Our office has had several items that have been neglected over the years due to giving attention to other matters I assume. The security radios have been in ill repair for several years and not usable so some have had to be repaired. The licenses have not been kept up to date so that is underway with an upcoming class for all guards to become licensed. Seems that the Temple maintenance have been working their radios without a license. What that means is that signals can cross into our radios and vice versa and they can hear all conversations. Not a good thing for a couple of reasons. First and foremost...each department should listen to their own people not to the other departments people. Too much information. Then the access card inventory has not been updated for three years. These access cards get employees and missionaries into the MPAO, (Manila Philippine Area Office) and that other visitors do not have access. Other visitors need to sign in at the desk, get visitor badges and have the people they see for business come to the lobby to assist them to where they will be going. In doing an audit of cards and who they are assigned to I have found that many former employees who left the company did not turn the card back in or just handed it off to the next employee, volunteer or other occasional visitor. SO, I have been busy determining who has left and deprogramming the card from our system without the card being present. It is laborious as I have to go to about 12 different card readers and deprogram the card. It has taken about a month to do that and as of yesterday it is finally all done. The new MTC expansion to be completed in March, will have a new advanced system of card readers and the MPAO will be updated with the same. The new system will allow me to program the cards from the computer and not at each reader. This will be a wonderful advantage for all concerned. The new card reader at each department will have the same capability as the old one whereas it will record who comes in and goes out on what date and what time to let us know who is where in such a case of an incident like a theft as we had a few months ago. And it does happen here once in awhile.
We have been looking around for other possible apartment locations close to the MPAO for incoming missionaries so that there is a choice. Once you get off the plane you are tired and want to sleep, brush your teeth etc and just want a place to call home. Our apartment is especially nice but not all of the apartments are this nice. And the costs of some things become increased without warning. Our apartment complex has some amenities but not all are great. No place to really walk around. The surrounding neighborhood is not that comfortable...at night you would never go out so we found another barangay called Eastwood Village which is by far more upscale and the apartments are nice and about the same price as ours. We took President DeLaMare and his wife around to see them and see the neighborhood and to see ours. We wanted to show them that there is a choice if the new senior missionaries want to go other places. The advantage of being here is that all the senior missionaries are in the same place in case we need something from each other or rides here or there or just to know that we are close by. Our intent is to eventually have all the senior missionaries in apartments in Eastwood in the next 18 months. Everyone has a lease at this point so we don't want to break a lease. We have three incoming missionary couples coming soon so we want to make sure they understand their costs and possible locations for apartments. The Mission President and wife agreed. We had dinner with them last night as well. We had a nice visit with them.
After we got home and reading our email we received news that there will be a typhoon watch here for the next couple of days. It is forecasted for the north but typhoons do what they want to at the last minute so we have warned all the couples to be prepared with food, water, necessary provisions, and fully charged cell phone. Elder and I are not all that prepared so we will scope that out today to make sure. As part of a family home evening a senior couple showed pictures of Typhoon Ondoy and the extreme damages it caused last year. We had no idea and pictures say it all. We will pay attention to this and be prepared should the typhoon come our way. Winds can get up to 200 kilometers. Pretty strong winds.
Stay tuned for the next exciting adventure.
No comments:
Post a Comment