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… :)