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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...
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Joining Dia del Libro

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Since 2010, I have been attending the Dia del Libro almost every year. This year, I was invited as an exhibitor by Instituto Cervantes. Dia del Libro is an event sponsored by Instituto Cervantes. During the event, exhibitors give a 20% discount and a rose for every purchase. Perhaps the term "exhibitor" is an overstatement in my case. Frankly, I think I looked pathetic because I was alone in my booth with no staff to count on. I also travelled all the way from Quezon City on the train lugging a bagpack full of books with me so I was very tired and drenched in sweat when I got there. I first asked Instituto Cervantes about selling El Diutay Principe at Dia del Libro in 2019 but the logistics required made it impossible. This year, I told them about my issues such as the roses we were required to give for every purchase. They were very accommodating about the whole thing and accepted my proposal to give a free Little Prince keychain instead. I have always loved attending Dia de...
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Experiencing Landers

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My Landers experience is courtesy of Maya's promotion where you can get a free Landers membership as well as a credit card with no annual fee. Since I went on a Monday after the holy week, the place was not crowded. According to the reviews in Google, it can get very crowded especially on weekends.  Maybe it's because Quezon city does not have a huge number of individuals with high net worth but I found the Landers Balintawak branch not well-maintained and not well-stocked. Although my points of reference are the S&R branches I have been to in Mandaluyong, Makati, and Parañaque so I'm not sure if the Landers in BGC is the same. Still, I imagine it's a nice playground for middle-aged people with disposable incomes. It's also a nice place to look for gifts or pasalubong since they have chocolates, wines, deli products, drinks, biscuits, and coffee that you do not see in other supermarkets. After buying some sugar, I decided to check out their food options. They ha...
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Holy Week and Main Character Syndrome

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Today is Black Saturday and I have been encountering a lot of posts in Facebook about how the "main characters" were returning back to Manila soon. This trend in social media began maybe two or three years ago. Whenever a holiday like All Saints Day or Christmas Day draws near, Facebook will be abound with posts from creators poking fun at people from Manila heading back home to their provinces (or to Manila after the holiday) and feeling like they are celebrities. People from the provinces who study or work in Manila tend to have a main character syndrome and thus feel superior to everyone else whenever they go home. This is also true for people who grew up in Manila but have family in the province who they spend certain holidays with. But what about people who are from Manila with no relatives in the province or those who just visit the provinces for a vacation? Do they also feel superior to the locals? I think it would have something to do with their age. I think if they a...
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Just Finished Reading Sunrise on the Reeping And You Don't Need to Be a Hunger Games Fan to Enjoy It

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I just recently finished reading Sunrise on the Reaping, released in March 2025. It is the latest installment in the Hunger Games books. I read the first three books of the Hunger Games series several years before it was made into a movie so I can only recall the main plot of the trilogy. I'm happy to inform you that even without reading the previous books, readers of Sunrise on the Reaping can still enjoy it. At some point, I thought that the mysterious first winner of the hunger games from District 12 was Katniss. So I became more confused when later on in the book, Katniss appeared when Haymitch was already old. Upon doing some research on the timeline, Katniss apparently came after Haymitch and the first victor from District 12 was a different person altogether. Do you ever recall scenes from a book and think that they were scenes from a movie? That happens to me all the time. Whenever I remember scenes from a book, I always have trouble telling whether they were from a book or...
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This is How Real Money Looks Like

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  Click to enlarge This was one of the gemstones I found at Yuchenco museum the last time I visited it. This used to be the paper money under US occupation when paper money was convertible into gold and silver.  Paper money was basically a certificate for gold and silver deposited into the state's coffers.  I don't know how they were able to deceive the people into accepting paper as money but even during the 1950s, paper money still had reminders written on it that it was legal tender, a clear indication that people back then still knew that there was something funny about using paper as money. Today, I am hearing more people getting interested in gold as money. Is a gold standard comeback looming? Lettering on the paper bill: TREASURY CERTIFICATE BY AUTHORITY OF AN ACT OF THE PHILIPPINE LEGISTATURE APPROVED BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES JUNE 13, 1922 THIS CERTIFIES THAT THERE HAS BEEN DEPOSITED IN THE TREASURY OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS TWO PESOS PAYABLE TO THE B...
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Is The Little Prince a Book about Spirituality

