It is May!

As expected, I had an April rush. I can't believe that there are only two more days left before May kicks in (with a Holiday of course). I had so many activities that I hardly spent time in the office. All official activities of course. Am I lost with what am I supposed to do? A little bit. I am a little bit confuse. Tasks are all screaming inside my head. Start with me! what about me? When are you going to pay attention to me? Hey, you have forgoten your promised! I am urgent! I am important! Hahahahahahaha.. I learned that in order to stay sane, I must managed all of these demanding activities and tame them! How? Again, be organized!

I am happy to learn that if I want to excel in my difficult job there is only one important discipline I should do everyday of my life. Organize! Every day I must act if I dont want to get things out of control. I must always be in control. I am very well sure that this what the Ayalas Pangilinans, Gates', Buffet, Sy's are doing. Loving all the actions even if it is something difficult they find ways how to tame it and follow its command.

I like Ilocos. But it is not a place for me to go back year after year (unlike Boracay). I can stay there for a long period of time maybe still if you ask me if I want to go there again anytime soon? Nope. :) There is no love yet.

Yehey... May 1 is a Holiday!

As of today

I'm back. My first day in office after being away for around four days. And guess what? It is Friday today! Wohooooo!!! I am glad because I am still exhausted after attending the GSM AP in Cebu. Not too much sleep and a lot of meetings. Imagine, I was there since Saturday but I only had the time to relax a bit (two hours) last wednesday after my morning meeting with KTF. I checked out on that same day. It was ok. Today, aside from trying to catch up and be mentally prepared I still have to attend three meetings. 1:30pm with RSF for our OCSMS updates, 3:00pm with Verisign and then at 4:30pm with Wolfpac. I'm packed! But then again, it is Friday so it is not like I will have to face these and other things tomorrow. I have two days to enjoy my time with my family and even to organize myself. Right now, I am like recovering from a typhoon. There are a lot of loose ends that need to be fixed. Gee, then next week we are off to Ilocos for our team building. aaaaaaaaaa!!!!

I really love Shangri La Mactan. The best resort hotel for me. It is a home away from home. I wish I could bring my family there but maybe we should go to Boracay first. :)

I will share something about the GSM AP meeting in a different post maybe.

Mariel got her request. Cds from her fav bands in Korea. These are even CDs bought in Korea. Lucky her. Yeah, I was willing to look for them here in Manila of course. I am sure though that it would be difficult. The GSM AP helped a lot since my friend from Korea (Shawn) attended this event and he was the one who bought the cds. If I were Mariel, I am surely to be ecstatic about it. I mean it is like maybe owning my pair of Rockport which my mom bought in US. I love it! I could buy it hear but it is expensive that I would think once, twice or never even imagine to buy it myself. Or like what I want to have now, a Samsung laptop bag. It is around Php4.5K and I can't even convince myself to buy it. No matter how much I rationalize I am still hesitant to purchase one. Unless someone out there will buy it for me. :)

Ok. Time to Work again....

Something to say

The weekend was great. I enjoyed every minute of it especially bringing Polo to the Fun Ranch (where kids rule). I am happy to see how happy he was during the time we spent there. He was cooperative enough while his parents where looking for someting to buy in Tiendesitas. It wasn't planned actually. We only decided to visit the place because I was hoping to find the shoes in Tiendesitas, unfortunately I didn't find it. So hop we went to the Fun Ranch. First stop was the activitiy center where we let Polo and his Yaya to play there for 30min while we watched them have fun. Polo was walking and walking and "priceless" really. Then we tried teh airplane ride which he enjoyed like how he loves cars. There are a lot activities that happened afterward but I am too lazy now to share it. :)

Today, we are back to the corporate world. Tough day. It just a few hours old but my mind had been working since yesterday. I have to finish a lot so I would not have to think over and over these things. At least the GSM Asia Pacific will be next week already and it is one of my pressing tasks this week. Thanks so much to our Marketing Events people, they have managed to shrunk this big event into small pieces. I love Shangri La Mactan. I will not change what I have said before. For me, it is one of the best hotels in the world! The GSMAP will be held there and I will be in Shang from April 13 to April 16. Exciting but not so much anymore. It is really different if you have a family already. It changes everything. If they can join me then that would be the best scenario. But it is like I am not there yet but I am already longing to go home.

