I don’t know if our company’s poster announcement was inviting enough to ignite synapses to relay interest to the brain and reconsider going to the outing this time. Or it’s just me being particular on how it’s been photoshopped. My colleagues surely wouldn’t mind. The detail that touched nerves was the fact that tag-along (wife, children, etc) is to employee’s expense. In this trying time, this is the concern that is highly considered. (note: I’m tempted to post the company poster announcement here but withdrew the motion to the last minute because I failed to ask permission since it a company memo. Besides they would not permit me especially now that I made comment about it).
Still it was a well attended event. Co-workers of different departments or of the same departments but assigned to various locations, were reacquainted. I’m talking here of 10 to 20 to 30 years of working under the same company but have got to see each other mostly only to this special event ( also assemblies, Christmas parties, seminars and awarding ceremonies). There are people who still remain in our company, saw me as a little child maybe playing naked carelessly under the sun, and now became my co-workers. These are the people who I looked up to and considered as one of the “elders” which I have high regards with.
I know some people didn’t attend not because of financial or schedule conflict but because of a boycott of sort to the company. A boycott maybe is a strong word. A more sanitized word would be “frustration” - frustrated on how this company’s management has transformed. Gone are the heydays where family members could come to parties free of charge; OTs were not controlled; manpower was adequate; workloads were enough to an employee to work on effectively and efficiently; working tools were not limited… and the list goes on and on.
All of these were finger pointed to economic reasons: low forex rate (in export industry, high dollar value against the peso is beneficial) ; high operational cost (due to inflation in fuel, inputs, rent, power, and operational supplies prices); increasing manpower cost (having the lion’s share were the top management bosses where it lagged miles away from the rank-and-file workers salaries); stiffer banana war at the production level ( more industry players are mushrooming locally) up to the market level ( big name suppliers are creating very strong product brand); and losing company ventures( this one is subjective – I’m just toying on most of the employees’ speculations). These are the things that they like us to believe in but half of my brain regress and beg to disagree.
The recent memos I’ve read have an apocalyptic view of the days ahead. Maybe this will be our last outing, if economic status worsens more. Then lets enjoy this while its here. These are the people and the places of the May 18, company outing.
