Thorne's Thread

This was my second long term overseas assignment in a year. First, almost six months in Budapest, Hungary.  My travels there have been fairly well documented. This time, it was 30 days in Cebu City, Philippines. Each time, the assignment was the same. Standup a Product Support office in a new geo, train the staff and get them to go live.

On the surface, this is what I do on a day to day basis when at the office in Shawnee.  My position has me in charge of Program Readiness and On-boarding. I train our new engineers as well as offer continuing education for our existing staff. It’s an extension of what I’ve done for most of my career. I love what I do. It is self-rewarding; the results are tangible on a day-to-day basis.

Travelling across the world to do this for extended periods of time has its rewards and it has its drawbacks. It is hard to be away from family for that long. It’s hard on me and its hard on them. Our routines get disrupted and though they may not believe it, I miss them terribly.

At the end of this assignment, I have been more than ready to come home.  My assignment completed, the staff ready to go, it was time for me to head to the airport. A nice, relaxing day at the pool followed by finalizing my packing was how I spent Friday. Right on schedule, my driver arrived at the hotel and we proceeded to pick up another Lexmark employee who was travelling back home and we headed to Mactan-Cebu International Airport.

It makes logical sense that the flight schedules work out the way that they do so that departure and arrival times coincide with a US based schedule. However, a 1:05 AM flight is just not natural. The departure process in Cebu is a bit convoluted. You pass through security before you can check –in with the airline. Once you’ve done that, you have to go through passport control and pay the exit fee. 550PHP. The equivalent of about $US 11. Just so you can leave the country. I’ll let that sink in.

After that, and waiting for the boarding process, I settle into my seat. Things were going along fine as we back away from the gate and start to taxi. Suddenly, the Korean gentleman behind me starts shouting. I look back over my shoulder and it is like a scene from a movie. I’m seeing this guy, eyes clenched tight, proclaiming some very emphatic statements.  Imagine a movie where a warrior is about to commit ritual Seppuku. This is what it sounds like is going on behind me. The lady next to him reached through and tapped me on the shoulder and told me that she was terrified.

This guy keeps it up and other people are starting to get upset. The flight crew starts to respond and see what’s going on. He would get up and walk up and down the aisle, then come back to his seat. At one point, he reached between my seat and started pointing at the in-flight entertainment screen on the back of the seat in front of me. Mind you, it’s showing the current location of our plan on a map.

At this point, I was done. There was an elderly gentleman sitting next to me who was starting to make comments about slugging the guy and I was in total agreement. As the lead member of the flight crew stood there, I asked them to translate and so he indicated that he would.  I told him to tell this crazy bastard that if he didn’t sit down and be quiet, stop upsetting people that I was going to knock him out and he could wake up when we arrived in Seoul.

This apparently caused the flight crew to understand that others were not happy. The lead gentleman who had already been trying to calm the guy down took up permanent residence next to the guy. He had a few outbursts the rest of the flight but at least I didn’t have to kick the crap out of the guy.

Upon arrival in Seoul one must go through their transfer process. At least you don’t have to claim your baggage, but you essentially go back through security. Once that process was done, I had a 4 hour layover. Incheon International Airport couldn’t be more generic if it tried.  Generic food, generic looks, just very bland.

This is not the kind of airport that you want to have a layover of this length.  Nothing to do. Nowhere to go.  So I did what anyone who had been up for 24 hours at this point would do. I slept on an airport bench.  Very uncomfortable, restless sleep, but sleep it was.

As I type this, though it will be posted later, we’ve passed North of Tokyo and are heading East over The Pacific. Still 9 hours and 53 minutes left to go to Dallas….

After returning from Monday’s Ocean Adventures, I mentioned to my boss and friend that I think that I’ve got the greatest job in the world right now. In the last year I’ve lived in Europe, visited Maranello Italy, the spiritual and physical home of Ferrari and been in Monte Carlo Moncao watching Formula 1 cars race through its mythical streets.

Now, here I am in Cebu City, Philippines, again for work. This time I’m only here for about a month and the schedule has been pretty tight but a relaxing weekend during Holy Week more than made up for it.

After a long Wednesday night of hanging out with the rest of the crew here and enjoying the local food and bar scene, along with a very late night of drinking rum by the pool, I spent almost all of Thursday, Friday and Saturday simply relaxing by the pool at the hotel and soaking up as much sun as I could stand. Keep in mind that the Philippines is only 10degrees north of the equator. Going out in the sun here is pretty much the same as being in a tanning bed for the exact same amount of time. You have to be careful.