GSMAP preoccupies maybe 40% of my time because I can not give everything. I still have some businesses to handle. Crazy stuff. The Psalm reading for today inspires me to just move on because "HE is the ROCK of MY REFUGE. Whew!!! I hope they can stop giving me work for the meantime. Well, I am under His wings to Jesus will be the one to help me here. :) I dont want to stress out my self so much and I am sure God has this big plans on how to move these things. I will just listen and do my work and work. 100% I will give to Him. That's the only solution I can think of right now given the truck load of work I have right now.

I want to be fit

Josephine and tried exercising again. It just happened last Sunday. We arrived from Marikina then we decided on the spot to at least walk around the village for 30 min. We did and we had fun doing so except for Polo who probably was surprised by our disappearance. I jogged last Monday and then yesterday Josephine joined me. All of them at night. It was easier I guess. It is like if you want to do it, do it now. Of course, I will not exaggerate the result. I burnt calories for sure but I am sure it doesn't translate yet to losing pounds. No no no. I am just happy to be doing something about my physical well being and having to do it with my wife. What could be a better deal than that? It is even for free. You know, Josephine and I had been together for so many years already. We see each other more than the other couples I guess because we work in the same company. We eat lunch together here and it doesn't bother us. We go to work together and go home together. Jogging together is another activity and I like it because we still talk :)

We will take one day at a time. Exercising is a daily commitment so as eating healthy food. They always go together to remain healthy. I also am taking Fern C. Again, too early to say but for three(3) months of taking a capsule a day has maybe improved my resistance against flue and colds. I noticed like last year that I always get sick every single month. My clinic records can attest to that. That's depressing! Crazy. Something is wrong and something must be done. Fern C did wonders to me so far. God bless and hopefully I will have a healthy 2008. Same goes with the rest of the family.

I need to be healthy because my job is crazier than it was last year or a year before that. International Roaming business is a beast that can not be tamed but only managed. Sometimes, it looks like there is nothing would put us down then again its horn swagger to left and we get hit. Wow! Or sometimes this bull run endlessly wrecking havoc along the way. The only thing we could do is to manage the damage. But sometimes, we use its full strength to benefit from its power. Crazy, man. Fluctuating currencies, political situation, economic health, storms, holidays, price of oil (heheheheehehe but I am sure it indirectly affect us), realtionship with different partners of different backgrounds and culture, network quality, new technologies, fraudsters, alliances, US presidential elections, IRAQ crisis, Wow!!! see. too much factors. Exciting job isn't it? :) Pressure pressure.. I must be physically, mentally and most of all spiritually fit to handle this job. Yeah, that's international roaming for you.

Exercise is a must if I want to have a longer life. I still want to have enough energy to spend time with my dear boy, Polo. Especially now, that he demands more physical attention and I am sure it will increase as he grows.....We only just have begun.

Working. Backwards

It was time for me to leave the academic world and once and for all face and understand what others were seeing outside this comfortable home. Nope, I wasn't a professor or anything. I had a non-teaching position where I was given a chance to train student leaders of our school. Cool. Idealistic and then I was there. I had fun and was still so immature! My peer group was starting to share their corporate adventures and mis adventures while I can not offer anything but listen to their colorful stories.

