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Showing posts from May, 2023

14 Call Center Interview Questions & Answers

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The call center industry is one of the fastest growing in the country these days. As recently as ten years ago, there were only a few call center agents and the word call center was hardly ever used in the country. Today, almost every family has at least one member working in the call center industry. The reason for this boom is partly economics. In the Philippines, low paying jobs are very notorious and while call centers set up shop here because of the low labor costs, Filipinos decide to work for the call center industry because it pays higher than average wages. Consider this: if you are an average worker with an entry level position, you probably are getting paid seven to ten thousand a month; meanwhile, an average employee in the call center industry with an entry level position will get around fifteen thousand pesos a month, plus free dental and health benefits (HMO). Call centers also will pay your SSS (Social Security), PAGIBIG (home building fund), and PhilHealth (health ins...

Filling Station Bar and Cafe Review: A Restaurant from the Past

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I have heard of the restaurants in Poblacion a few times from vlogs in YouTube but have never been to any of them until now. Poblacion is a neighborhood in Makati filled with hotels, spas, bars and restaurants. My friend, who was visiting Manila for a meeting, told me that she wanted to eat at a restaurant called The Filling Station because she used to eat there when she was still working in Manila. She was one of the many office workers in Manila who trooped back to their hometowns when the lockdowns hit and work from home became a thing. We went to Filling Station on a late afternoon on a Saturday. The guard outside had a radio that he used to check if there were tables available inside. Fortunately, we were able to get seats right away.  We were greeted with retro decor as soon as we entered Filling Station. That was when I realized that I had seen this restaurant featured in a vlog before. If I remember correctly, the theme of the vlog was "Americans eating ...

Is the Philippine Peso Backed by Gold?

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When local news networks posted an article in 2020 that the central bank was going to start actively trading its gold reserves , I saw someone in the comments section ask if the Philippine peso had now been turned into a fiat currency. I was very amused because the entire world has been running on fiat currency since the 1970s when the US went off the gold standard. But I really should not have been surprised. When I was in high school, a classmate of mine asked our economics teacher why we couldn't just print money. Our teacher answered that we needed gold to do so. At that time, I had already read Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad, Poor Dad so I knew that her information was outdated. She was probably twice my age back then so I'm pretty sure we were already off the gold standard when she attended college. A gold standard means that currency is either convertible to gold or can only be issued based on a country's gold reserves. Prior to the 1970s, the Philippines was on a do...