Life-Changing Proposals

Last month, as I was about to enter my last tween year in the company that I have ever known in my corporate life, I was on the verge of like having this relief of I will finally take a rest (from dating) after ticking off a bucket list that seemed harder than I thought on the first day of my month anniversary while looking forward to the usual work anniversary that I think I am the only employee who treat the day as if I have a birthday party. 😅

Then as the day goes by, life seemed to surprise me in a dramatic fashion that I never expected in my whole life - all in the same month. I received two proposals that would or could change the status of my romantic and corporate life all in a span of two weeks (if I chose to).

The first was a courtship proposal. Apparently, what I thought was supposed to be my "I am going to enjoy my single life" hurrah turned out to "Just say yes to being in a relationship with me and all the curse you have on top of your head is gone."

I literally had zero expectations that someone would take notice of an outdated post from probably almost two years ago that was pooling respondents so they would have a database of interested participants in the Reddit's Fil-Chi community. I think the post was even more than a year ago when I commented about my profile and I forgot about it. Then of course I knew I needed to open the website again to execute my unfulfilled random bucket list only to find out I left someone unread for 8 months. EIGHT MONTHS! In my defense who knew that someone would take notice on an old comment to an even older post. You get what I mean?

So this guy and I end up chatting with me telling him that I would not last long in the app because I just need to do something without expanding much into details. I was wondering what I would do to him and also wondering how am I supposed to contact the person who agreed on the deal I proposed on Reddit without revealing your actual contact number for privacy's sake? Should I download the Reddit app? I was contemplating on the idea but it would be so messy so I end up deciding to use a burner phone number to give to the person I am contacting for my date for rent. Then as for the guy I left unread, I was contemplating in the sense of if it didn't work out and I found someone for him, I could refer him to someone else and he's pure Chinese too, so that was a plus despite the uncertainty surrounding him based on my personal preference. So I decided to give him my burner number and let him decide if he wanted to contact me or not via Telegram.

To cut the story short, after I executed my date for rent, I end up going out with the guy I left unread for 8 months and he said he will pursue me. It's really crazy that things went fast that in the blink of an eye someone will give you an outrageous offer that could end your no boyfriend since birth, but I admit I had a huge reservation towards his offer - well during the getting to know stage via chat too.

Then after two weeks, another unexpected "offer" came along, but this time with my boss informing me that I would be promoted and he was so happy about it even if they haven't printed the official letters yet. In fact, he even extended his hand and congratulated me and I just blindly followed despite him mentioning that the offer wouldn't be that much of an increase. After my boss told me that the offer wasn't that big of a difference compared to when I would be getting paid on my overtimes, my overthinking got the best of me. People whom I shared my concern about informed me to just wait until I receive the formal offer.

When I received the offer from my department head, I wasn't happy with what was written. Maybe if nothing would change, I would immediately sign that offer without thinking twice - even if that means just a peso increase. I told her that I would think about it because the offer is between what I was hoping to my "grand welcome" to a new chapter of your corporate life (via promotion) and the nightmare offer that would only give me the amount to meet the threshhold (just so they don't pay me any overtime and holiday pays anymore) that I would immediately reject should it came true. If we do the math, that wasn't even the median offer. They kept on saying that they aren't inhumane to give me that for the sake of saving money, but they also told me that it was a drought season that's why they cannot be generous enough. When I told my boss that I said I am going to think about the offer, he talked with me asking why. I told him that the offer was anti-climactic since I knew some of my colleagues received a huge increase when they got promoted to signify that they are being welcomed into a new era of their corporate life. I even told him that they used to give me an increase that was higher than what was currently being offered and I wasn't even promoted that time. I mean if based on the amount I received that time signify that I get promoted, I wouldn't complain about it because for me I think that would signify a huge welcome for me on a new era.

