Thursday, January 2, 2014

Giving Back on Christmas: Naga City Christmas 2013 Series 5

Giving Back on Christmas 
Christmas Dinner at Crown Park 
(Naga City Christmas 2013 Series 5)

We hosted our traditional December 23
annual Christmas dinner with our employees
and our household and housekeeping staff
at the Crown Park Restaurant in SM City Naga.





Everyone was present in the occasion from our
employees both at  the Endolab  SM and Plaza Medica,


…to our housekeepers, and drivers at home





Everyone was excited as they knew that we would
also be giving our traditional Christmas gift,
their cash bonuses and our personal gifts for those
who performed and behaved well for the year.



Our dinner began with Century Eggs as an appetizer
which was serve with various kinds of dips and sauces.
Some of our employees did not like it but I have always
loved the gelatinous and earth- like taste of this aged eggs.





The main course consisted of Sweet and Sour Pork
which is one of our all time favorite dish in this restaurant.
Our employees also liked the dish as well.



We also had Lechon Kawali and it was our first
time to try this dish in Crown Park as it is not my
family’s list of favorite dishes. But it’s Christmas and
lechon is a must for every Filipino Christmas dinner
and this is the closest that we get to the real thing.
It tasted okay, but not one that I would rave and crave.
Interestingly, most of our employees loved it.



We had several alternative healthy dishes like
the very delicious Breaded Fish Fillet fried to a
crispy perfection and  was served with Tartar Sauce,





... and the very healthy but otherwise delectably yummy
Prawns with Broccoli which everybody liked very much as
the seafood was fresh while the veggies were still crunchy.



Also on the healthy dish list is Beef with Broccoli which was
cooked the same way the Prawns in Broccolli but this time
tender bite size beef was used and it tasted very good,



...and the Fish Fillet with Soya which was made of nugget sized
 fish fillet which was steamed and later  mixed with soy sauce
and served with herbs and spices. The fish was so deliciously
tender that it melts in you mouth when you eat it.



Of course, no meal in a Chinese restaurant
without their staple Pancit Canton.



We concluded our dinner 
with Fruit Salad for dessert.

 

After the sumptuous dinner, it was time for gift giving.
We gave our household staff our annual personal gifts
like grocery items for the newcomers, and appliances for
the more senior and more hardworking ones. 


They also received cash for  their Christmas Bonus,
a ham for their Noche Buena, and an extra household
appliance gift that we had raffled off for them.


MA, one of our newest domestic helpers has worked with
us for less than a year and doing great doing our laundry. 

 

TC our driver who has been with us little more than a year is
kind hearted, polite but tenacious and rarely comes on time.


Three of our most trusted and hardworking housekeepers
also came to our Christmas Dinner and one of them was TS.
She only started working for us this year when she replaced our
long time housekeeper of almost 19 years,  who started working
with me even before I got married but recently moved to Baguio.


We thought we could never find someone as proficient and
as  assiduous, but TS  was just as hard-working and made
us feel like our long trusted housekeeper never really left.


JR, has been working with us for about 5 years, and has competently
served us with so much dedication, hard work and proficiency.


He never comes late and arrives very early in the morning everyday
to make sure that our garden, garage and lanai are litter free
and our dogs are clean when we wake up in the morning.
Aside from always coming on time he had a perfect attendance and
never goes off in the afternoon without leaving any task undone.


TN, our must trusted housekeeper for the past 14 years
 started working with us when he was his teens and virtually
grown old or should I say, ‘matured’ under our very eyes.


He has already mastered the art of keeping our house in
top shape and runs our housekeeping like he is running
a hotel by keeping our carpets dust free, mirrors and floors
spotless, kitchen well organized, bedrooms well kept and
all our bathrooms and toilets clean and dry all the time.


We have always treated our household staff professionally
we only them report 5 times a week, (except for our driver
who reports 6 times a week), they only work daytime, goes
off in the afternoon, gets a average salary of 270 to 350 pesos
a day, free meals and snack while at work, and for those who
had worked with us for more than a year,  we give them
a 13th month pay, and SSS and Philhealth membership.



They have always been a part of any of our special family celebrations
from birthdays, graduations, thanksgiving dinners that sometimes
hotel party organizers are surprised whenever we submit our guest lists
and do not see any VIP’s on it, we would respond that they are our VIP’s.







Even Timothy’s former nanny (who has left us few years ago to start
 her own family) had travelled with us extensively locally and abroad.






Our paramedical staff are not as highly paid as their counterparts
in bigger hospitals and institutions in the city but thankfully
 most of them stayed put with us for a very long time.


