On my 1st year anniversary

On my 1st year anniversary

Today I celebrate my 1st year anniversary as a working and earning citizen of this country. All praises be God, giver of all good things. A year full of wonderful blessings, of paying taxes, of commuting in the combative route of mrt, of enjoying the luxuries of an all-day air-conditioned office, of ripping myself from bed and parting with my ever so lazy slumber. I believe that this is a reason for me to celebrate. It was one of the most memorable year of my life....yes, I could even consider it the most memorable.

I got this job after a painful experience of letting pass a golden opportunity for an internship in the government. Since then, I vowed never to let anything pass again. When this offer came, there were hesitations in my mind, especially because the job requires writing. Writing reports, articles, updates and letters, something I promised myself I would not do for a living. Really, life has a funny and ironic way of greeting us with blessings. But because I was so pained by the missed opportunity, I passed my resume anyway, I thought that if this was never meant for me, I wouldn’t even be shortlisted for it. Funny, I was hired for the job.

When I was 1 month old in the company, I was sent to Bacolod to do a story on San Miguel’s Community development program. The next day I was in Manila Peninsula, attending a high-profile business conference, more on the assessing the business climate in the Philippines for the year. It was my first time to attend such an event and much to my amazement, it was an enjoyable experience because I get to see the ‘bosses’ of the business community. Now names that appeared in news dailies have faces I could associate to.

So many things have happened in the whole first year of working, living outside the comforts of the academe. I was treated to all sorts of luxuries that I didn’t really thought was available for a rank and file employee like me, but I enjoyed them nonetheless. And then there were the depressing, sad and boring days at work. While I was enjoying the comforts of working, I am also at the brink of breaking down because of what my family is going through. My mom had cancer and we were just waiting for the time when God can take it no more to hear her cries of pain and desperation. Last October, God claimed her life and she was laid in peace.

Life moved on after that, no choice but to do so. Christmas and New Year were probably the saddest holidays we celebrated that year. No doubt, no Christmas and New Year will ever be the same again. Year 2004 opened with much expectations and hope. No way of turning back because doing so would mean death to life that has so much potential to give to the world. This I would want to with all conviction I could gather.

There are times when I literally have to convince myself why I need to go to the office when I cannot find much happiness aside from the comfort that the magazines littered in our office provide. Then my reluctance to go to work is compounded by my annoying department head, whose own demands he cannot even give himself. And the big boss who only knows how to belittle his people and push them around as if we haven’t done anything good. Not to mention the demotivating and meager pay.

My kind work motivates those who love intellectual masturbation (from the words of a respectable colleague in the debate society), not so much on the ideas but now, faced with real and true-to-life facts. Now comes the challenge of juggling reason and reality together so as to make them fit in a beautiful collage, which most of the time proves to be a feat for me.

What have I learned in my first year of work? Its really tough out here but bearable, otherwise, half of us would be dead by now... to be continued....