To Trainee or not to Trainee

I would say: To Trainee!!!

Here I will sum up my traineeship at Headway and show pictures of the amazing trips and parties I experienced here. The Philippines is just amazing!!

First let me introduce myself again: my name is Cees van Eysinga and I'm from the Netherlands. I'm 25 years old and almost finished with my studies (Industrial Engineering).

I arrived in Manila February 13th and started my traineeship at Headway the following Monday. This traineeship is part of the curriculum for my studies and therefore compulsory. I chose Headway and the Philippines only because I have a friend who did his traineeship here and he told me great stories. A few e-mails and I was on my way to Manila :) Cheers to my network and to networking in general!

The things that I love most about this traineeship is that life just never gets boring here. Although I work during the week there's always parties going on everywhere and almost every weekend I'm on a trip (just call it holidays) to the most beautiful places on earth!! And that's not exaggerated; the Philippines with its 7,107 islands host the most unspoiled and beautiful scenery in the world. Mountains (no snow), Tropical Islands, Rice Terraces, Underwater Worlds, Beaches, Rain Forests, Rivers, Volcanoes, Wildlife, etc etc etc etc.

I've met great people here. This shows the best with my "family" at Headway. They are my fellow foreign trainees and are very remarkable and wonderful friends! We've shared allot and experienced more! Following is a picture of my family:

This is the crew who I've been partying and traveling with allot! From left to right:

Dorota, Cees, Bryan, Eva, Karla

The San Miguel Strong Ice shirts are epic already. We won them in a drinking contest organized by AIESEC in Club Ascend in the Fort. Foreigners vs Filipinos. Not a very competitive opponent.

Now a series of photos will follow. These will show the events I've been experiencing! Enjoy!

Whaleshark snorkling in DONSOL, March 2009

Arrival in Legaspi

Our resort in Donsol

The animal we came to see

We saw 6 whalesharks, AMAZING!!!

Chilling at the beach during sunset

On the roof of a Jeepney back to Legaspi

Beautiful Philippine sunset

To be continued...

My Project Team

One of the best things in life is to be able to work with smart, committed and fun people. And these are some of the attributes of my team here (10 times even better!)

All of them are Filipinos and I find a nice balance between technical, management, analysis backgrounds. Also a really amazing balance between ages, all of them have shown me determination, competence, passion, honesty, humbleness, respect and good doses of laughter, advice, comprehension and brightness.

Being a young Peruvian (Latin) in The Philippines is a great deal, but I couldn't feel more proud of my team here, it's an honor to me to be able to lead you, to be able to learn from you and to give you my best.

You have my all my respect. You have become one of the best motivations and sources of inspiration for me at work.

Thank you very much:
Alec, Mon, PX, Nic, Sheila and Karra.

And to Marcelo and Petr: thanks for this amazing legacy.

Here's to a very good looking team and a successful project that will be delivered soon! :)
KT

A little bit of History

On Monday together with my family (father, sister and brother in law) which are visiting me in the Philippines.  We took one day trip to Corregidor which is an island on near Manila. Corregidor is known the world over for its role in war, bravery, and history. It is three miles long and 1 ½ miles at its widest point, facing the China Sea and flanked by the provinces of Bataan and Cavite. A rock island remarkably shaped like a tadpole at the entrance of Manila Bay, Corregidor's strategic location was vital in the defense of Manila during World War II.

The name 'Corregidor' came from the Spanish 'corregir', or 'to correct', since the island was a checkpoint for vessels entering Manila Bay during the Spanish and American occupations. Perhaps it is Corregidor's geographical proximity to Bataan and existing inaccurate historical writings that cause many to associate the rock island with the Death March, which came shortly after the Fall of Bataan.

Corregidor became the headquarters of the Allied Forces and also the seat of the Philippine Commonwealth government.  It was from Corregidor that Philippine Pres.  Manuel Quezon and MacArthur left for Australia in February leaving behind Lt. Gen. Jonathan M. Wainwright in command.

