Articles

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Is There Life After Your Present Job?

By Venie Rañosa

Mr. Rañosa is presently head of Corporate Affairs Department, Bank of Philippines Islands, Makati. He is Business Management graduate of the University of Sto. Tomas with Masters in Business Administration, De La Salle University Graduate School of Business and Economics, Manila. A faculty of Business Management, St. Scholastica’s College. Manila

Filipinos – like the Japanese, Singaporeans, Koreans and others like them in Asia -- are among those who are used to doing one job at a time. Hence, it is common for them to have only one bread and butter – one source of income.

Now, that is a potentially shaky situation, given the emerging trend in business and industry today.

For decades, most working Filipinos have lived or aspired to have an “8:30-to-5:30” lifestyle, giving their all to their chosen profession or the companies they work for under the concept of life-time employment. Many have shunned other economic preoccupations, disdainly called moonlighting, probably because it may indicate that one is not getting enough, which may be bad for the image of a self-declared kingpin.

But the realities in the business environment now force us to rethink if there is really anything wrong with not putting all your eggs in one basket.

Among the common part-time preoccupations that many “8:30-to-5:30” employees have resorted to is selling practically anything – from ready-to-wear clothes and other consumer items to food stuffs like tosino, snacks, etc.

The more professional ones engage in teaching, usually in the college level. It has attracted a good number of people who otherwise have been confined within the walls of their offices. Their backgrounds can be as varied as the subjects of their choice: accounting, general management, nursing, physical therapy, journalism and even music. The problem is that not everyone (even with executive rank) may qualify for a teaching job since, depending on the school, the requirements may be so many. The more high-end the school, the more credentials are necessary.

Schools like the Asian Institute of Management, for instance, would require not only a master’s degree or a doctorate in business from preferred business schools but also many years of appropriate executive experience, plus an enviable list of accomplishments as an achiever in business, on top of good connections in industry or the professions.

Without these, the aspiring professor might have to exert more effort to convince students and colleagues that he is worth listening to. Besides, without much credentials, how does one interact or strike a meaningful discourse in the presence of people like a former finance secretary and IMF governor serving as school president or the chair of the governor body of a UN agency serving as dean?

Not all schools, however, may have the same requirements, so an ordinary soul can proceed to looking at various options outside his full-time work. At best, we can acknowledge that certain jobs/professions can have an equivalent in the academe or the industry.

One who has gained fruitful experience as a newspaperman/writer can find a meaningful job as a part-time member of the journalism faculty of a college or university. Incidentally, an appropriate degree in journalism does not make one a good journalist, which explains why some of the best writers/ newspapermen do not even have the usual college degree.

Otherwise, a well-trained newspaperman can either find his way into the publications departments or corporate communications/corporate affairs divisions of large companies or else become part of an advertising/PR agency.

Experienced faculty members can either join the training departments of companies or be part of outfits engaged in the training of human resources. There are unlimited opportunities in this area since the training of people can be as varied as the need requires. For example, there are different needs for training seamen and other skilled workers, as well as different areas of focus.

Even former military men/police officers can have a new career in corporate business as point persons in company security. In general, heads of security functions in companies are former military or police officers, and many even hold the rank of vice president for security.

Medical doctors, dentists and nurses also find themselves in the corporate world, staffing the medical and dental clinics of these companies. The bigger the companies, the larger the medical / dental staff. Doctors can find themselves shifting from a company clinic assignment in the morning, a hospital job in the afternoon and a teaching load some time after. And they can get pretty busy the whole week, if they so desire.

The same can be true for information technology (I.T.) professionals. They can spend the whole day in corporate business, do teaching work in the evening or on weekends, and do consulting work during free time. Some more creative people can expand their outlook even more by developing websites for corporate or individual clients.

But those in the professions are not the only ones who can enjoy the flexibility of expanding work horizons. A shop mechanic can do an extra home-service job during weekends for customers who do not have the time to visit the car shops on regular days. Some lucky mechanics may end up getting a long line of suki (regular customers) who do not mind paying extra in exchange for convenience. Lucky was a mechanic who used to drop in for some high-profile customers on weekends and was eventually hired on full-time basis by a rich businessman living in Forbes Park, who wanted him to mind the fleet of luxury cars in the garage.

Even members of the clergy can have this opportunity, too. Former seminarians or priests can easily break into the training department of companies because of their experience in handling group dynamics and other human interaction functions.

But all these are examples of core and peripheral types of careers where one engages in a secondary career that is related to his primary career, such as a company accountant taking on a teaching job in the field of accountancy. Quite a number of people have likewise opted to reach the other side of the spectrum for a change, such as a psychologist getting her hands full with baking pastries during weekends, a banker tending to his restaurant business or a musician manning his hardware store.

These examples do not only project an expansion of one’s personal horizons but also allow him to try new fields. The saying that we will never know where we can be good at unless we try it ourselves is an apt statement in the light of present circumstances. Besides, if an actor can become president of the country and a former basketball star can become a senator, what should prevent us from shifting gears and be someone else to other people?

To be certain, multiple roles can lead to an excitement that may even give new meaning to the word achievement. The future being more fluid than we thought, we, therefore, need to prepare ourselves for as many opportunities as we can imagine, because what could be unimportant in the past may be the “in” thing in the future. That was the same scenario under which the pager business has gone to oblivion, and the small cellphone has become a personal necessity for each working person.

After all, as the character in the movie Forrest Gump said in colorful language: “Life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re gonna get.”