TAKING A LEAVE... IN ORDER TO LIVE

My contract with Chowking ended on December 31,2010. Actually, I told CK HR Director Alfie Suarez,that I didn't see a need for me anymore since the Training department's team leaders were already taking charge of things, so I wasn't adding any value really.

By then, I had been with Chowking for 10 years (originally intending to stay only for one,) and I had seen the brand recover from being a bleeding company (PHP 10M in 1999,with 140+ stores) to becoming a formidable contender in the QSR industry with over 400 stores and over PHP 10B in sales.

For the past two years though,Chowking had been experiencing declining samebase sales and transaction counts,which eventually led to changes in top leadership...first with Erwin Elechicon,taking over from Raffy dela Rosa in 2008, then Ariel Fermin replacing Erwin in August, 2010.

The 12B benchmark we had been trying so hard to reach remained an elusive target.

I knew I could help in any way I could, but I also knew that in hard times,any reduction in expense would help the company terribly in keeping it profitable...and I was such an expense. The way I looked at it...from any angle...it made good business sense that I leave.

What I didn't realize was that taking a leave from corporate life, which was how I viewed my new journey...would allow me to "live"---and appreciate life in a way I hadn't experienced it.

Unlike 1999, when I first resigned from Jollibee,and planned on going it on my own as a consultant, this time around I made no plans. I just wanted to take a different path, and see where life would take me.

Unlike before, when I really worried about where the money would come from to finance my kids education (since they were still in high school then,) now, I wanted to test how far my faith in God's Foundation would go! Would He, as the Matthew Bible verse on God looking after the birds of the air,really look after my needs without me worrying about them?

What I immediately realized when I knew I didn't have a job,and that I didn't need to rush to work everyday...was that I became more attuned to what was going on around me. I paid more attention to the sights and sounds...to the people around me...to what they were saying and not saying.

I found myself wondering what their individual stories were about, and it hit me hard that while I was cooped up for so many years inside the comfort of my cubicle,something called Life was taking place outside.

For example, when I took it upon myself to drive my eldest son TJ to work (he works as a call center agent at Convergys) at 3:00 in the morning, I realized that many of the working class heroes were already up and about struggling to earn a living.

In fact I viewed what TJ was doing in a different way. He was in a job (that he didn't really like) but kept at it because it was a step towards a dream of perhaps working at a leading game development company in the USA. With this realization came more respect for him.

I never dealt directly with customers, but TJ was facing them everyday,albeit virtually, trying to find ways to solve their technical problems,while at the same time trying to meet some seemingly unattainable metric called AHT (Average Handling Time.)

For several weeks,on my way back home via the Skyway, I could see the girls inside the toll booths trying to stay awake just so they could take the toll payments of early morning travellers like me.

Then there were the vendors pushing their karitons on the way to Bicutan market with their goods, just so they could get a good location before buyers arrived.

During the next few weeks of my "taking a leave...in order to live" I would really be just that...More Alive!