Packaging is good. I actually mistook it for a foreign brand.
Price- Affordable. This one costs between PhP50-80 depending on where you bought it.
Aroma- It doesn’t have that rich chocolate aroma.
Taste- Not sugary for a chocolate bar and I prefer it that way but I can’t taste the richness of the cocoa. I don’t feel like eating a chocolate bar at all.
Texture- Comparable to the chocolate bars that are being melted for the choco mallows.
Suggestion for improvement: Your packaging is good but you need to improve on the taste. When I speak of a local chocolate bar, Serg is still the best among them. Unfortunately, Serg closed its factory a long time ago. Get somebody from Serg as product quality consultant.
I used to feel bad about not being given the project team leader role because I used to equate excellence with being on the front line. I used to complain silently about how I wanted to do things my way instead of being a follower. Not that I didn’t get leadership roles anymore as there were still projects under my championship but I ached for BIG projects that could spell a difference in terms of my annual salary increase and bonus.
I was that competitive in terms of financial reward and there were times when I would approach my boss to tell him that I thought I deserved a better grade/increase/promotion.
2015 gave me the chance to work with challenging projects and it opened my eyes on the right behavior and expectations. I realize that despite the failure of my project last year, I am still calm and unassuming; a behavior that is quite different two years ago when I fought for my project and justified that it really worked just because I expected a high salary increase and bonus.
One of the executives here said that more than getting the Most Valuable Player award, the championship is more important. He said that employees who eye the MVP are those who anticipate for the reward while employees who aim to be champions are those who are after enhancing their skills. I think I belong now to those employees who aim to be champion.
Like what I said earlier, 2015 gave me the chance to be a better engineer in terms of job performance and because I do not work on the front line, I have the liberty to do things that I enjoy at work like polishing my skills without thinking of the next meeting or conference.
Being not on the front line excuses me for going home at 5:00 PM if I want to. I have more time with my children and I am very hands on to them. I can read books on the weekend without checking my company email for updates. I can go on vacation leave because I don’t belong to any group who regularly meet with the executives.
I seldom buy bag. Correction, I seldom buy any stuff unless I really need to replace an old one. Most of the bags that I use were hand-me-downs from my late mother. She had good taste in bag and she was a BIG bag lover so she left me with more than thirty bags. Out of those bags, I only took around five bags–the rest were given to family and friends as souvenir.
I was looking for a good bag; one that can fit in my folding umbrella, make up kit, wallet, coin purse and reading glasses. A good bag for me is one that is water resistant, has durable strap and one that can stand. Of course, a Louis Vuitton is out of the question though I’m tempted to buy a Neverfull. Yeah, Neverfull is so old school for LV lovers but I’m not really into designer stuff and it’s the model that I am most comfortable with. I guess that’s another story because in the end, I chose to find another bag and put my hard-earned money into better use.
I found this peach Belladonna bag on the lowest portion of the rack. If you would not bother to look at each bags per layer, you wouldn’t notice this hidden gem just waiting to be discovered. The body is trapezoidal and can fit in my stuff neatly into three compartments. The handle looks durable and the color is very feminine. There’s a mini-bag to complement it and I use it during days of worship. Without looking at the tag price, I thought I would have paid around PhP 5,000 but hey, I got this bag on a sale so I only paid around PhP1,200; original price was around PhP2,500.
If you are a student or somebody who prioritizes putting her money to better use, you might want to try a Belladonna. 🙂
I heard that the current management is going to revive the programs that my team used to spearhead some years back. It’s still unclear who will be in-charge to facilitate the re-launching but some units are now silently making moves for the ownership of it. Frankly, I am not anticipating to be involved in the re-launching. I’ve long moved on from the pain of losing the programs that me and my team enjoyed facilitating. In addition, the rapport that I had with my ex-teammates was just great; maybe that level of commitment and participation could never be duplicated. Things happen for a reason and I realize that I will never achieve this level of thinking if I get stuck in my old mindset about career, work-life and finances. It’s time for other people to shine, isn’t it? I would be very glad to be of help if they need my assistance though.
