A lot of people are working these days. However, a lot also of those employed are either forced to be there because of the immediacy to earn fast (maybe there’s something that needs to get paid soon), making the employee swim in the wrong lake.

Regardless, even if a person lands a dream job, a well-known and well-established company, there will always be factors that an employee will encounter.

If you are that employee, what will you do if:

- you were assigned a project, product, or support service that you are not familiar with?
- your assigned work requires you to render additional 5 hours per day to compensate?
- you will not be given adequate training to do the new assignment?
- you are already three-quarters of the way to complete your project, and then asked to stop what you’re doing to do something else (and you don’t like that other project) and start over again?
- you are doing a project on your own initiative, which you think will be able to help the company (like a website perhaps?) and then when your boss saw what you did, instead of appreciating it, you’d be asked to stop doing it because you’re not paid to so?
- you’re promised commissions and you’re not receiving any?
- promised benefits were not given or were given only in portions?
- there were available training outside the country which offers badly needed skills for the company and you’ll be asked in return if you can learn it through documentations and PDFs instead?
- your boss, later on in the year, talks to you and tells you that he should have just agreed with you and allowed you to take the training?–

This is just a small survey / QA. If you were the employee, what will you do?

Technorati: employee, employment, work+relations, working+environment
Site Search Tags: employee, employment, work+relations, working+environment

This blog has been up since 2005 and despite it being intermittently updated, I never truly considered monetizing it since the number of visitors are very few. However a few weeks ago, I decided to take a look at the AdSense service since I am also an avid user of Google’s other services. That’s the very reason why these past 3 weeks you’ve seen some new items and the Google Ads on two areas of my blog.

Recently however, a big development came about. It’s not really a very big deal but it is definitely something to take note of. Last September 20, I received an email from the Google AdSense team notifying me that my AdSense account has been disabled. This has definitely surprised me and ticked that hell out of me. The email is as follows:

From: Google AdSense
To: –my email–
Subject: Google AdSense Account Disabled
Cc: Google AdSense
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Google-AdSense-Creation-Method: AdSenseFrontend
X-Google-AdSense-Message: ads-status

Hello <my full name>,

Your AdSense account was found to be related to an account previously
disabled for invalid click activity and we have therefore disabled your
account. Publishers disabled for invalid click activity are not allowed
further participation in AdSense and do not receive any further
payment. The earnings on your account will be properly returned to the
affected advertisers.

As outlined in our program Terms and Conditions, Google reserves the
right to terminate any publisher’s participation at any time.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

How come that my AdSense account was disabled and I’m accused of engaging in “invalid click activity” ? What I did in response is go to the AdSense site and fired up the Contact Form with the message:

Hello,

First, thank you very much for allowing me to participate in Google AdSense albeit in a very short time span. It allowed me to see the features that AdSense provides and the convenience it is for publishers to monetize their sites.

I am emailing you in response to a notification email I received dated September 20, 2007 regarding my AdSense account being disabled due to participation in "invalid click activity".

I would like to make some points clear.

1. I am not aware that invalid clicks has been made on AdSense ads that were put on my site, http://baudizm.blogsome.com.

2. I have never personally clicked on any of the AdSense ads that were put on my site, and I am perfectly aware of the terms as agreed upon prior to completing my application with AdSense.

3. I am using a NAT-ted home network where I share my connection with the rest of my family who are also internet users thus might explain sharing the same IP address with them.

4. I have not campaigned or asked anybody to click on any of the ads that were placed on my site. If you can notice on the ad demographics on my account, the clicks were very few and far between.

5. I did not even participate or click on ads from other AdSense Publishers.

I believe that despite me being new to the AdSense service, I have been done a great injustice and disservice. I have expected Google AdSense to be a great service and I have done my very best to adhere to the agreements and rules set upon by Google for the said service. I cannot believe that even one or two delinquent clicks, might bring down an erstwhile honest endeavor of monetizing a personal site. This is my first try to monetize my own site despite the years it has been up and I had put my trust on Google's AdSense service to be able to provide the monetizing service that I could look up to. However, AdSense failed me miserably. I have a very hectic day job providing Pre-Sales and Technical Support for a local IT reseller and I am perfectly aware of your rules and conditions.

If there is going to be a way that Google will rectify this situation, then I will be very glad to listen. However, I am utterly disappointed at how this matter has been handled. I am a very busy man. Surely this might be negligible, considering that the ad revenue (if there is at all) from the ads at my site only earned 40 cents in a span of almost 3 weeks. However, even that is proof that my site did not engage in unscrupulous "invalid click activity".

The email I received from Google regarding my AdSense account also led me to believe that my AdSense account will have no chance of being restored nor will I be allowed to apply for another account, quoting:

"Publishers disabled for invalid click activity are not allowed
further participation in AdSense and do not receive any further
payment. The earnings on your account will be properly returned to the affected advertisers."

This recent development is truly disappointing and disheartening on the part of an honest new publisher.