Today, Corregidor's rich history continues to draw Filipinos and foreign tourists alike, making the island one of the most visited tourist spots in the country. For first-time Filipino visitors, Corregidor reacquaints them with the past and helps them discover their national identity. The island is home to many historical treasures.

 

It was interesting experience to know something about World War II in Asia. Because so far I knew mainly about Europe.  If anyone is interested in history he should go definitive there.

 

Headway – AMA Partnership

On Wednesday Headway signed a partnership with AMA EDUCATION SYSTEMS HOLDINGS, INC., which is a corporation duly established and operating in the Philippines, they are capturing different universities mainly IT. The main objectives of this partnership are to have an access to pool of talents that can work in Headway. We wish to give chance for AMA students to have their On-the-Job-Training here as well as be an employee. We would like to be involved in job fairs and career talks. Headway management would like to put an effort to shape young Filipinos, learn critical thinking and other core competencies. We believe that such activities can bring positive impact on filipino education system and we will be looking for signing such partnership with other universities.

Introducing the SIX of us :)

Ok! So this post is dedicated to the amazing and fun individuals who are doing their traineeship at HEADWAY today. These are:

From left to right:
Dorota (Poland), Cees (The Netherlands), Bryan (Canada), Eva (Slovakia), Karla (Perú)
- Sonia (Romania) missing in the pic.

TRAINEES IN THE OFFICE

Dorota (HR-SSG) - Cees (Quality - SSG) - Bryan (HBS) - Karla (HPL) - Eva (HBS)
Sonia missing in the picture (HBS)

TRAINEES PROUD WINNERS OF THIS COOL COMPETITION

Upper Line: Cees, Dorota
Bottom Line: Eva, Karla, Sonia
Bryan missing in the pic (he was in Vietnam)

TRAINEES ENJOYING DONSOL (LEGAZPI) in The Philippines

SONIA - 24 years old, committed to a cool chinese, from Romania, she holds a degree in Economics. She arrived in August 2008 and will be here till January 2010. She works as project manager in Headway Business Services, establishing a company in The Philippines.

BRYAN - 29 years old, single, from Canada. He is a Chemical Engineer, he had worked at National level in AIESEC in Hungary and The Netherlands. Now he is doing a business consulting traineeship for one year, till August 2009.

DOROTA - 25 years old, committed to a nice filipino, from Poland. She got her master's degree in Economics in 2007, then worked for AIESEC at National level and afterwards decided to go for an internship. Her role is HR Officer for Headway Business Services - Shared Services Group, meaning that she manages HR in three different companies. She will be here till August 2009, maybe longer :)

EVA - 25 years old, committed to a smart czech, from Slovakia. She holds a Masters degree in Public Economics. She has being into 25 countries because of AIESEC and personal travels. She is Business Consultant for 2 current projects in Headway Business Services. So far, she is enjoying her 7 months in The Philippines.

KARLA - 25 years old, single lady, she comes from Perú, she is an Industrial Engineer, who had lived and worked in Perú, U.S. and Brazil ; and traveled across Latin America because of AIESEC and non-AIESEC related projects. Today she works as business consultant and project manager in Headway Process Logics. So far she has been here for 3 months and she loves it.

CEES - 24 years old, single, from The Netherlands, (almost graduated as) Industrial Engineer. He has lived in The Netherlands, France and now he is enjoying his "pinoy" experience. He works as Quality Control Officer for Headway Business Services - Shared services Group; meaning that he is working in implementing and monitoring quality standards in three companies. He arrived in February and will be here till August.

These are us!
Check out this "formal" video we put together =)

Cool thing to realize while writing this, how extraordinary is to find similar people, with similar interests, from Europe and America; AIESECers, with international experience, Economics and Engineering backgrounds, very ambitious minds, really caring, sometimes random and ultra fun:

Check out our attempt to become Chinese in a Friday night, after finishing a typical Headway week.

