Longest day of my working life. Started at 9am but technically awake since 7, since I was getting nervous about showing up alone, not knowing anyone. Had a very healthy breakfast with Alex around 8am but had to go to the meeting room alone. Thank God I immediately bumped into Tina, who kept me decently socially covered while all the strange foreigners were chatting around me.
God, hot house sessions are harsh--started strictly at 9 and didn't end til 8pm. There were very few breaks in between, and we'd have only around 5-10 mins to get the tasks done. However, the insighting requirements are not that hard; in fact, it's a piece of cake for me as I'm so used to churning them out all the time.
What was more difficult was the small talk that I had to do with these people. Started out with the socially inept Thais which I kinda wanted to get to know since I will work with them so much. They're not the brightest of the bunch. I also met the Malaysian team who are giving us so much pain right now in one of our projects. Met Caroline, my regional franchise manager for baby, which is now irrelevant since she's leaving in 2 weeks.
Really have to use this opportunity to be noticed by the right people--at the very least the Gods of Region--Phil and Elkie. Actually had dinner with Elkie but didn't get much interaction as he was quite masungit. I'm still intimidated by caucasian Phil so have tried to avoid him as much as possible.
In the meantime, had a drink with Tina an hour ago. She's still encouraging me to pursue either the Shanghai opening or a Regional position. She said that while it was tough especially on the work front, it was all made up by all the new experiences and her much broadened horizons and social network. This got me really excited...after all, what the hell am I hanging around in the Philippines for?
Question is, do I really want to work all that hard all over again?
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