There is not much you can complain about when your days consist of getting up, having a fantastic breakfast buffet and then relaxing by and in the pool, reading a book. Just not much at all.

The rest of the crew were off getting their final Dive certifications and while doing so, made arrangements for us to rent a boat for Monday that would have us out on the ocean from 9am until late afternoon.

We arrived at Fun & Sun Dive & Travel a little before 9 and our Dive Master and boat captain began loading the boat.

These are the kinds of boats you’ve seen in TV and movies. Long, fairly narrow, covered and with bamboo runners on either side to ensure stability out on the Ocean.

The crew were very helpful in getting us loaded up and making sure we had everything we needed. They even brought a stereo system so we’d have plenty of tunes.

We had all brought plenty of water and snacks, but lunch was provided. BBQ Pork and Chicken, along with fresh squid, Mango, Pineapple, bananas and more.

We headed out for the first dive location across the water and the first thing that struck me was just how blue the water was. A deep, pure blue. Not too far out from the dock, the water level drops to over 1000 feet and that color is striking.

After a few minutes of making our way across the channel towards Bohol, the water started getting more shallow. Again, the color was striking. When we pulled up to the dive location, the water was crystal clear. I expected it to be 8-10 feet deep. When I asked the dive master, he said it was more like 45.  It was unbelievable. You could see all the way to the bottom, you could see brightly colored fish moving around and the water was smooth tucked up against the island. It was like something out of a travel magazine, but it was right before my eyes.

We spent the rest of the day swimming, lounging and enjoying the scenery while the three guys dove twice. At one point in the afternoon, everyone had left the boat but me and the crew so I hooked up my iPod to their sound system and blasted Jimmy Buffett while laying out on the bow of the boat just letting sun wash over me and the waves rocking the boat gently back and forth. It was a very peaceful, almost spiritual feeling. It’s a life I could live with no hesitation. Note To Self: Start Playing the Lottery.

We were all in agreement that we didn’t want the day to end, but by late afternoon, it was time for us to head back to shore. I could have stayed out there for the entire two weeks that I have left here.

My running gallery of photos from the trip here is located at at my SmugMug gallery.

Two weeks into this trip and it has been eye opening. There are two Cebu’s. There is the one you see when you Google it. Resorts, white sandy beaches, beautiful blue waters and resorts as far as you can see. That Cebu does exist.

The other Cebu, is heartbreaking. The poverty here is like nothing you can ever imagine. It’s  worse than anything you’ve seen in the United States, it’s worse than anything you’ve seen on TV, even in Sally Struthers commercials.

Next door to our office building, directly across the small street are houses constructed of sheets of tin and cardboard that have dozens of members of the same family living in them. For transportation people use bicycles or cram packed into Jeepneys which are like public buses, if public buses were a conversion van bolted on to the back of a WWII era Jeep with two benches and an open back door that looked like Huggy Bear had decorated the whole thing or that the Partridge Family might come piling out of it.

 It is amazing to watch these things move around town. One thing I have discovered is that there appear to be no traffic laws here. None. Jeepneys stay to the right, most of the time, because they’re over loaded and small. But they dart out into traffic amongst the cars and motorcycles, which are everywhere and drive with no regard to lanes, speed limits or anything resembling such.

We won’t even talk about getting to an intersection. Everyone just slows down and figures it out. I think I’ve seen 2 functioning traffic lights since I’ve been here. Everything else is just hold on and plow through.

Now, Lexmark has provided each of us with our own driver, which makes things easier and safer and for that, I’m very thankful. These guys know how to maneuver around and also happen to be armed guards. In addition to that, they are great guys that we’ve all gotten to know over the past few weeks.

Mike, Andy and Dustin and already made arrangements to get certified to scuba dive before I got here and it was too late to get in on the classes once I arrived. Due to circumstances we won’t discuss here, suffice to say they involved a bottle of Tanduay 65 Rhum, I ended up driving out with Mike to the dive shop on Thursday morning. The drive through Cebu and out to the island of Mactan was an eye-opener like I’ve never had before.