Headway promesses a challenging and life changing experience to their trainees. So far, it has been full with different, unique, special, surprising, unexpected, kind, random, possitive, fun, incredible... situations.

For sure we will continue sharing stories of our wonderful experience coming from working on a Consultancy firm; learning how to balance work with beautiful nature and trips... in this unique country - The Philippines.

Stay tuned for more :)

Keynote speech in the LYCEUM of the Philippines

On FRIDAY I had chance for the first time of my life to be a keynote speaker. IT was amazing experience. I was invited by LYCEUM of the Philippines University Batangas for their conference with theme: Networking and Linkages between Business and Academics Institutions. This university is around 2,5-3 h from Manila in very nice place. I was giving speech about: Standards and Qualifications of multinational companies in hiring people.

I went to the university one day before, Thursday afternoon and when I get there I was welcomed as a star :) with a big bucket of flowers pictures etc. I felt like Miss Poland they even called me like that because of course for them I'm so beautiful :) I was given very nice room so at the evening I prepared myself to the next day and went sleep. Next day I woke up around 6.30 AM to practice speech and prepare myself. It was very nice sleep because finally no street noise just pure nature :)

The whole conference was from 9:00 till 12:00 I was at the very beginning. My speech long around 30 min and in my opinion it was the only one speech which was useful for students the other were not so much on the topic. But after such long experience in AIESEC and thousand conferences I have big expectations　：）after my part I was given a certificate some small presents. It was a very nice experience to talk to around 300 students, their family members and other important people. I know that the organizers and university itself was surprised that I'm so young but I think that it is not about how old are you but what kind of experience you have. I hope to have mire chances to participate in such events for me personally it was a great chance to check myself as a keynote speaker, to got to know more education system in the Philippines and of course to have a great fun :)

Key learning points from last 6 months

It is already 6 months that I’m here in this beautiful country. It is amazing how time is passing quickly. So far I manage to visit many interesting places like: mountains, caves, rain forest, beaches, volcano, towns, underwater world, etc. J of course I’m looking forward for more! If you like adventures, sun and nice people this country definitely is for you!

Talking about experience at work I have to admit that I’m learning a lot! Job that I’m having is very responsible and I wouldn’t name it internship because you have to make very crucial decisions and scope of work is big as well, thanks to that I can feel like developing and discovering myself every day. I was already in many different situations, dealing with different people. I can say that being HR in AIESEC and in company is very different; when money is there everything is more complicated. I’m learning a lot how money influence HR and all the activities connected with this.  I’m also learning how to work in completely different culture. Sometime it is very hard. Filipinos are very friendly and hardly ever will say no sometime they need to be push and guide. The labor market is also different than Polish one. In our company currently there are 6 trainees and I can see how big value they are bringing. I wish more Filipino companies will use foreigners to combine different cultures and benefits from it.

In front of me more 6 months, sometime I’m wondering how things will go and what next day will bring. I started to think what to do next. I have different thoughts in my mind. Staying in Headway, look for some other company in the Philippines, look for another internship or back to Poland. I hope that everything will clarify soon so that I don’t have to worry.

To summarize I’m recommending such experience for everyone. You can get to know a lot about yourself, world other people. You are not loosing anything just gaining!

 

 

 

First weeks in the Philippines

After two and a half weeks in the Philippines I felt the need to share my experience so far. This blog is a great way to do that so in the furure you will read many more posts from me here! What have I done so far and how are my first impressions??? Read more and find out!!

On February 12 I arrived in Manila airport close to midnight. As agreed by e-mail beforehand I had a few beers as soon as I touched down with the CEO at the office. Very nice :)

There was no room available in the Headway apartments in Kingswood towers when I arrived so I've been staying in a dorm in Manila untill now. Today I'm moving to Kingswood in Makati though, very exciting!

