Farewell AMS Family

Just a few months ago, I wrote a blog about my 2nd year anniversary for my work at Asiatrust Development Bank. Now here I am writing about my farewell blog for the bank.

On the first few days of May, I was pretty excited and "obviously" looking forward for my next career. Everyone is really kind of trying to convince me to cancel my resignation especially my Unit and Sector Head but they knew and understand that the reason of my resignation will help and benefit me a lot in terms of travel distant and safety, as well as good opportunity for enhancement of my career as well.

As the effectivity of my resignation comes to a near end. The "obvious" excitement that I felt for my next career has a gradual fight with a growing loneliness inside of me. Two days ago (that was Thursday),people starts to say "good luck" "thank you sa lahat" and "text text nalang" to me. Almost the whole building knows about my resignation.

Yesterday, as I have my last round trip from all the different floors and people that I so called "friendships", I tried to treasure each and every moments with them. The laughter, enjoyment, hardships, team building, parties, reports etc. these are the main part that I would really missed from the people that I'm going to left behind.

Guys and gals! and to my boss 'Ms. Grace Gan, thanks for the wonderful times that I had spent from all of you. Through thick and thin of our bank, we still survived! and I know you guys can still survive. Just remember "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men." Colossians 3:23 from the Bible.

Thanks everyone peepS! way to go AMS!
PS. Mam Mau.. Until now, I really can't get loose of my smile. Smile pa din ako habang tinatype ko ito! hehe =)

Awake

Life is short, sometimes people just come and go. We should cherish every moment of our life. Cherish every people that we had today... keeping our selves awake in every opportunity to show love and learn to treasure them. This song said it all...


A beautiful and blinding morning
The world outside begins to breathe
See clouds arriving without warning
I need you here to shelter me

And I know that only time will tell us how
To carry on without each other

So keep me awake to memorize you
Give me more time to feel this way
We can't stay like this forever
But I can have you next to me today

If I could make these moments endless
If I could stop the winds of change
If we just keep our eyes wide open
Then everything would stay the same

And I know that only time will tell me how
We'll carry on without each other

So keep me awake for every moment
Give us more time to be this way
We can't stay like this forever
But I can have you next to me today

We'll let tomorrow wait, you're here, right now, with me
All my fears just fall away, when you are all I see

We can't stay this way forever
But I have you here today

And I will remember
Oh, I will remember
Remember all the love we share today

Why is it....?

It's been awhile since the last time I posted a poem in my blog. Today, I tried to write this poem, capturing the moments and feeling that I'm in right now... As Christian, there will be times that we are Spiritually up and discern.. and there are times that we can feel that God is very far from us... and that is what I felt just today when I started to write this poem. At the end of my poem, it's really weird but my questions has been answered...

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Why is it so hard to hear Your voice today?
Why is it so hard to read Your Word today?
It seems like I cannot understand,
It seems like I’m becoming numb.

Why is it so hard to pray today?
Why is it so hard to confess today?
It seems my mind & heart isn’t right?
It seems I’m hiding myself to Him again…

Why is it so hard to love today?
Why is it so hard to have compassion today?
It seems like I’m selfish again today?
It seems like I just don’t even care at all…

Why is it so hard to please You today?
Why is it so hard to Worship using my Life?
It seems like my life doesn’t magnify Him.
It seems like my will has been done again…

So I lift everything to My Lord today, though my sin is haunting me tonight.
Yes, I lay everything from my heart today, to the One who forgives & revives completely .
There is nothining good in me. There is nothing to be ashame...
My Lord, My God, Messiah. Your grace is made perfect in my weakness.
My Lord, My God, Messiah. Your grace is sufficient for me to hear You speak.

So I lift everything to My Lord today, though everything seems so blurred and weary.
Yes, I lay everything from my heart today, to the One who owns it right from the start.
There is nothing good in me. There is nothing to be ashame...
My Lord, My God, Messiah. Your Love is the answer to my longing question.
My Lord, My God, Messiah. Your Love is from everlasting to everlasting.

AMS way to go!

My parents always reminding me that "time fly so fast". In just a blink of an eye, a year is passed already! In a short stint of my position being a Junior Management Trainee (for 6 months) at Asiatrust Bank. I didn’t expect that I will make it through for almost two years in a row. Yup, you guys read it right. This coming March 15, 2009 I’ll be two years old from my work at Asiatrust Development Bank.

