the entire 1.5hrs of it especially if your input is only needed for like ten minutes of the entire thing, and yet they’re still there. I thought with the pandemic limiting face-to-face meet-ups, people would finally realize the things that COULD ACTUALLY BE emails. But alas–some people would rather talk out loud and have you take down their thoughts as your notes instead of just, you know, maybe parsing through them by writing them out for everyone’s reference. Idk. I still think we People Who Would Rather Write Emails should take the hybrid workplace culture back from People Who Would Rather Zoom. 😅 Trust me, you’ll have time to write it down if you didn’t have to go on Zoom all the damn time. 😅

Glass cliffs, explained via The Vox. Or, alternatively, when things are going south, we typically look for women leaders because of qualities usually associated with women leaders.

Navigating gendered norms of leadership via HBR. Women in leadership positions encounter a lot of paradoxical expectations. Kelangan Demanding pero Caring. Kelangan Authoritative pero Participative. Kelangan they Advocate for themselves BUT ALSO serving others. Kelangan Not Too Close/May Distance BUT STILL Approachable. This is NOT about just being one or the other–why not be both! But really–examine who we expect to be these things, and I assure you it is not the admin’s standard bearer thus far nor the dictator’s son. Not the boxer, the former PNP chief, nor even the Manila Mayor. The men get away with “at least.” All the damn time.

Anyway. That’s enough high blood for today lmao. Sharing my favorite meme because this cat is everything. SOUND ON!

I hope nakapagrest kayo ngayong weekend, dahil banatan na naman ang work week ahead. Stay hydrated at ingat!

XO,

K