The following day was my orientation day at the office and I got to meet everybody working at Headway including my fellow trainees. I had a bad jetlag so I had a hard time staying focused during briefing but I managed to pick up some of it. I offered a box of "stroopwafels" to everybody and a bottle of "kruidenbitter" from the town where I studied (Groningen) which was finished the same evening of course!

The major event of the following week was my Balut ritual. It's a tradition at Headway that every new trainee eats Balut. This is an egg with an unhatched chick inside that you're supposed to eat... The bar in HBS (I'm quality control officer in HBS - Shared Services Group) was to eat at least two eggs. Flo showed me how to eat them and everybody was watching and hoping that I wouldn't be able to handle it. When I discovered that it's actually quite tasty I decided to raise the bar to three eggs. So for the future trainees, because of me you'll have to eat at least three :) Enjoy!

During my second weekend I discovered a very loved hobby of the Filipinos: malling (to mall). This was a new verb for me so I decided to try it. There are tons of big malls in Metro Manila and after a few hours of malling I was the proud owner of some new shoes! Ready for the next week to continue on my project in style! On saturday night we went to an AIESEC event at club Ascend where we entered a drinking contest against the Filipinos. Do I even need to mention who won? Ok, we won! We got ourselfs some cool San Mig Strong Ice t-shirts that we wore to the office to show our winners mentality to the rest of the company!

The third weekend started of very well. The guys from Kingswood 17E organized an ALCOHOL party! This particular theme was chosen because the week before we got 11 (eleven!!) bottles of gin from AIESEC and they were taking up too much space in the fridge. During this party I figured it would be a good idea to introduce some proper Dutch drinking games! The game I chose was Kings, with Dutch rules. After a few hours of playing and the creation of a drink that tasted like Dutch liquorice, half of the gin was still in place and most attendees of the party were not able anymore to finish the rest. That calls for another ALCOHOL party in the future in 17E so that we can trash the place again ;)

The next day I woke up really early because of the office ritm I'm in. I agreed with Karla that if we would wake up early we would meet up and go to Puerto Galera. White beach to be precise. So that's what we did. This was the opportunity I've been waiting for to flee the busy city with it's polution for the weekend. At noon we arrived at White beach. I loved it right away. We booked a hotel and had some lunch. Then we stayed on the beach the whole day. Tanning, swimming, tanning, some more swimming, jumping of cliffs, and getting a massage on the beach while the sun was setting and the ocean was sounding in the background. That's the live!

That evening there was partying going on everywhere. Earlier that day we met some Filipinos who we saw again sitting on the beach and listening to the music. We joined them and drank lots of Mindoro Sling (Mindoro is the name of the island and sling is a fruity punchlike drink). While doing that we met more nice (international) people who live in Manila. Everybody was friendly, even the gay guys dressed up as girls, who I thought were a scary in the beginning.

The next day was another tanning, swimming, etc day. Although this day I saw the dark side of the Filipino sun at noon. In half an hour I got quite badly sunburned as I haven't seen the beach for a long time. While writing this I'm kindly reminded by my skin that I shouldn't go in the sun around noon no matter how much sun block I use...

I was kind of saved by the weather because around 12:30 it started raining a bit and the sun failed to kill me in action :)

We had a great lunch with fresh fruit shakes and fresh fish and after some more swimming and cliff jumping we got on the boat back to the mainland. This was a very nice trip and only the first of many to come!

Keep following the blog and you will be able to follow our adventures here. I'll keep you updated!! Now I'm going to move my stuff to Kingswood and chill out in my new home!

Cheers,

Cees

Turning 25 at HEADWAY

My 25th B-day had a very nice celebration in the office.
This amazing people really made me feel SO good. I had greetings all day long and some presents from my friends.

Thanks a LOT:
Dorota, Sonia, Evita, Brian, Akie, Mike, Noli, Mike C, Flo, Justin, Brend, Jewel, Karra, Kate, Tim, Andrea, Ate Elsa, Vyvyan, Eric, Sam, Lenlem, Jeff, Rellmon, PX, Alec, Pia, Arlene, Joel, Albert, Remy, Francis, Michelle, Loui, Paolo.