They report five times a week with two days off, and  get salaries based
on the recommended daily  minimum wage  by the Department of Labor.
They are entitled for overtime fees when working more than eight hours,
get paid double on holidays and Sundays, get paid extra  when they
work on their off duties and have paid sick and annual forced leaves.



They  are provided  free meals and snacks while at work,  we give them
a 13th month pay, and SSS, Philhealth and Pag Ibig memberships.
It is not much and not enough for them to get rich fast but
 that is the best that we could offer with our small enterprise.



For our paramedical staff, we gave them our annual a personal gifts
which are usually jewelries which my wife believes are good investmenst.
They also received their Christmas Bonus, a ham for their Noche Buena,
and an extra household appliance gift that we had raffled off for them.
We also handed them SM Gift Cheques for their extra holiday shopping.


ASA, has only been with us for several months as she replaced
 our  Radiology Technologist who resigned few months
ago  to work in the Middle East. She is still on a contractual
 basis with us and on the process of being observed if
she deserves a permanent position in our small business.


RI the most junior among our paramedical staff has been our Med Tech
for almost two years and one with the most perfect attendance among
our employees. He is very polite, courteous and very soft spoken.


He already informed us his intention to resign on January 2014 to
pursue further  studies and we already gave him our permission.
Lately, he again asked a favor to extend his stay as he has not
finalized  his plan yet and told him that could still stay with us
as long as he wants until he finalized his future priorities.


RP another Radtech started working part- time with us
four years ago as she was connected with Bicol Medical Center
and finally joined us full time about two years ago.
Widowed about three years ago, she supports three children
and one of them is in college and sometimes works on her
 free time as my clinic assistant for extra income.


She is a very reliable employee and willing to work on long
hours even on holidays, very assiduous and uncomplaining.


JE has been our medical technologist for almost 10 years and
started working with  us after graduating from college.
He has very effervescent personality that we awarded him with
 a Champagne to symbolize his bubbly and vivacious eccentricity.


Lately, he unofficially changed his name to Princess.


JLC also started working with us as a Medical Technologist
 almost ten years ago right after graduating in college.
My wife and myself have a very high respect for this
extremely good looking, well behaved, disciplined young man.


His father died on his first year of employment with us, leaving  
his younger brother in high school and his mother to support.
He scrimped and saved and sent his brother to college until
he became a registered nurse and got himself his own job.
 He then reviewed for his Medical Technology board exam
and successfully passed it with an impressive rating.


My wife and I are very proud him as our employee,
and his parents must be credited for raising him well.
So young and good looking, yet so matured and responsible-
and take note girls, he is single and very much available
(but I'm not really sure if he's ready to mingle).

 

RG one of the three of our most senior paramedic employees.
She Is my wife’s aide and trustee and has been with us since 1996.
She is a manager, a cashier, a personnel officer, an auditor, a phlebotomist
 our eyes and ears,  and sometimes an errand girl rolled into one.


She is also our shock absorber as she gets to absorb all the
complaints from our clients an patients and also my temper
tantrums which are usually due to the aircon adjustments
that I find too hot and everybody finds too cold otherwise.


BC also started with us as our original Medical Technologist in 1996
and remained with us until now. She is takes her work very seriously,
a quality control buff and obsessively organized and compulsively strict.


She is always being mistaken as a supercilious person but she is
 actually  nice but naturally dexterous and adroitly hard to please. 
That what endears her with my wife as she describes her
to be so like her in so many ways, strict and hard to please,
but could easy be impressed with someone’s good deeds.


GB is the longest staying among our employees and started
working with me as my clinic assistant since 1994.  
Now on her 19th year of service going to her 20th this 2014.
She was still single then, now she is a mother of four with her
eldest daughter in college an an OFW for a husband.



She is s silent worker and was the most flexible when it comes
to working hours and working days as she could easily be pulled
out  even if she’s on off duty every time her services are needed.  



Our long term employees except for GB (who was pregnant then)
had a chance to travel with us to Singapore for R & R and
they truly enjoyed the experience and we are looking forward
to take them out again for a vacation in the near future.





After the regular gift raffle, we raffled five extra gifts to additional
five lucky winners and two of our household staff, JR and TN
and three of our paramedical staff, RP, RI and JC won them.


The Naga Endocrine Laboratory or  Endolab SM City Naga
 will cease to operate by the end of January 2014,  not because we
 are closing but we are expanding it to become Endologistics or EndoLx. 





We would be broadening our services, acquiring  more
medical equipment  and   hiring additional employees.



There would not be enough space for our the coming upgrade,
so we will move to Plaza Medica not as a branch but a separate facility
closer to the original Naga Endocrine Laboratory (the Endolab)
located in the same building.




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