Gratefully, I have been able to resign from this 15-year old job where I've gained so much. I gave my resignation letter the day I reported back to work after nearly a month long personal trip to Japan.
I've gained much knowledge, many contacts in my network, and have become more steadily familiar with the inner workings of the corporate world, which most media depict as an ungrateful, highly competitive, and eerily disturbing environment (beneath the surface) to spend at least 40 + or - hours of your weekly life. People in this environment look like they're the most "normal" individuals you'll meet in your life.
But from what I've learned, I've met the most unkind, the most scheming, and uncaring persons who take themselves seriously, who parade in the most respectable forms, without realizing there are "worlds" outside of business. Well, doing business (in all its forms imaginable) accounts for the largest portion of daily collective human activities, and much has been taken for granted along the way. Some behave like there's not much higher purpose to one's life.
My former fulltime employer happened to be a Japanese owned company that has a presence worldwide, and the company happened to be among the biggest firms worldwide (if we are to follow "Fortune Magazine" rankings and studies). Its present Manila structure, designed to directly be under the apparent whimsical control of Managers, shareholders and other stakeholders mostly based in Japan contributes much for its failure to provide for growth and development opportunities to its people. They seem to fail to listen without much bias to what is told to them by people who know the Philippine market well. They seem to be more experts in putting this market down, and in pulling up instead their own interests in a market that has grown stagnant. They have ignored how creative, entrepreneurial, youthful, captivating and warm this part of world market can be. Painfully, this pathway becomes more highlighted, as one goes higher the layers of the structure. However, this kind of set-up is true as well in most companies anywhere in the world. An employee ought to be responsible for his / her own personal growth direction, depending not much on the help that the business organization can provide. Wearily, doing business has become fiercely competitive and guerilla-warfare like (far, far beneath one's sensitive skin), given the presence of the Internet, the emergence of China & the rest of Asia as market leaders, the evolution of technology that promises to replace repetitive human activities, the farming out of processes to other companies, the availability of unique forms of financing (for both regulated and underground economies), and the continuing process of globalization.
You may sense I've got some complaints, but voicing them out loudly now serves not much purpose, except to cry out my angst. Honestly, I'll continue saying how much this job has helped me become the person that I am now. I've made good friends along the way, and have learned much more about the human condition.
It would have been worst, had I chosen to stay put with this job, after having decided I have not been seeing much growth opportunities. I'm delighted, though, that at the same time, I've made so much personal changes that I've been able to put some small businesses which I hope and am praying to expand extensively, given all the support I can get from all those people I can attract.
Meanwhile, I'm stepping out forward so that I can claim portions of my dreams which I've been imagining all these years. The good Lord will serve as primarily my guide and leader. At the least, I owe it to those who continuously pray and support me. They include my late Father who died of lung cancer in late 2005, my family members, friends, my good partner, plus my enemies who unknowingly have contributed much to my personal growth all these years..
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