FIRST DAY ON MY FIRST (OUTSIDE) JOB

Last Friday, January 12 was my first day of work on my first job outside the family business. It was sort of a “teaching” job at my graduate school alma mater, De La Salle Graduate School of Business. It is not really a teaching job even though I am designated as the lead “professor”. My mentor, Professor Elfren Cruz handles the lecture part of the class, which focuses more on Strategic Management and it is under his auspices that I’m working for right now. My part along with that of my two other co – professors on the other hand focuses more on the “motivational” aspect of the subject for this class is no ordinary class to start with. This class is called Special Topics in Business Management and the enrollees are mostly candidates who finished all of their academic subject save for one final test, the Oral Comprehensive Examinations (OCE) where candidates defended their STRAMA (Strategic Management) papers against a panel of 3 distinguished members of the academe. OCE is the final requirement that all MBA students had to go through in order to become a bonafide Master and it is by far the toughest and most nerve-wracking test in GSB. So much so that most students “avoided” OCE like a plague even if they have gone through all the torture of the academic subjects. Hence, the school is saddled with a situation wherein they have a huge backlog of candidates but very handful of graduates. My mentor seeing this decided to offer this so – called “special classes” and I was one of it’s early beneficiaries when it first started in 2004. Now, the special class was in it’s 3rd edition and I’m in charge of it (every edition has a new set of “professors”). The class size last Monday was about 30 people and I was told that there are a few more would be coming in the next week. Most of the enrollees had finished their STRAMA sometime 4 – 6 years ago but I do have 2 – 3 of them who finished their academics way, way back in the 1980s. The challenge here was to get the enrollees to completely update and revise their STRAMA paper and to prep them for OCE but that is easier said than done. One of the lessons learned in the previous editions of the special class was that the academics (the STRAMA review) are only a part of the enrollees’ problems. The other part of the problem was psychological (in my mentor’s term) or motivational. Most of the enrollees possessed the desire to finish their OCE but they somehow never manage to in spite of their desire. Something most be holding them back either it is the lack of confidence, fear resulting into paralysis, or simply work – life balance (in fact, 1/3 of the present enrollees are my classmates in the previous “special class”). At any rate, it is my job and that of my two other colleagues, Carol and Judhes to find out and help the enrollees overcome them. As for me, this job was my first job outside the family business. Until last Friday, I’d never worked outside before not even in OJT during college (I started working for the family business since when I was 10 years old, FYI). It is not due to the lack of job offers. As a matter of fact, I had quite a few of them and a few of those offers are pretty nice and best of all, I didn’t apply for any of them! They are just offered to me and I turned them down (including the one from my mentor) except for 2 and this job is one of the two jobs that I didn’t turn down (the other job that I didn’t turn down was shelve after a reorganization). My motivation in taking this job was simple. I want to repay my mentor for giving me a chance to finish my MBA and this is my way of “paying it forward” i.e., to help others finish theirs. Actually, my mentor has cast his eyes on me for a long time now. Ever since I took up the first “special class”, he was often telling me that I should handle the second one or the later editions. He repeated that offer sometime in 2005 when I was helping him organize the Alumni Association and I said yes. This in spite of the fact that there are according to him many of his former students who wished to volunteer for the job. Well, I was his logical choice not because I’m his favorite but because I possessed a double advantage. First, I got excellent academic qualification (I aced in his STRAMA class) and second, I was a product of the said program (the special class) and therefore understood what the enrollees are going through. And these are the very two things that are needed in handling this special class. The pay for the job was ok actually. I learned from a friend of mine who works in the school administration. According to her, a full time professor possessing excellent academic qualification (a master’s degree or better) stands to earn Php500 per unit per session or in my case, Php1500 per session in a three-hour class (that’s if I am considered “fit” to their standard) or Php21000 in a 14-week term. However, since there are 3 of us handling the class, we will be splitting the pay three ways and thus leaving me with Php500 pay per “appearance”. Not bad but considering the gas and food that I’ll be shelling out for just getting there and the effort that I’ll be expending, my work will be pretty much a pro – bono affair (my mentor on the other hand is doing this absolutely free without charge). Anyway, I’m not here for the money or for the glamour of it (if there is such a thing called glamour in this job) but simply for paying my debt of gratitude to my mentor. And so with this in mind, I started my job last Friday, which turns out to be quite “forgettable” performance for me. My mentor was already there before 6pm at RCBC when I came into the room near 6pm, not exactly a nice way to start with your boss coming in before you. Furthermore, after my mentor’s introduction followed by his Strategic Management lecture, it was my turn to speak and introduce some of the “house” rules (which occurs sometime near the end of the class like 9pm). But as I was doing that, I totally forgot what I’m going to say. Funny but I was rehearsing in my head all day since that morning what I’m going to say and then, I totally forgot. Stage fright perhaps. It’s been a long time since I stand in front and talked to a large group perhaps 5 – 6 years ago (I didn’t get some “speaking” time during my return as I don’t do much reporting in 2004). In addition to that, I was never a good impromptu speaker. Though I managed in the end to communicate what I planned to say that evening, I still left many things out and aside from that, I send my message across like a telegram or a text message without any coherent grammatical structure. Plus, I kept repeating myself and had lots of “um” and “ahs” in between sentences. I sounded more like a goof than an MBA. Pretty forgettable. Moreover, I also found out that my mentor has updated his frameworks 2 terms ago and since my colleagues and I will be checking their papers based on my mentor’s recommended frameworks, I had to “go back to school” and learn those frameworks again because what I knew is now considered obsolete (geez). One other thing about my newfound job was the status accorded to me by my peers. I know a number of the enrollees and frankly, some of them are my classmates, my group mates, my friends, and my buddies. To actually hear them call me Sir sent shivers up to my spine. The appellation of “professor” seemed to be permanently attached to my surname, which I abhor. I always find the title professor attached to “oldies” with white hair and bent back carrying tons of books and wore a thick spectacle. I may look old but I’m not THAT old! Besides, I consider myself more of an intellectual rather than an academician. However, with the choppy communication I made that evening, it seemed that my appeal to simply call me by my first name instead of the “formal” title falls on deaf ear.