Then one day I was out. I jumped and was optimistic given that I had a La Sallian education and I was exactly a fresh graduate. Internet recruitment at that time isn't a fad yet. I bought Manila Bulletin every Sunday, asked for referral and then did some walk-in application. Since I wasn't using email yet I had to wait for letters of interview or acceptance. I was positive that I would land a job in no time. After a month, two, three, four...... the enthusiam was starting to go down. I looked into my expensive pair of shoes ( i didnt know it was expensive) was starting to quit. It has holes on it soles. I've been around Makati, up and down the buildings. Then Pasig, Manila, even Southern Manila.... Negative. Either I didn't like the job or I wasn't fit. And being in the Academe for two years was not that advantageous for me.

Fund was low. Morale was low. Shoulders dropped. Restless night. I was already hesitant to ask money from my parents and yet I still had no job.Tough life. I found comfort in visiting the chapel at the end of the day. In there, I just rest and share my stories to God. I guess it was one of those moments that made me closer to God. I did. That was my consolation.

One day, I got a job offer from an Insurance Company. I was invited to report the following week. I still had an interview with another company and I went for it. My interview was with the Sales Director right away and I was applying for Sales Training. He asked something simple from me. He said, "Marvin, sell that condiminium to me" Whoa!!! I didnt have any experience in selling but I tried. Then he said, what I did was so bookish. I lack the emotion and I do not seem to believe in what I was saying. Oh no................. I don't need another lecture. He said something actually that changed my self perception. He said, he saw something in me. I have the potential and everything but I have to show it. There is no way, agents will buy my words if I myself do not believe in it. Thank you. (I actually met this guy in another company). Basta, because of him I started believing in myself. Slowly. I never had the chance to talk to him once again (after maybe two years).

I accepted the sales job in the insurance company because I said I wanted to experience what it is like to be one. Again, I persevered. I tried all the tricks I read and heard from others. I was able to sign some policies and I had the chance to sign with a very big one. I was focused to close that one even if it meant going to some unknown places which were very far from my office. Maybe I spent a month with them. I gave my best. I did so many things in that company. After six months though I wasn't accepted as a full time sales agent but they had a different plan for me. Oh no. I can't believe that I might lose another job. I didnt want to be there again (I failed to listen to the next part of the sentence).

An insurance client actually was impressed with me so she asked me if I wanted to join her team. Since I didn't get that my previous company had another plan for me I left them and joined this new company. The decision wasn't well accepted by everybody because they said that even non college graduates can get a job like that. I cant share to them that I actually prayed for it. Even I had a difficulty comprehending why I should accept the jon which was not really different from my previous one. Just different industry. But the Lord said yes, join them. I did.

In here, I met another mentor who taught me so much about dealing with clients and making proposal. I was able to close some accounts and I still struggled since it was still not easy. But I started getting the hang of it. Sales is not just about the people you know but everything boils down to perseverance, hard work and cultivating relationships. My Boss then was so happy about me that when he left which surprised me completely created confusion and a little bit anxiety. Not now. Of course there was nothing I could do.

Until maybe after a month, he called me and asked me for a meeting. When we met, he just asked me how I was doing and everything then out of the blue he said if I want to join him in his new job as a Sales Director of a new internet company. I prayed and then joined him.

In Worldroom.com, I met the best boss I ever had in my life until now. My Ninang, Tina Di Cicco. She of course like the others taught me about the work but most of all she said so many good things about me and for the first time I wasn't scared of myself. I mean, the wounds inflicted to me from so many emotional clashes with people close and not close to me were really devasting. I walked for years carrying these wounds. Then here she came. She didn't point out the wounds to me nor looked into my weakness but she treated me with dignity and looked into the person I have seen for quite awhile. She believed. I guess that was the difference. I was able to smile again and slowly regained my self esteem. It is really different if you meet someone (Mentor type) who will feed you with positive things and yeah really believes in you. She did. After a year, I dont know but I felt confident that when it was time for me to be interviewed here in SMART I was ready.

After two years with Tina, I was able to join SMART where I am working right now. This is a dream job come true. You know, the scope is international and being able to travel the world and meet people. I am still learning and really am looking for another mentor who can help me to move further. It is still open. I am sure the Lord will send another Angel to help me here.