Walk down the streets of Ortigas and you'll see all sorts of people. You'll see rich folks with their perfectly pressed expensive-looking suits, the yuppies looking hip but professional, guys wearing sandwich ad boards trying to recruit people, letter couriers, etc. etc. Just by looking at them it's really hard to say which ones are earning loads of cash and which aren't (Sadly I belong to the latter and I'm not just saying that). And you'll be more surprised to hear that a lot of them/us come from far places. I even have a friend who works in Manila but goes home to Batangas. Every. Single. Day.
It takes me about an hour and a half each way to go to work. I spend about 200 bucks a day on transportation. That's a lot of money because I live in Fairview (classic joke: Ahhh..FARview to which I just think to myself "wow, I've never heard that one before"). So with the rising cost of, hmm..let's see, EVERYTHING, it's no wonder that within each office building there exists a micro-economy. Like this morning, I didn't have a packed lunch nor merienda with me and no spare money to spend either. But for lunch, I had pork guisado, salted egg, sliced tomatoes and rice wrapped in banana leaves. For merienda, I had sweet and crunchy turon. How did I manage this? Courtesy of Manang and Kuya. A very polite guy comes in at around 11 a.m. and stands at one corner of the pantry with a big bag full of food and softly says "Ma'am, lunch po" always with a shy, sweet smile. He has this small notebook where the choices are written down. And the best part is, you can get a meal and just put it on your tab. Same thing with the merienda. Manang has a multitude of snacks like spaghetti, pancit, bread pudding, sopas and a couple more goodies. One co-worker sells candied sampaloc (which are always sold out), another one sells coffee and catalogue items. To date I've bought maybe 10 bags of the sampaloc and 2 pairs of shoes. All delivered to the office and sometimes even to my desk. I find that just awesome!
It's Filipino entrepreneurship at it's best.
It takes me about an hour and a half each way to go to work. I spend about 200 bucks a day on transportation. That's a lot of money because I live in Fairview (classic joke: Ahhh..FARview to which I just think to myself "wow, I've never heard that one before"). So with the rising cost of, hmm..let's see, EVERYTHING, it's no wonder that within each office building there exists a micro-economy. Like this morning, I didn't have a packed lunch nor merienda with me and no spare money to spend either. But for lunch, I had pork guisado, salted egg, sliced tomatoes and rice wrapped in banana leaves. For merienda, I had sweet and crunchy turon. How did I manage this? Courtesy of Manang and Kuya. A very polite guy comes in at around 11 a.m. and stands at one corner of the pantry with a big bag full of food and softly says "Ma'am, lunch po" always with a shy, sweet smile. He has this small notebook where the choices are written down. And the best part is, you can get a meal and just put it on your tab. Same thing with the merienda. Manang has a multitude of snacks like spaghetti, pancit, bread pudding, sopas and a couple more goodies. One co-worker sells candied sampaloc (which are always sold out), another one sells coffee and catalogue items. To date I've bought maybe 10 bags of the sampaloc and 2 pairs of shoes. All delivered to the office and sometimes even to my desk. I find that just awesome!
It's Filipino entrepreneurship at it's best.
PS My brother says that to be allowed inside office buildings, these vendors bribe the security personnel with free food :)
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