Good news before bad news

My boss has a knack for delivering the good news before bad news, often with comedic results:

Popcorn, anyone?
One day, several of us at the office were helping out at a campus activity. As our boss is rather fond of food (her figure is evidence of that!), she often provides us with snacks when it comes to group activities like these. So on this particular day, she showed up at work with a huge plastic tub of popcorn, the kind that you buy sealed at the supermarket. Sometime mid-afternoon (snack time), she brought it to where everyone was working and opened it for us to eat. Naturally, everyone there was starving by then from having worked since morning and promptly dug in.

While all were eagerly partaking of this free snack, our boss stood there examining the cover of the tub before getting a handful of popcorn herself. After eating a few puffed kernels, she remarked as she glanced once more at the label on the tub's cover, "Hmmm... okay 'to. Masarap pa rin kahit nag-expire na siya." (Hmmm... not bad. It still tastes good even if it expired already.)

This extraordinary pronouncement of course electrified everybody there. All mouths stood frozen open with hands poised in mid-air about to pop in another few kernels. Needless to say, there were lots of leftovers.

Cheap housing
Housing outside campus is as usual more expensive than housing within campus meant for teaching faculty and administrative staff. As there are a limited number of units of the latter, only a handful become available for rent at the beginning of each academic year and applicants often have to compete for one. We had a few young faculty already sharing a single apartment outside campus in order to cut down on monthly expenses but struggled to pay the rent nevertheless. And my boss who always watches over the welfare of our younger staff was aware of the situation. This June being start of the academic year 2007-2008, our office eagerly awaited the list of units that would be available for rent starting this year from the administration office in-charge of these things.

In anticipation of this list, my boss encouraged one of our younger staff members to apply for a unit together with other younger staff saying, "Ba't ayaw niyong mag-apply para sa housing? Php___ lang per month yung rent." (Why don't you guys apply for a unit? The monthly rent is just PhP___.)

The younger staff member who apparently was not aware of the on-campus housing rates was amazed, "Talaga?! Php____ lang? Sige, kakausapin ko sina R___, L___, at J___. Baka sakaling interesado din sila." (Oh, really?! Just PhP___? Sige, I'll talk to R___, L___ and J___. They might be interested in applying for one as well.)

My boss happily urged them further. "Malaki ang chance niyong makakuha ng unit. Kaunti lang nga daw ang nag-apply. Dahil sabi daw, palaging nag-brobrownout, tumutuklap daw yung pintura ng ibang kuwarto at maraming lumalabas na ahas sa likod 'pag tag-ulan." (You should have a pretty good chance of getting a unit. After all, not too many apply for the units meant for singles. That's because they say that brownouts are frequent, the paint in some rooms are peeling off ... and there are lots of snakes that come out in the backyard during the rainy season.)

Now you can bet if our younger staff went on with their housing application!