My Friends: Team Pugon

“Show me who your friends are, and I will tell you who you are.” — Vladimir Lenin

I should be writing about Bart right about now (the funk-soul brother) but I think it would be nice if I did around the end of the month. Right on time for his birthday.

So, I've decided I would write about some new friends. And here we have Team Pugon: Eli, Harold, and Jake. As an aside, it appears that our positioning in the photo is quite auspicious as we seemed to have arranged ourselves alphabetically. Not sure how any of them would feel if I mentioned them first, middle, or last. Some people are just weird like that and I don't want to fall off these guys' good graces this early.

I don't really know them all too well.

These guys came to work just last month and they don't even seem to have gotten their first pay check yet. I'm not entirely sure. But we have become friends over some funny story about a girl named Hannah and a guy called Jesus. And, of course, we all like making clouds of acid rain.

We seem to come from different backgrounds. Eli is from Zamboanga, grew up feeling that turmoil is somewhat normal from what I've gathered. Catholic? Who isn't? I don't know the circumstance around his reason for moving to Manila. But he has a family here now and seems to be trying very hard to provide for them. He rides a motocycle, although he has yet to tell me what kind. Come team building time, he's going to drive Raquel.

Harold likes to walk. Apparently. I find that he is easy to make laugh— really laugh out loud. Hannah is actually a figment of his imagination— the name, that is. It seems that it's a Japanese word for something. But my selective amnesia is getting the better of me at the moment. Harold belongs to the Iglesia ni Cristo. I would normally have a problem with that because history. But I'm not that judgemental and even if I were, Harold surely would have changed any prejudices that I have. He's married like Eli but has no children. And according to my eavesdropping, they aren't planning to have them just yet.

Jake comes from Bulacan. Bulacan, mehn! He goes to Makati every day, riding the same buses that I am familiar with because he takes a similar route as I do when I go to Novaliches, to Nong Benj. Jake seems to be the quietest in the group but always has a punchline to throw. He was sick the other week and had to vape instead of smoke when he got back— supposedly, it's healthier but we all know better. Just now, we had a running joke about gifting rice and eggs as they could have been more useful than... nevermind.

The three are actually team mates at work. I work alone. When they started, they were at a table outside of the developers' space at the office. I am so grateful that they were moved here, just right behind my station. It's great that I have some people to talk to who would just listen and not really push their shit on me in the form of friendly advice.

I hope their client is as good to them as mine is with me. It would be really sad to see them go— as a couple of my other new friends have.

How is Efren, by the way? We need to chat.