I know it might be petty for some, but for someone who never got promoted in their corporate life, it was such a big deal for me. For some, most of them got their first promotion in less than five years. However for someone whose position does not have a path, it's either you go to another company or you just stay content with what you have knowing that nothing would change no matter how well you perform. Sometimes when people learned that I never got promoted since I started working and when they followed it up with if you get increase and replied yes, they would say you know you are better off like that than to get promoted.

Honestly, I cried about it because I felt like you've waited for so long only to feel that you were taken for granted. Then the guy that was currently pursuing me right now wasn't helping my cause at all that's why the tears I had on the work proposal I received became even more emotionally unbearable because it's tantamount to saying should I also accept the guy's proposal to be my boyfriend despite the issues that I noticed all because the dating market is dry just so I can tell the world that I am no longer single?

When my department colleagues saw me talking with our VP, they were congratulating me, but I just informed them that I didn't sign yet. I was glad that they understood that I wasn't being ungrateful on what was given to me, they knew that it was not an ordinary or typical offer. In fact it's a life-changing one in terms of the corporate ladder set-up.

After talking with my colleagues who stayed in the company longer than me, my boss explaining the reason and my friends, they just told me that it's better to accept it because salaries don't get lower. As for my fellow colleagues, they said that I am lucky enough that I got the position faster than anyone else in the department. When I asked my fellow colleague who I knew was already an assistant if how long she waited before she got into where she is now, she said it took her longer than I was. Then she said the year that she got promoted was the year where everybody got a huge increase, it was just that she already went past the threshold of a certain level when they gave her that increase. As for me when the jump happened, the jump wasn't high enough for me to get past the threshold to another level. By the time the next round of increase came, it came at a sort of unfortunate time where there was a drought, at the same time I was at the borderline to the next level and the jump was enough for me to be considered to be at the next level. Like my college friend who worked in HR in another industry told me, it happen sometimes where you only get a little increase when you got promoted just because you were on the borderline before.

In the end, I just signed it - with a twist where I recorded myself together with my stuffed animal because I think that was the least thing that they could do to appease me in such an unfortunate situation for me right? Like if you can't make someone happy with the increase that they hope for, at least allow them to do it on their terms without violating their privacy as an individual - I am also glad that they decided to change the title of my position because it's kind of weird if I would still get the same title and not get paid with overtimes and holiday pays anymore. After all they promised that nothing would change except the pay. That they wouldn't torture me with more unpaid holiday work and overtime and they said you've been doing what an assistant manager has been doing already - it was just that the time wasn't right back then. This time it was right. After all, the multipliers of possible bonuses would now be based on your current salary not your previous one. Every peso counts.

After the dust has settled in terms of my corporate proposal, I think when I look back, I realized that I think I should be happy that things happened not the way I hoped for. I always feel like my love and work life have the same pattern, so similar that I received the offer in the same month. If there is something I learned here was that maybe I shouldn't like put too much stock on the trajectory of my love life into my work life. Maybe as soon as I received the love proposal from someone, God probably rushed my bosses to give a salary increase to some of my co-departments including me - well so rushed that maybe it wasn't as high as I wanted to be. 

However, I think it was the best because it allowed you to re-evaluate your worth based on the offer that was given to me. I know as of now I haven't responded to the love offer as I was still on entertaining mode since it made me realize that signing the offer as an assistant manager despite the minimal increase doesn't mean I should say yes immediately to the guy that was willing to adjust for me just because there was no other guy who was interested in pursuing or dating me. If I would put my work in terms of dating it's a matter of you are already giving the guy a girlfriend experience but sometimes with pay if it was too much work, it was just that this time you both agreed to be in a relationship, the difference was you would still do the same to him but you do not get paid this time for the extra services within the girlfriend/boyfriend relationship anymore. As for the dating proposal, I cannot say the same thing, because that was a whole different area. I think I already know what would happen, but maybe I could be wrong or if he probably read this, he would figure it out. Anything is possible, but for now - I guess I would be enjoying the moment whether in work or in love as I go onto my next adventure.