I had started to get the picture seeing some of the living conditions around our office and from talking to our newly hired staff that things were bad here. I had no idea.  Sure, tin roofs and walls, cars, bikes, trucks, whatever you want to call them that look like they’re held together with bailing wire. It’s unreal. The country has no infrastructure at all and what is there is crumbling. I can’t even imagine what the unemployment rate is, though labor is so cheap that everywhere you go, there are 10 people waiting to help you, or a construction project that is taking place that in the United States might have 50 workers on it, here has 200.

Here’s the flip side, and it is for lack of any other word, Amazing. The customer service here is the best in the world. By far. Here at the Marriott, they know me by name already. My table and a Coke Light are waiting for me at breakfast. The receptionist at Lexmark Plaza 3 knows me. But it’s not just these places. Any shop or restaurant we’ve been to during our stay here. They are polite, prompt, attentive, responsive and personable. We’ve experienced the same with the team that we’ve hired for Perceptive’s Support Center. Each and everyone of them falls into those same categories.

What I’ve been trying to figure out is where that comes from. It’s not like they’ve been to college to study customer service. While the general population seems to be friendly but the service has that extra little bit of detail you wish you could get anywhere in the United States. Its the kind of stuff you can’t teach someone.

One of the more interesting things that we’ve experienced is that being American’s, we’re treated very differently here than other foreigners.   Once they figure out that you’re not here looking for a wife, and that you’re here on business, you’re treated like royalty. The mall nearby, Ayala Center is ringed with armed guards who check everyone on the way in and out. In addition, most stores have their own security. As i watch them checking bags and using hand held metal detectors, they wave me by without a look. The one time I did offer my bag to a security guard at the mall, she was actually offended that I had done so!

In another store, as I browsed, I realized that I was being followed by several members of the staff. At first, it was unsettling and I ended up leaving the store. Upon talking to Mike, who’d been here a few more weeks than I he told me that it was they were watching over me to make sure that no one else came up to me and started any trouble, not that they looked upon me suspiciously.

I also saw this just crossing the street the other day in front of the Lexmark building. Traffic was pretty busy and across the street were three women, obviously local, standing there waiting for the traffic to subside so that they could cross. The crossing guard just stood there, until he saw me. He couldn’t get out in front of that traffic and stop it fast enough, then did the same on the other side of the road.  It was unreal and made me feel a little uncomfortable. The longer I’m here, the more I’ve come to accept that it is just the way it is here. If you’re an American and here on business, you are treated as someone important because most of the foreign companies that come to do business here, do big business here so you must be very important.

Two more weeks to go and we have a few tentative plans to get out on the ocean and over to the island of Bohol which is said to have some of the most beautiful beaches in the world.

More to come…

Holy crap. I thought the travel to and from Central Europe was taxing. That was a cakewalk.

I left Kansas City at 915 Friday morning 23 March and flew to Chicago. I had a brief layover and then a 14 hour flight to Seoul, South Korea. That was the longest 14 hours of my life. I watched most of Season 4 of the West Wing on my iPod as well as watching The Descendants on the in flight entertainment system. Upon arriving in Seoul, I had a three hour layover, where at least I had free wifi and could check in on the world.

As if that leg weren’t bad enough, it was another 4.5 hours from Seoul to Cebu. I was already wiped out from the earlier flight and it was all I could do to get through the last one.  By the time I arrived in Cebu and figuring in the 13 hour time difference between Kansas City and Cebu, it was now 1230AM Sunday 25 March. Where did Saturday go?

A long wait for luggage, customs and trying to find my driver (yes, i have a driver. deal with it.) It was then a quite interesting drive through the streets of Cebu at 1230 in the morning. Let’s just say I saw parts of town that there is NO CHANCE in HELL that I would visit, even in the daytime.

It took every ounce of energy I had to get checked in to the hotel, which has armed guards at the driveway and a metal detector that you must pass through to enter the main door. Once I got up to my room, I checked in with Selina and pretty much crashed.

I’ve been out a little bit today. Connected to the Hotel is the Ayala Center. Think Mall of America, but a little smaller. I ventured over there to find some food and caffeine.

First, a little picture I took just for my buddy Paul. I can actually see the ocean from my Hotel Room window.

The outdoor area of the Ayala Center is beautiful.

 As you can see, there are a lot of planted areas, its wide open, several water features and the outside of the Center is ringed with restaurants and cafe’s, including a Starbucks.

I’m sure as I get settled in and rested up, I’ll do some more exploring and there will be more pictures and updates to come.