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I have been listening to a lot of podcasts lately about spirituality almost everyday. Five years since I translated Le Petit Prince, I am belatedly realizing that the story of The Little Prince could have been about spirituality all along. One thing that I heard from a recent podcast that stood out for me was how stars are portals and that is where we all came from. And where does the little prince live? On an asteroid! When the little prince arrives on earth, he is greeted by a snake. He tells the snake that he wonders whether the stars are placed as guides so that one day we can come home again. Lately, whenever I am feeling tired, weary, and lonely, I find myself thinking that I'd like to go home... One of the remarkable things that struck me from the story of The Little Prince was how the little prince had to die in order for him to go back to his planet and his rose. This is how a lot of NDE experiencers talk about death by the way, a homecoming.  When my aunt died, I felt ups...
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Debunking a Misconception About the Cause of Autism

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  Yesterday, someone shared this post in Facebook. I found it amusing because I remember having a conversation with my friend about the cause of autism and its rise during the 1980s. I postulated couldn't it have been caused by something that we began routinely administering in the 1980s or even in the 1970s to children? Of course, just like in the the Facebook post, she said that oh they were simply not getting diagnosed but there were already a lot of people with autism even before the 1980s. I didn't say anything but in my mind I was asking myself why was she spending so much on speech therapy and special classes if this were the case? I mean if I knew that undiagnosed cancer cases would still lead normal lives, why in the world would I ever have the need to be diagnosed?  Or why would I ever need to spend money on interventions if I knew that everyone with a cancer diagnosis would turn out just fine?  If our parents turned out to be healthy and productive and some of ...
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Discovering a Different Perspective on Sulu's Struggle for Independence

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When I was still working, I remember reading an article about how people from Sulu wrote to the Philippine congress, opposing being part of what was about to become the Philippine republic. I recall sending it to my coworker, who told me that the Moros were correct to oppose being part of the Philippines. Today, I tried looking for that article but couldn't. Instead I found several articles about the Carpenter-Kiram treaty and how a group in Sulu (as well as the Sulu Sultanate) is calling for the revival of the said agreement through a congressional act. https://tribune.net.ph/2024/12/31/group-pushes-to-revive-us-statehood-movement-for-mindanao-and-sulu According to this article , the US actually governed Mindanao and Sulu separately from Luzon and Visayas. This brings to mind the UK where (if I'm not mistaken), the king governs scotland separately as well. I remember reading about this several years ago and this is the reason why the king has a different title in Scotland.  An...
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Revisiting Booksale: A Trip Down Memory Lane

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Last night, I saw an ad in Facebook from Booksale that they were having a Valentine sale. Today, I decided to give them a visit. The caption reads buy books with your date which you will never read Booksale is a bookstore with branches across the Philippines specializing in used and cheap books. Booksale is very memorable for me because when I was new in Manila, this was where I would buy books. Yes, back then, I still bought physical books. I even had a monthly budget for books and DVDs in my notebook (no spreadsheets yet).  I remember always behaving like a kid inside a candy store whenever I visited Booksale because their store at Mindpro  (recently gobbled up by SM), which used to be the lone mall in Zamboanga city wasn't very well stocked and did not have great selections. Of course, I'm pretty sure that this was not the same booksale in SM North that I bought books from between 2007 and 2009. They had probably changed location within the same mall over the years. At the ...
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The Little Prince Street Kohi Festival