Thinking how I applied here two years ago was really tough. I remembered when I was just applying for the bank; the whole waiting area sofa outside the HR was full of applicants aiming for the Junior Management Trainee (JMT) position offered by the bank. The HR recruitment officer carefully trimmed and selected the top Universities (UP Diliman, UP Manila, Ateneo, De La Salle, CKSC hurray! etc) and with experienced individual to join the outsourcing exam and a panel interview with different sector heads of the bank. Each applicant is tested in the way how they respond to the different queries, situations, personal experiences and knowledge of the panelists in a wide scope variety of questions. Unfortunately, only 8 JMTs passed the needle hole like experience of the panel interview (including me). =)

March 15, 2007 is the 1^st day when a group of 8 JMTs first gathered at the HR Training room to have our 1^st orientation. Then we’re being trained with different seminars, manual test and hands-on experience to familiarize the system of the bank. I remembered when I first deployed at the second floor business development section. I was with the Acquired Asset Group for awhile. Then I was shifted through Account Management Sector (AMS) as Junior Account Officer. Since the Account Officer turnover was very rampant last year, I was promoted being an Account Officer. I was routed from Account Management to Consuming banking officer for the bank.

As I reminisced my almost two years stay with the bank. I could say that I gained a lot. I had the chance to talked with a lot of clients, a lot of people who have different personality types, and got the chance to went in different places such as Mindoro, Laguna, Batangas etc.and gained new friends. The most important thing is I came to know more about my capabilities and myself. Indeed people always say that “Experience is the best teacher”. These are the things that are not being taught in the school nor can be seen inside the book.

I thank God for giving me the chance to experience all these things. These little things had shaped me to be more independent and to become more equipped, mature in dealing with things in life. I pray that my future endeavor with my employers will let me see a much clearer picture of what I should be. I know through it all, it’s Him who had open doors for me to teach me and to guide me. Let me share with you with my verse from my work:

“Do you not know that those running in a race all run, but one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain. And everyone who strives for the mastery is temperate in all things. Then those truly that they may receive a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible.”

1 Corinthians 9-24-25.

Stained Glass Masquerade

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness." Matthew23:25-28

I don't think it bothers the world that we sin. I think it bothers the world that we act like we don't. There are times that instead of being myself and exposing my own weakness and hurt. I portray a character of the person that I know I should be. But when I expose myself as weak and frail at times, it frees the Body of Christ to restore me as it should and invites others to unmask as well.
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Is there anyone that fails?
Is there anyone that falls?
Am I the only one in church today feelin' so small?

'Cause when I take a look around
Everybody seems so strong
I know they'll soon discover that I don't belong

So tuck it all away, like everything's okay
If I make them all believe it, maybe I'll believe it too.
So with a painted grin, I play the part again.
So everyone will see me the way that I see them.

Are we happy plastic people under shiny plastic steeples
With walls around our weakness and smiles to hide our pain
But if the invitation's open, to every heart that has been broken
Maybe then we close the curtain on our stained glass masquerade.

Is there anyone who's been there?
Are there any hands to raise?
Am I the only one who's traded in the altar for a stage?

The performance is convincing
And we know every line by heart
Only when no one is watching can we really fall apart?

But would it set me free?
If I dared to let you see?
The truth behind the person that you imagine me to be.

Would your arms be open or would you walk away?
Would the love of JESUS be enough to make you stay?

Using things, Loving people (especially for marketing people)

Guys, just want to share with you this wonderful excerpt from Tony Campolo's book: "Everything You've Heard is Wrong". I hope that after reading this excerpt, you're going to have a different point of views in reaching people's need.

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In a sales conference sponsored by a large insurance corporation, the executives invited speakers of caliber to share their most successful marketing techniques. The crowd was all ears to the how's of setting up clients, of pushing the right motivational buttons, and of closing a deal while one is ahead. Supposedly the best marketing strategies, the formulas sounded more like techniques manipulating people.

Campolo himself was given the task of ending the day with a motivational talk that could psyche up the sales team to get the job done. He surpised everyone with his opening words, "Everything you've heard today is wrong!"

Disbelief ran across the faces of the company's executives.

