an old entry found

I found text of something I meant to post last year, but somehow this never made it to my blog. Its not even finished yet...I'd attempt to end it, but not being in the same frame of mind would just make it confusing...so I'll post it the way it is.

Written sometime October last year, after the office move.

A few of my officemates have written about the now current office move from the prestigious building-in-CBD to the yet-to-be-discovered other-building-elsewhere, I thought it might be a good idea to write about my early days...

At the risk of revealing my relatively old but really still very young age, I am one of the handful of people in the company who have experienced an office move. Five years ago, I walked into a dark, old, insconpicious building in Makati for a job interview, clad in borrowed officewear (at the time I was working in an almost casual environment) and tried my best to impress our then HR manager. A few months later, I was back again for Pre Employment Training where we spent three months cooped up in an airconditioned Conference Room with closed off windows enduring session after session of lectures and training exercises. Eventually, six of us were successfully accepted into the company...and we started to fully appreciate the positive vibe and familiarity that everyone had with everyone else in the company. It was intimate back then, we were probably 60 in all, with 20 or so out of the country most of the time. But everyone would be invited to dinners and lunches, Bowling games meant the women were pitted against men and the losing team would pay for dinner, Counterstrike games were conducted in the office after hours and each team would huddle together for pre-game strategy meetings and everyone screams at everyone else during the game, Friday nights usually mean alcohol and Andok's in the tiny pantry, Birthday celebrants for the month would buy lunch (and/or merienda) for everyone, and Coca Cola purchases would mean taking a bottle out of the fridge and marking it on Orly's list for collection on payday.

It then changed to half a floor in buiding-in-CBD where we were the only ones using the set of elevators servicing the 23rd and other floors, we had an office where most if not all the furniture were imported directly from who knows where, the chairs were all named after some guy who promised full lumbar support, drip coffee was replaced with an espresso machine, Coca Cola was expanded to Snapple, Gatorade, Cafe Mocha (all for free), everyone was a Ping Pong newbie, sunset views of Roxas Boulevard was not blocked by a Call Center building and Condominium, and, though it was harder to leave for lunch during Theme Fridays, we all still fit quite well into a single group photo with everyone crowding in the reception area. Despite those changes though, it was still relatively easy to walk from one end to the other of the office and invite everyone to dinner and/or drinks on Friday nights.