what i miss

I'm now in my third year with the company and though things have been good and well the past three years, there are still some things that I miss that I was able to do, and that I had from previous work. Things like ...

Travel
In my previous job as a Marketing Supervisor for the pawnshop chain, I did a lot of traveling that it came to the point that I got sick and tired of packing my bags every other week.

Nowadays of course, working for an offshore company meant zero travels. My Mabuhay Miles card is slowly rotting inside my wallet and I've forgotten how the Centennial Airport looks like from the inside. My last travel was to Cebu for the Sinulog in January 2005 and that feels like a lifetime already.

Of course, the fun thing about business travel is that (at least at the old pawnshop company) it was for free. Nothing came out of my pockets except for pasalubongs (which were obligatory once you hit the boundaries of Metro Manila). There was also a per diem hence accommodation and food was allocated a budget (you didn't even have to spend money for breakfast or lunch or dinner during travel). And, if you were crafty enough, you'd get to save some bucks from the per diem to spend on even more pasalubongs (if you knew someone where you were going, you saved on hotel money). Plus, of course, travel to the provincial offices always meant at least a free lunch or dinner or four because your hosts were expected to be ... hospitable :)

During my stint with the pawnshop company I travelled the Philippines extensively -- Baguio, Dagupan, Gapan, Pampanga, Subic, Clark in the North; Batangas in the South Luzon; Bacolod, Iloilo City, Boracay and Cebu in the Visayas; and much of Eastern Mindanao including Cagayan de Oro, Ozamis, and Dipolog plus Davao City.

Bonuses
Again, this was in the pawnshop company. It was practically raining bonuses in that company when I was still there. Of course, if you were still a newbie, the bonuses mattered little because everything was pro-rated. But after completing a year, you become eligible for the full bonuses they offered. At their best, the company offered an employee (on top of the 13th month) a possible 250% bonus which together with 13th month meant you can get up to 15.5 months of additional pay.

The 250% was categorized into guaranteed bonuses (these were company-mandated percentage, you get them whether you like them or not or whether you were a slacker or a slave) and unguaranteed bonuses (these were dependent on your performance and you had to have a performance appraisal of at least Satisfactory to get the minimum 25%; a good performance nets you 100% while if you became a super-slave for the company and get an Outstanding appraisal you get 125%).

After the pawnshop company, the sports-related company I've worked for also offered a couple of bonuses ... not as generous as the pawnshop ones but because of the enhanced salary base, they more than made up for the diminished bonus percentages I was previously receiving.

My current company doesn't have bonuses, guaranteed or otherwise, other than the mandated 13th month. But they do give a generous basic pay (albeit taxed wholely) which tells you they do value people. But, but, but ... a bonus is still something else. Nothing motivates people to work harder than the prospect of getting more money, yours truly included, and I ain't going to lie about that. However, why am I still in this job? Let's just say practicality dictates I stick it out, and a hunch inside tells me something big coming up, plus I've got a family of course (that's a no brainer for reasons for wanting to work), and an entrepreneurial enterprise is still in the works and still a long way to go from producing passive income.

Tax Shield
I cannot blame my current company if they're not offering a tax shield to employees. Because of the nature of their business, they have to be transparent in everything and thus, no tax shields are being offered.

In my internet company stint (the sports-related one) the tax shield was a massive 25% hence, I was getting 75% of the agreed-upon base salary which was a big help as I was just starting out as a family man back then and taking care of bills.

Now, almost 20% of my income is taxed. Thank goodness for the tax break announced but up until this time, the tax code guides haven't been released by the @$*! BIR and no adjustments are being made yet to my forthnightly take-home pay. Relax, hopefully by Christmas things will be a bit lighter.

Relevant Seminars
As part of the development program for employees in the pawnshop company, we frequently attended in-house seminars and those seminars organized by other companies.

The in-house seminars I miss not because of the learnings you get but because of the happy camarederie that happens after the seminars are concluded for the day. Those times involved a lot of singing, a lot of alcohol, a lot of play and a lot of talks with people you seldom really have a chance to get to know.

I've gained a lot of friends who graduated from being mere acquiantances on those countless in-house seminars especially those seminars outside of company premises. The beer sessions, the eating-outs, the quiet mornings were quite helpful in forging new friendships back then.

The outsourced seminars were the real skills-development thingies. Even if I was alone on those seminars, my purpose was to learn hence I didn't concern myself with being a social animal. Nevertheless, my affinity with the pawnshop company was always a good conversation topic over lunch with complete strangers, fascinated by my tales of how the pawnshop industry works and thrives in economic dismalities.

From these seminars was forged my current beliefs when it comes to marketing and the importance of being direct. What I haven't learned from college (since I didn't take Marketing 101) I learned from such speakers as Ned Roberto, Ichay Bulaong, Dickie Soriano, Kent Wertime, and Angeli Beltran-Lambsdorff and a host of other local and foreign marketers and DM practitioners.

Ikaw, what do you miss from previous work gigs?