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Last February 1 and 2, The Little Prince Street Kohi Festival brought together fans, collectors, and enthusiasts in a first-of-its-kind event in the country. It was a memorable two-day event as fans of the French novella had a chance to meet each other and become friends.  There were several activities featured at the festival centered around The Little Prince such as watercolor painting sessions, book readings, and book signings. Visitors could also browse shops selling unique Little Prince merchandise and trinkets. For entertainment, there was a Little Prince musical and storytelling as well as various other musical performances. They even had some Little Prince paintings commissioned specifically for the event! Little Prince Art Exhibit Little Prince Philippine Editions I had a wonderful time meeting fellow translators of The Little Prince and sharing experiences and insights with them. We had very interesting conversations. I also got to meet Dr. Lilia Antonio who was the first...
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Grab Advance Booking Review

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My parents had spent the holiday season in the city and we experienced a tough time booking a Grab car all the time. Catching a flight home before the New Year, we decided to pay extra for Grab's Advance Booking feature. Grab Advance Booking guarantees you a driver on your specified date and time. At the time of this writing, Grab Advance Booking works only for bookings going to the airport. Prepayment is required so linking the Grab app to a payment app or a credit card is needed. In our case, we prepaid for our ride to the airport using GCash.  We had a lot of misgivings because upon reading the terms and conditions, if the driver cancels, it turns out you only get a compensation voucher (unknown amount) and a refund. So I'm not sure what the penalty is for cancelling although I would think that the premium you are paying is enough incentive for the driver not to cancel. In our experience, Grab Advance Booking cost double the regular rate. When using the Advance Booking featu...
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Gold as an Inflation Hedge in the Philippines

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Gold is often seen as a hedge against inflation across different cultures and several millennia. Gold advocates would cite that the price of an italian suit in the early 1900s is the same today as it was back then. Today, I came across a post on Facebook that claims to be an ad for flights from the 1960s. Since gold was still money back then and had a fixed amount of dollars associated with it, this is a good data to compare the ability of gold to hold its value. https://www.facebook.com/share/p/15YufUohLj/ During the Bretton Woods era, the price of gold was fixed at 35 USD per ounce. Meanwhile, 1 USD was worth 3.90 PHP. If a flight from IloIlo to Manila was 28 pesos, this would be equivalent to 7 USD. In terms of gold, 7 USD would have bought around 7 grams of gold (1 troy oz is equal to 31.1 grams). In today's peso, 7 grams of gold would be worth more than 30 thousand pesos. Far more than what Cebu Pacific actually charges today! The truth is I already knew that the cost of fligh...
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Tomler Personal Refrigerator Review

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Gone are the days when people would be apprehensive about buying electronics online. For me, I started becoming comfortable buying gadgets as well as small appliances like blenders and coffee makers online during the pandemic. A month ago, I decided to buy a personal refrigerator online.  At first, I had a lot of trepidations because I have heard of stories of refrigerators that suddenly stop working from people moving to a new place. After checking out refrigerators in the mall and seeing the price difference, I decided to take the risk and buy my first personal refrigerator online. I went with a fridge with an unknown brand name and it was also the cheapest one I found online.  The Tomler personal refrigerator arrived well-packed. There was one review that said that the fridge had dents when it arrived but seeing how it was packed in a bubble-wrapped box with styrofoam, I don't know how it was possible for the fridge to be delivered with dents. Online, there seems to be a ...
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Breathing life into a dead book

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In September of 2018, the Chavacano version of The Little Prince was launched. How the book came into existence was nothing short of a miracle. In 2013, one of the people reading my blog about Chavacano sent me a message about the idea of translating The Little Prince into Chavacano. He introduced me to a publisher which publishes the same book in different languages. I was disappointed to learn that the project did not involve any compensation so I shelved the idea. I think in the academe sector (where most translators come from), most people do things with the purpose of adding feathers to their cap as oppose to monetary compensation. In 2017, I no longer had a job and met a linguist (through my blog about Chavacano) who again, presented to me the idea of translating The Little Prince into Chavacano. Since I already had a lot of time on my hands, I tried doing the translation slowly, one sentence at a time.  After a few months, the translation was complete. We toyed with the ide...
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