Day to day...

At almost two and a half months into the six months of my 'tour' I have settled into a routine. I start my day with gym time from 0600-0730. Go home to change, shower and eat. I am in the office by 0730. Chat with Sean and Mom ‘till 0900 (work starts) or 0930. Work without much real production, looking busy like George Castanza (remember the Jerry Seinfeld) trying not to step on toes. I go home at 1800 in time for sunset. Eat. Watch MTV (the only station which comes in on the rabbit ears), read and sack out by 2100.

I cook lots – mostly out of boredom. It seems to serve as an anchor to ‘home’ as well. So the freezer is full in spite of the fact it is cheaper to eat out than buy groceries. In the P it is unheard of to store food in the freezer, but I can only shrug. Maybe there will be a time when all I eat will be leftovers. I spent not a few evenings in the steam room in the gym. And lately, I have taken up movie watching. In the malls we have had two film festivals running free movies (an EU festival and the Australian FF). Beyond that, first run Hollywood movies are cheap – 2.50 CAD, but in Filipino terms 100 pesos is a bit rich. Since I try to live on less than 500 pesos/day, a movie is 20% of my day. While I am getting better, money still plays an inordinate role in my life.

Day to day work is uninteresting at best. I sit in my cubicle (I thought I was through with this style of work..?) playing on Internet and fancying up my blog. It has been almost 2.5 years since I have held a regular job and my butt knows it. So do my feet. I am convinced I can ever hold another office job again.

I work as an intern for people who are all strong individuals. Power struggles and office cliques abound. Just like any office, but this one takes on a bit of a twist. The Filipino culture does not permit direct interactions and simple resolutions. People talk through people (you can imagine the translation effect in play), dismiss deadlines, hold personally set priorities over established organizational priorities, and constantly revise decisions made to suit the situation. At home we call this ‘passive aggressive’ behaviour and contrary to the team philosophy. Information hording is the rule here to ensure status is communicated and people are ‘put in their place’. There is another subtle issue with task management that is a concern to me. And that is how we, as an office, spend so much time talking about a task but never really create concrete specifications for the product. As a result, tasks are often assigned with a simple 'do your best' pat on the rear. As a goal-oriented individual and a perfectionist, this freedom (lack of defined needs to be met) creates a situation whereby I create products that suit me. I have come to realize that here at LGSP, what suits me rarely suits the task assigner. As an efficiency freak, this re-doing work represents wasted effort to me. To them it represents a level of incompetence on my part.

It has been a long time since I have had deliverables that did not come with some sort of commensurate autonomy and authority. To this I have learned to let go and “be”. Well I have tried. Either that or my quitting nature has me trying and quitting in record time. As you know, I am the type that gives full effort until I decide I don’t like it any more. There is an expression here in the P, which is “Hay Naku” – it is the universal whatever. I have learned to say it like a local.

So my role has been that suffered by any high school 'spend the day at work with mom' exchange graduate. I review documents for grammar and English usage (this would have Mrs. McCray rolling in her grave) destined for publication. Life gives you what you need not what you want. Contractors draft most of the publications and whether it is a natural lack of English competency or a state of Filipino English, most of the concepts are confusing and unintelligible to me. I am hesitant to be too harsh on my review for several reasons: many of the staff here have already reviewed the documents (I am the last cut reviewer for most of the documents hence any comments on my part risk a potential loss of face). Furthermore, there is an overt sentimentality in the style of writing I have noticed and I have difficulty accepting this approach to writing. Together these two condition- Filipino English usage and the need for sentimentality - means that in the Filipino context these same concepts which are confusing to me may indeed be understandable. Meanwhile reviewing documents gives me something to do. Lately the pressures of creating the “Governance Expo” event have dominated my work plan.

I work under a woman named Sef. She is a 28-year-old woman, maried with one child. She has spent a year working in Australia so understands some of the ‘western’ culture issues. She is clearly from an affluent family, and lives in a richer part of town than I. For example, she is part owner of a truck, and has a driver who delivers her to and from work every day. In a work context she is ‘always busy’ and ‘all deadlines are important’. She has little staff management experience and remains (it appears) disinterested in dealing with us interns. Work planning has devolved into being her personal secretary for simple administrative duties, and tasks have competing deadlines (which are all important). When questioned about a task or its purpose, she reverts to the classic Filipino behaviour in that she becomes defensive or more often amicable – it is the saving face way to avoiding conflict. When in the presence of the boss she is fawning. When she needs stuff from peers or clients she is whining. All of which are like fingernails on a chalkboard to me.