Campolo said people are not things to be manipulated with the right techniques. People are not creatures to be used to further our own economic ends. People are sacred because the eternal God has chosen to make each one of them his home. Everyone deserves to be treated with respect.

Campolo went on to say that, far too frequently, we relate to people as though they were objects instead of subjects. People in the marketplace deserve something better. He continued, saying, "You don't have to manipulate people if you're selling something they really need. All you have to do is show them the seriousness of their need and then demonstrate that what you have to offer can meet that need."

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As for my reflection, Campolo couldn't be more right. We live in a secular world that concerns itself with nothing more important than meeting quotas and closing sales. We have considered these more pressing than meeting people's need.

While I believe in the importance of sales conference and seminars, these should not be held at the expense of making us emotionless, money-grabbing mercenaries out to manipulate innocent victims who happen to be the consumers.

During my lunch break at Asiatrust Bank. After I have eaten my lunch, I usually went to National Bookstore Crossings. As I walked passed by the "Business section" of the bookstore, I saw volumes of devoted books to techniques and schemes aimed at manipulating the customer into saying "YES" to that valued order are being displayed.

I wonder how many of our companies have already hired experts to talk about how customers can be manipulated. It's high time for us to get back to the basics.

The basics are the decent principles focused on meeting people's need. The money earned from this kind of deal is not mercenary's income. While this may mean a much lesser value, nothing can surpass the fulfillment and the joy of knowing we've done well in the eyes of men and God.

God's Word in PROVERBS 12:17 says, "A good man is known by his truthfulness; a false man by deceit and lies."

How would you like to be known?

Family Feud

Family Feud <----- Situations such as these can happen when God is not central in the family. If His Word does not wholly guide a family, expect that love for money will gradually creep in until money becomes their god. Eventually people are killed and destroyed by it.

The father, being the founder of a business, usually controls it. He goes on to assign specific duties within its operations to his children. When conflicts arise, they are resolved in the light of the father’s authority. Since all transactions revolve around the patriarch, trouble creeps in when he dies.

I’ve seen businesses crumble the moment this happens. It happened to some of my father’s friends. And it even happened to some of our relatives. The children start to fight bitterly over the spoils left to them. Some of these conflicts are never settled.

I’ve read some stories that had the same kind of situations in Francis Kong’s “The only real matters” book.

Leonard Sheon is the founder of U-Haul, which later became Amerco, a $1-billion revenue enterprise. He thought it wise to transfer the stocks, totaling 95% of the business, to this eight sons and five daughters while they were still young.

In 1986, two of them, Mark and Edward, seized control when they voted their father out. Sam, the eldest, quit after some time and the family split in two. Edward and Mark were running the firm while Leonard and Sam were suing to regain control. Stockholders’ meetings fumed into fistfights. As things became worse, the old man could only grieve and say, “I created a monster.”

Some conflicts are never settled. In 1924, Adi Dassler and his brother Rudolph opened a sporting goods company in Germany called Adidas. In 1948, they broke up after a bitter legal battle that led Rudolph to set up Puma. Since then, the two never spoke to each other again.

Today, Adidas is among the top companies in sporting goods while Puma trails not so far behind. Still the battle is on as the Dasslers avoid each other like the plague. In fact, this has contaminated the workforce. Adidas employees seldom, if not never at all, socialize with Puma workers.

It is always very sad when families are torn apart by the issue of money. Blood relations are too often ignored when power and control are sought. Children misread the values of diligence, hard work, and industry as clean and effective means of acquiring wealth and power. The focus is put on money, and no longer on the gratification and the nobility of doing one’s best in the work. Instead, the signal children get from hardworking parents is that there is nothing more important to life than earning money and gaining profit, all for the cause of a good and comfortable life. In turn, siblings compete for their father’s attention; they do everything they can only to get hold of the business. Almost too often, stories that go this direction end tragically. It is lamentable to see a once thriving business fold up, but more so around the breaking up of a family.

If you are a father reading this blog or soon to be a father and is in charge of a business, God’s Word says, “The Lord is our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. And you shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.” Deuteronomy6:4-7

Teach your children to love God above anything else. Their lives and their future-in fact, their eternal destiny- are far more important than your business. Teach them fear of the Lord, for no business school can do that. Only you can. If you do so, both your family and business will flourish.

Go and bring your family closer to God. That is the father’s main business.