Yes, I’ve moved on from that heartbreak 4 and a half years ago. I am no longer defensive and I no longer question the intention of people who question the achievements of our program. In the end, what matters most are the lessons that I learned, the friendships that I made and the trust that was given to me and my team.
Some people have this habit of claiming that their boss’ boss is their boss, too. Their boss’ boss could be the head of their department but that doesn’t make him their boss. A person’s immediate superior is his boss; not his boss’ boss. This is just to explain that a person wants to associate himself with someone who’s more powerful and more influential but doing so is rude and unfair to one’s immediate superior.
My boss’ boss is the president of the company but that doesn’t make him my boss because I get orders from my boss and he’s the one rating my performance. In addition, I respect and I have faith in my boss so there’s no need for me to claim that his boss is also my boss.
I am now convinced that what happened to me in the summer of 2011 was not a product of my imagination. I nearly fell victim to a chemical spray had I did not follow my instincts that something was wrong in me.
It was just one of those rush hours when I chanced upon a white taxi at PWU, Edsa. I asked him to drive me to Roces Avenue through Panay Avenue because that was the route that I was most familiar with. It was supposed to be a 10-minute drive including the minor traffic at that time. When we were nearing the crossing at Quezon Avenue, I felt like I was choking. My throat suddenly went dry and I could feel that I would faint anytime. I looked at the stocky and bald driver who must be in his 40’s and he seemed relaxed. I tried to open the window but it was not working so when the stoplight turned red, I tried to step out. I realized it would be risky to step out of a cab in a busy road so I pretended to be suffering from diarrhea.
With my remaining strength, I told the taxi driver to stop at the 7-11 store because my stomach was aching so bad, I needed to get to the restroom. He panicked at the thought of me messing up his taxi so he obliged. LOL!
Inside the 7-11, I listed down the plate number and asked myself several times if I saved myself from a misfortune. Except for my former boss, most of the people that I shared my story found it hard to believe it because at that time, a taxi chemical spray modus operandi was not yet in the open.
If we foresee or feel that something bad will happen to us, by all means, follow our intuition. That is God’s way of telling us to save ourselves from bad people and unfortunate events.
I threw an old piggy bank last Saturday in my AIM to start thinking BIG when it comes to saving and earning money. Money is limited and how I wish that I could just buy all the things that I fancy about! How I wish that I could help more, give more and share more of my blessings to those in need!
Saving money is not foreign to me. I started saving when I was in grade school and spending them on good causes were the sweetest things that I remember until now. In my adult years when I became the front-liner in the economic battlefield, I had gains and as well as losses but I never stopped fighting for what I believe every man should aspire—FINANCIAL FREEDOM.
Money is limited and we are not born into wealth but it doesn’t mean that we will live from payslip to payslip forever. I attached a sample computation of how compounded interest works. I assumed a 2% interest rate, 2000 pesos as initial deposit and 12,000 pesos yearly deposit. By the end of the 15th year, I would have PhP210,216 in the bank. Therefore, to be able to hit a certain target savings on a particular target year, I would just manipulate row D5 and onwards to input how much should I save per year. I agree that banks do not offer the best “earnings” out of the money that we put into them but MOST of the people in the Philippines would rather do banking than investing their money somewhere else.
Saving and investing is the right formula to financial freedom and it works for most people I know. As soon as they build their target savings, they invest their other money on stocks, mutual funds or business venture to maximize the return of their passive income.
The key here is to create a VISION of how much money you would like to have after X number of years and everything will fall to its proper places later. Because a person who has adapted a culture of financial awareness will be more conscious about his cash flow, what his priorities are and how to earn more money.
Money is limited but as Bo Sanchez says, if we believe that we have unlimited sources of it, then we will attract it. I call this one “money vibes.”
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The World of Second Chances 