Our (JOB) Journey of the Broke

Chapter 1: Our JOB (Journey Of the Broke)

Fely and I were both first engineers in our respective family. We were high flyers in Elementary, High School and College. Fely graduated Valedictorian in Elementary and is consistent honor student in High School, while I am always in the Top 5 of the class.

I obtained my Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering on a Scholarship Grant by the National State Scholarship of the Philippine Government. My studies were motivated by a dream of making it good in school and landing a good job.

My parents wanted me to complete my engineering so I can land a good job in a company. Work on the company and retire in it. After my graduation (just a few years ago…1978 ehem...), I was taken in as an Instructor in the Mechanical Engineering Department of Adamson University.

For three years I was in the academe and as fate would have it, this university is where Fely and I would meet and fall in love (I still feel the “kilig” even after so many years… ha ha ha!). We were members of a University Organization in Adamson University.

My first taste of an industry exposure is at Intel Philippines. It was the largest semiconductor manufacturing company at that time. I was employed (May 15, 1981). After two years in that company, Fely also joined the company too. We were not yet married at that time. We both enjoyed good paying job. We then got married in 1984 and were happy to have our combined income to be more than we need.

We also had the opportunity to travel overseas for training. We were very good in what we do and got ourselves go up the corporate ladder. So who needs to get into business at this state?

Fely stayed on with Intel and completed about 25 years of faithful service. I moved from Intel (10 years) to Amkor (10 years) to Orient Semiconductor and Electronics Philippines- OSEPh (7 years). For many years, we enjoyed our career growth and our pay increase.

Our major wins and achievements in our job hypnotized us to believe that our jobs can bring us to our comfortable retirement. We programmed ourselves to retire at age 60 and then enjoy our retirement. Early on with our career, we were high flyers. That was in the first decade 1981-1990. We were caught in a tumultuous and fast changing decade beginning 2001 to 2010. The decade that saw the world economy giants start to collapse.

Many companies started to do drastic cost cutting measures. Our respective companies started also to shrink their factories, and consolidate their resources. I faced the greatest fears in my JOB: retrenchment, redundancy, early retirement and outright cutting headcounts (same objectives with different names- reduced manpower).

The third decade was the most disastrous part of our career. What we thought as retirement at age 60 came early. Actually it was too early as Fely was just 48, and I was 52 when the company we worked for retired us.

Fely's retirement was a little more pleasant than mine. She was given at least 6 months of transition prior to her actual separation from her company. Mine was totally different. It was a terrible experience. I was informed of my retrenchment from my company 6 days before the effectivity date. And it was just right after Christmas.

These experience of being retrenched from our respective job became the catalyst of our transformation.

IMG became our salvation. Register HERE to LEARN HOW WE DID IT!