Believe In Prayers

My job in an IT software company requires me to do product presentation. I happen to have one today. As I have a had enough of the bad days this week I was wishing that today would be better but the signs were not as good as I expected when I woke up this morning. . I woke up 7:15 AM and the rain has been pouring down so heavily since 6AM according to our househelp. Call time for the team to be at client site is 8:30. Well no worries I live just 15 minutes away anyways. So I took all the time taking my bath and preparing to go. I was on my way 8:15 only to encounter flooded streets and heavier rain. But the schedule is set and I have been praying for this schedule for 3 weeks already.

When I got to the client site everyone was there but the server like the weather was not cooperating. I panicked! "Oh no! This isn't happening." Thoughts about my boss getting haywire, thoughts on embarassment, thoughts on eventually finding a new job if my boss fires me were all over my mind while I waited for the sign from our technical guy that the server is up and ready.

In the midst of the on-going presentation and thinking about all those thoughts I realized I should not think about all the nega things I am thinking. I stopped and willed myself to pray. And the prayer was simple. "Lord, please make the server cooperate. Make it start up the application."

Ten minutes was all it took for my prayers to be answered. The server was up and ready and I was able to smile my sweetest smile. In my thoughts I silently said my thanks. "Thank you, Lord. You saved my day. You saved us."

Prayers are heard even if the pouring of the rain is deafening.

Dirty

“Don’t work for the government. There’s so much politics in there.” As an Iskolar ng Bayan I used to hear these words from people around me but 8 years and 4 months after graduation I have come to a realization that dirty politics doesn’t only exist in the government agencies (the Philippine government to be specific) but also in private corporations.

My parents have always encouraged me to work for the government. I come from a place where working for the government was like a trend or a status symbol but to me it wasn’t appealing. Instead, I applied for a corporate job in a private company thinking that private companies don’t have the kind of politics government offices have, dirty politics.

That was how I see things before…before I started climbing the corporate ladder. I became a middle manager at the age of 23. I have only worked for 2 years and it was during that time that I had my first taste of office politics – to me then it was just office politics. I wish I could dwell on the details of how politics got into my senses but I know it will only bore you.

Moving on…I recently had another bout with office politics. Back then it was just office politics for me but now 6 years after my first encounter with politics I already call it dirty office politics – I didn’t know it can be so dirty. It has caused me sleepless nights and has stressed me out big time. I am not stressed about the issues involved I am so stressed in holding my sanity and my temper. As much as possible I don’t want to deal with these “dirty politicians” but they just get into your nerves and then to your blood stream and to the other parts of your body! They suck your energy and enthusiasm. They start to kill your career, your dreams.

I made a lot of thinking on how to get rid of them or at least make them stop. I have thought of confronting them but as it is in the government no matter how many times you bring the “dirty politicians” to senate for an inquest nothing really happens. I have thought of resigning but I have signed a non-compete agreement and I know it will be difficult to change careers at this time of the year. I have even thought of hiring assassins – just kidding! All peaceful options were explored in my mind but at a certain point I know it won’t work out

Last night as I lay in bed looking at my son I was reminded of the reasons why I work hard. I work hard for the future of my son, of my family and it would be unfair to them if I start to get destructed because of these “dirty politicians”. NO! I won’t let these “dirty politicians” take our dreams away. Quoting Gandhi “No one can hurt me without my permission”, I am not giving them the permission to hurt me or my family.

I will fight them not by force or power. I will endure. I just need to hang on a little more on my sanity and my temper and if worse comes to worst I can always retreat gracefully.

Customer Service

It's another rain day today and this morning I was wishing I was staying home and sleeping.

I was talking to a client on the phone over some concerns regarding the implementation. It never fails whenever I talk to this client I always have a smile on my face when I put the phone down. Clients like them is one of the reasons why I love my sales job. You are able to gain friends and learn from them.

As a sales person I always expect high when I go to service oriented establishements though I try to be easy on them whenever they have an offense because I feel for them. However, for me it is still very important to have a good customer service because a good customer service spells the sucess of the business. The service is the value add to your product - it means repeat business or more referrals.

I may not be the best sales person (well, in terms of numbers) but I hope I do well in providing better customer service. After all its not always about the numbers its always the quality that counts - and everything follows.

Accounting 101

For 2 days I stopped my usual call-and-follow-up or demo-SBO routine and got stuck at Bayantrade's corporate office for Accounting for Non-Accountants training.

Taking this course happens to be on my list of To Do's for 2008 so I never hesitated when my boss asked me if I want to attend this in-house training even if it meant that I would have to put on hold my other duties. The training was indeed an answer to my prayers.

Our trainor was very good, not to mention she has a very impressive career background. She was brilliant because she was able to get through to her students who are not accountants. Now, I am able to appreciate T Accounts, balance sheets, profit and loss, cash flows and all those basic accounting principles. We were even taught how to do our personal income statements and balance sheets.

Now I am more confident and happy about myself that in 2 days I have learned to value accounting in my day to day existence. My father was right I could have been richer if I followed him and took up accountancy.

And Miss Maribel was right you can never call it accounting for dummies because dummies will never understand the beauty and complexity of accounting.