Sincerely,

<my full name>
Certified Novell Salesperson 2007
Freelance Consultant and WebDev.
(Linux/OSS, Windows,LAN/WAN/Struc Cabl.)
Registered Linux User #400165

This got me ticked off at Google AdSense. If I will not receive any message from them, its not worth it. I am not asking them to have my AdSense account restored however, if they will, then I will appreciate it. But looking at the number of accounts that they are dealing with on a daily basis, that possibility is slim. I am just hoping for some more information (logs showing the IPs, time the click was made, and so on) to be provided to me regarding the “offense” that they allege I had made. I am working on an enterprise IT environment and I know too darn well what the Google AdSense terms meant and it is stupid or ignorant of me if I go against the terms I have agreed to in the first place prior to completing my application at AdSense.

We shall see in the coming days what AdSense will say about this.

Technorati : Google, AdSense, ad, invalid, click, account, disabled
Site Search Tags: Google, AdSense, ad, invalid, click, account, disabled

Sad news, but hopefully this will only be temporary.

Bad timing. All the rallying and momentum that the Philippine Peso has made, and all the gains the economy is slowly getting, were all flushed down the drain. Investors are again jittery, apprehensive. The peso plunged sharply. And where will this put all of us that are common hardwordking, and tax-paying citizens? NOWHERE.

All the rally, politicking, coup, cha-cha, and all those shananigans do not, i repeat, DO NOT represent what the general Philippine populace really need. All those traffic-barring rallies, lousy and repetitive debates on cha-cha, grossly overdone politicking, only bring more and more hardship to the country. All these activities doesn’t even bring food to the tables of every family in the country. The only gain? PERSONAL. It is not the country who ultimately benefits from the activities of the people who are privy to these shananigans. They are doing these things for THEIR own benefit.

I am not a pro-Arroyo citizen and I am not against Arroyo either. All I want is to provide food for my family. But all these nonsense rallying, etcetera is not doing good for me, my family, my job, and the business of the company I work for. As far as I am concerned, after Marcos was toppled, the Philippines never really found true recovery. From then on, everything was downhill for the country. Regardless of who the president is, people will never really be satisfied. We keep crying “democracy”. Then when democracy manifests itself, we call it non-democratic simply because it is not what we expected it to be.

It’s just sad that a lot of them so called “freedom fighters” and rights activists guise their agenda under so called “people power”. It’s not even supported by the masses, “masses” in the truest meaning of the word. The word “masses” or “masa” has also been corrupted by power hungry politicians and spin doctors specially during the Estrada administration. The one they call “masa” doesn’t even represent the Filipino in its entirety. And those who are IGNORANT enough to be dazzled by the propaganda being brandished by these spin doctors, sing and dance to the distorted view (or even purposedly distorted) that these opportunists present. Sad. So sad.

And now, a portion of the military is also dancing to the very same tune that the stupid spin doctors are playing. Power hungry? ambitious? pretty obvious. It’s just sad that instead of doing good for the country, they only digging an even deeper hole for the country.

I only hope that Ms. Arroyo will not let this emergency state go for so long. Because if it will, I don’t think me and my family will survive the already hard atmosphere of the country. Leaving is a last resort and only to protect my family.

So Madam President, all of us humble workers in the country appeal to you. Do what you must for the mean time, but do it quick. Our wages are spread pretty thin that we might not be enamored to stay any longer and join others who left and helped another country to prosper instead of our own.

Abu Sayyaf behind Basilan ferry explosions–military chief

“Definitely it was a terrorist attack,” Lomibao said, although he said he was not sure who did it after investigators briefed him at the explosion site in Lamitan town Monday morning.
Full story at INQ7.net

If you have read the news above, I’m sure you are thinking that what happened above is just another statistic, another desperate act from terrorists. Or is it?

A lot of people could still remember how much the military and the police prided themselves in announcing that they have the Abu Sayyaf on the run, prided on how much they cut their numbers to only a few, and that they have put up a number of intelligence networks way down south to keep tabs of any activities to be perpetrated by terrorists. Guess what? they failed. In my own opinion, they failed big time.

If anyone saw the TV reports last night about the Basilan bombing of a ferry full of innocent civilians, I know you’d also think of them being a failure. Failure of security measures, failure of intelligence, failure in tactics. All they have are hot air, hot propaganda, and 95% bureaucracy. I am airing this grievance as a tax-paying citizen. I am airing this grievance in support of the innocent victims of the bombing and their families. I am airing this grievance on behalf of all Mindanaoans who are caught up in this hulabaloo.

Even if we are not directly affected by the latest incident, we are still affected INDIRECTLY. As persons living in Mindanao, every city, every town, including the peaceful ones are affected. Media MISREPORTS incidents like this as occuring “IN MINDANAO”. And that is also UNFAIR to the rest of Mindanaoans. Our economy not only relies on good governance. As far as we know, one of the factors that affects our economy greatly is the media. Although press freedom is good, but a lot of the media DOESN’T PRACTICE BALANCED AND RESPONSIBLE REPORTING. Get your facts straight. If it happened only on a corner of Mindanao, then tell it like it is, and do not air it like it happened to the whole of Mindanao. Many investors backed down from engaging business and tourists from visiting progressing Mindanao cities and tourist spots simply because they were mislead by erroneous journalism.

Media, listen carefully. Our jobs, our economy here in Mindanao depends on your FAIR and BALANCED REPORTING. A part of Mindanao ISN’T THE WHOLE OF MINDANAO. Set your facts straight.