Photos in the Office!

Thanks you Headway! :)

Stay tunned for more stories about the February B-day Celebration and the so-called balut ritual.

Cheers,
KT

New Trainee in Headway

We have a new trainee in Headway! We are 6 now here! It is amazing to welcome again new person and orient him to everything. Our new boy is Cees from The Netherlands. He will stay with company for 6 months on the position of Quality Control Officer in Headway Business Services, Shared Services Division. You should look forward his post on our Blog! 

Discovering Philippines

After the last 2 weeks, I fell in love with the Philippines even more than before. On January 21 friend from Poland visited me with her sister. They spent 10 days here. I planned 2 trips to show them what this country is all about!

For the first journey, we started our trip by bus on Jan 21 at 10pm to Banaue - a place which is famous for its Rice Terraces. We also visited Batad where we got to see outstanding Rice Terraces and a tall waterfall upclose and personal! We trekked on the walls of the terraces, and swam in the cool waters near the waterfall. It is even hard to describe… maybe when you look at the pictures, you will understand what I felt.

During that trip I almost didn’t feel like I was in the Philippines. The fauna and flora were completely different than what that I have seen so far. Also, it was so cold in the evening! Yes I was really cold, but maybe it was also the fact that people from the area were not smiling so much unlike in Manila.

From Banaue we travelled by jeepney through an extremely exciting road to Sagada… which was made more exciting by sitting on the roof of the jeepney! :) We spent 3 days in Sagada, which is famous for Caves and Strawberries. The highlight of my Sagada exprience was caving - for the first time in my life I was really caving, not like in Poland where one was walking around on a well-lit path to see what is there. I was barefooted hopping from one rock to the other, with only an oil lamp to guide our way for around 3.5 hours. You really needed to watch each move that you were making. It was very slippery and you could get hurt (maybe even killed!) with one mistake. It was a great experience because you could learn a lot about yourself, especially being in an extreme situation while seeing something unforgettable. I wish to have more of such adventures.

Those full 4 days became something that I was looking for a long time! Spending my time with best friends in a beautiful place, to enjoy my time, to completely relax and not think about work, and to discover the Philippines day by day. Sometimes I can’t still believe that I’m so lucky to be here!

The second trip was only 2 days. I took my friends  to Puerto Galera on Mindoro Island, which is around 4 hours from Manila. I wanted to show them the beaches here because this is something that this country is famous for. Of course they were not the nicest beaches in the country, but it was enough for us :) For them, it was great to sunbathe on the white beach during January :) For me, it was nothing new :P because it’s always sunny here! We spent as much time on the beach as we could so that in the evening we go to bars and try some drinks :) And of course, we loved lying on the beach and enjoy the view of a million stars on a clear night sky!

Next day I went diving! Finally I can use my licence! Ah I love it! If there is anyone who had ever went diving, the person will understand what I mean. The underwater world is completely different, so colorful, peaceful and unexpected at the same time. You can see so many different fishes and corals that sometimes it is even hard to recognize which is which…

Yes it was amazing time! Now I’m full of energy to go to work and looking forward to the next trips. Already have something in my mind… :) 

New trainee in Headway!

On the 1st of January 2009 to the Philippines arrived new trainee. Her name is Karla and she is from Peru! She will be part of Headway Process Logics and her role is to be Business Consultant, she will be stating here for One year!

All of us are very excited to see fresh blood :P It is nice experience to welcome someone new to introduce everything and shared everything. Sometimes it is strange because you have someone of whom you should take care and you already have your life  but all in all it is nice experience.
I’m sure Karla soon will write something on the blog and shared her first impressions. Look forward new posts!