Turns out that in the P, whining is a natural state of communication and cajoling. Moreover, all things revolve around status. For example, in my world I demand excellence from my contractors in the delivery of my product. However, in the P to have me challenge the manner in which she accepts unacceptable product from her contractors causes a status-wave: 1 ) Should she not accept product then the contractor would lose face and potentially cause conflict; or, 2) To have a western intern suggest that the product is unacceptable suggests that the intern knows more than she…thereby reducing her status, which is unforgivable and something she would not give up easily.

So in my efforts to explore cross-cultural relationships, I have recruited two people here at the LGSP. Hopefully Bang and Jovie can guide me through the pitfalls of living and working in a Filipino culture, and the LGSP organizational culture. I am good for the challenge. Bang is our front desk clerk, who ironically shares many of the same frustrations with LGSP work culture and interpersonal relationships as I. She, coincidently, is from the provinces and so is our version of the 'country girl' here in the office. With her megre wages, she is supporting her whole family as they jet off to Japan, or graduate from university. On the other hand, Jovie is a hired gun. A private consultant who, as part of her contract, is based inside the office. She holds a MSc and is considering other educational opportunities. She has worked in developement for some time and has spent most of her career working with 'stupid white men' and so is empathetic to my issues. She has been offered a contract extension with LGSP and is wondering if she is interested. She is keen to emigrate to Australia. These two people have been very patient with me as I assault them time and again with insensitive questions...

My housemate Sara has this to say about work. She is an ultra-reflective person and it has been helpful to me to have her around to discuss cross-cultural disconnects as we see them:

On the work front, things are going fairly well, with a couple speed bumps along the way, of course. ;) What I’ve been spending most of my time on is the Governance Expo, a two-day traveling road show of exhibits, forums, local governance recognition nights, and Lakbay Arals (bus tours to exceptional performing municipalities) in four cities around the country. That said, I’ve been working mostly on getting the Lakbay Aral tours together, visiting all three sites to work with municipalities coordinate the tours. Needless to say, it has been an absolutely fantastic experience to travel the country and meet incredibly obliging and lovely people.

All this travel has really given me a great understanding of what this country is all about and what LGSP has been involved in for the last 5 years. I am really grateful for the opportunity to discover the different parts of the country, and consider it one of the biggest ‘selling points’ of this position so far. I’ve actually met other development workers who’ve been living here twice as long as I have who haven’t seen nearly as much of the country as I have – an irony worth holding on to, I think…

Despite all the positives, the job has not been without its challenges. Indeed, the work style at LGSP has been a little bit frustrating. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to articulate it, but I’ll still try to explain. Here at LGSP, all work is completed on a team basis. (If you may recall, the consulting company that designed this project is called Agrteam.) This mentality is very common in Canadian development organizations, with organizational ‘flatness’ viewed as a more equitable way of assigning tasks and producing work. Because we work on project teams, though, there is kind of a belief that hierarchy does not exist in the LGSP workplace.

However, LGSP still operates in a Filipino context, and is still influenced by different notions of respect and ‘equality’. What this means for those of us working at LGSP is that the ‘buck’ is often passed to those who have no authority to refuse it. This is not all that different from other (Canadian) workplaces. However, what seems to be different here is the desire for those in authoritative roles to try and control/hold on to information. As a consequence of this, junior persons are rarely made accountable for any tasks of substantial size. Instead, juniors are provided information on a piece-meal basis, forcing theme to ‘react’ to the issues at hand instead of being allowed to take complete ownership of work and tasks.

So what does this mean? Well, on an organizational level, it means that decisions get made but are overturned after the fact. Work is completed, but revised even after it has been finalized. Deadlines turn into ‘loose’ approximations of when things should be finished, and the pace of work (and production of outputs) is incredibly slow.

On an individual level, (and this is where some of the frustration lies), it means that I rarely am passed any work that I can sink my teeth into. A lot of what I am working on is administrative in nature, and this is a bit of a worry considering the competitiveness of the industry, and the intense need for me develop transferable skills in this position.

So there you go. Sara is way more articulate than me. I share her sentiments about the P, and together we have reconciled a few perceptions about work. Here is something I found the other day. I think it is helpful to me in this instance:

It has always been the prerogatives of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes. But the half-wit remains the half-wit, and the emperor remains an emperor.