Cheers,
Dorota

New Year's in Hong Kong

Happy New Year to everyone! :)

One of the most attractive things of The Philippines is the feasibility to travel across Asia Pacific. So, in the previous posting we profiled Thailand. And now I will be profiling Hong Kong.

Some basic data about Hong Kong:

1) Population rate comparing to the total HK area.

2) Chinese heritage, very marked, people feeling proud of it, but at the same time very open for tourism and commerce.

3) Cantonese Chinese language, very unique and impossible to understand. As far as what I know, its more complicated to learn than Mandarin chinese; so people in a way feel prouder to have this unique language as an asset.

4) Free visa access - Man, this is real talk about globalization. You can enter the country with free-visa from 10 to 180 days depending on your country of residence.

It was an amazing time there, not only for meeting people in the consulting business, all talking about economic growth, business trends, China and opportunities with Latin America. But especially for meeting friends, walking around Koolon and having amazing fireworks in front of the IFC (International Finance Centre); this well remembered tower screened at The Dark Knight .

The funny thing was that we were photographed by a professional photographer who was taking pictures in the front line. Lucky us :) You can check out some more pictures here.

Other highlighs

Food. You can find food everywhere all day long. A nice thing to know, was that the goverment took all the street food and constructed like a food court, so that they could still sell their food but with higinical conditions and with tables and chairs to enjoy it as much as possible. It looked and tasted ok. And of course are plenty of spots to visit and unique flavors to try, I played it safe, though and had some noodles, I highly recomment them.

Ferry trip. You have to take it, its cheap and the view of Hong Kong is priceless.

Transportation. Very very neat.

Streets. Crowded - of course because of new year's eve; but also because people usually take off from work and walk the markets. Some avenues looked like Time Square in New York City. This city looks cosmopolitan and commercial at the same time; but commercial not only for the shopping sense (which was big), but also the high trade, the global business is in the air in Hong Kong. Which amazed me the most, was how safe it is. Really you feel secure.

Go to Hong Kong, either for business of placer, you will find it a great destination.

New Years in Thailand

For New Years Eve, there are two choices... stay in manila and watch some nice fireworks and drunken filipinos or go to Koh Pha-Ngan and party every night until 5am with 40,000 backpackers from all over the world!! 

Koh Pha-Ngan is a small island in the southern part of Thailand that I traveled to at the end of December.  The main attraction for this island is partying for sure.  Every night they party like it is New Years!!

There are fire dancers everywhere, fireworks exploding left and right, tons of drink stalls lining the beach, huge 6 foot speakers blasting out eclectic house music until 8 or 9 in the morning and of course, thousands of people. 

It is a really amazing experience that anyone who is in south east Asia needs to take up.  

There are a few funny things that needs to be noted.  1)  The lack of toilets is made up for with the thousands of people just pissing into the sea.  2) Fireworks are cheap.  Not only in price but in their manufacturing.  Lots of them are just exploding on the beach or only 10 meters above the beach making quite a show as drunk people dive for cover. 3) Thai guys really dress up well to look like girls... its frightening!!  4) One of the funniest displays is the fire jump rope where most of the people are just getting hit in the face with this rope thats on fire. 5) Taking the boat over to the island can be sickening!  half the people were puking because the boat rocked so much.  one of the worst experiences of the trip but I didn't puke... but listening to people puke for 4 hours is not fun.  

In Bangkok for my last day, I only had about 5 hours to tour around the city, eat and get a world famous thai massage.  So I power walked around to see about 5 wats... once you see two or three, you've seen them all.  I stopped taking pictures after awhile since it was all the same.  But below you can see a cool picture of some of the buildings in the Grand Palace.

The 350 Baht entrance fee is sort of a rip off but its still worth it to go in and see.  Tons of nice buildings, murals and buddha's to photograph.  The McDonalds in Thailand was not so impressive.  Quite slow service.  But the Thai food was unbelievable.  I definitely would rate that a 5 out of 5.  The red curry, green curry, whatever curry!! all extremely tasty.