Extra Challenge on the Job #1

I just got back from my first company trip to Albay. It didn't turn out to be what I expected, but what happened was such a blur, sometimes I still could not believe that I was there.

Day 1 - June 19
I woke up at 3:30am, because I was going to be fetched from my house by the company driver at 4:30am. Our flight was at 7am, so we had to be checked in by at least 6:00am. The driver came early (3:50am), so I was extra stressed in prepping to leave.

As I was about to step out of the house, my glasses fell and broke. Argh. Good thing I still had my old glasses (which were already yucky, by the way), otherwise, I would have been lost and dizzy the entire time. We got to the airport at 5:00am; my boss and the designer joined me by 5:30am. We were checked in by 6:00am; the plane left at 7:00am. No surprises there.

10 minutes prior to landing, my boss and the designer were exclaiming how lucky I was that the pilot decided to take a different course and fly really close to Mayon, and made a u-turn over the ocean before finally approaching the landing strip. I was told that that was a rare occurrence, and that I should be thankful. Mayon was majestic, alright, but being in Bicol somehow made that supposed appreciation a little duller, considering the "relations" that reside in the area, and the increased potential of seeing them face-to-face. OH. Did I mention that at this time, I was already nursing a fever?

So we landed in Legazpi and proceeded to our hotel (Pepperland Hotel - not bad at all!). We each had a room; mine was on the 2nd floor. What majorly sucked was that the hotel's wifi was dead, so I wasted 1 hour trying to connect to the damned thing, thinking that there was just something wrong with my lappy.

At lunch, we met with our DTI partners. They were really nice people who were enthusiastic about what they were doing. It seemed that they already had a lot of history with my boss and the designer, so it was kinda fun hearing them banter and catch up. I wondered when I would have that kind of relationship with them, but I'm not really in a hurry. =) We ate at this nice place, which I forgot the name of. The food was fantastic, but, as with most amazing food that we all love to gorge in, was laden with all the bad stuff we shouldn't even think of.

After lunch, we went to last year's program participants. It was great to see how most of them prospered, but what was frustrating was that some still stuck to old practices that did not bring them even an ounce of progress.

Since the hotel's wifi was down, we had to troop to a coffeeshop to work. AFter working, we bought food to bring back to the hotel, as we were too pooped to even go out for dinner.

By the time I got to my room, I already had a temperature of 38.5 degrees. I popped an advil, a decolgen, a robitussin and a multivitamin. Good thing I also had my nasal spray with me (thanks to my wonderful sister - thanks bebe!), since my nose was all clogged up. I bundled up and tried to get some sleep.

Day 2 - June 20

When I woke up, the fever was gone, thank God. As my usual routine, I tunrned the TV on while taking a bath. There was a storm htting Albay, signal #1. When I went down to meet my boss and the designer, I told them about the storm, and they weren't too concerned. We went on our way to fetch our DTI friends, who then told us that the storm just went up to signal #2. Even the barangay captain of the island that we were going to texted, advising that we shouldn't proceed on going there as either our boat will capsize, or if we make it to the island, we'd be s tranded there for several days. So we didn't go. Hay. Our DTI friends advised us to just take the bus because the storm would get worse and all flights will definitely get cancelled by noon. We still tried our luck and booked a Cebu Pacific flight for 1:20pm. True enough, it was cancelled. Luckily, we reserved seats on a Cagsawa bus - a 27 seater, so it was pretty comfortable. The bus was scheduled to leave at 6pm, so our group went back to the hotel to work some more while waiting. My virus was horribly strong that my boss already had the sniffles that day. I even had to force her to take a decolgen before the thing got worse.

We got on the bus at 6:30 pm and left at 7pm. My seatmate was a nice man; his name was Paul, and he was from a steel company and was also in Bicol on business. He was likewise stranded so it was his first time to take a bus. We had a nice conversation, which made the trip home less boring. Good luck on your new job in China, Paul!
Anyway, we arrived in Manila by 5:00am. After bringing the designer home, my boss and I proceeded to her house to continue working. I think I was barely awake, I couldn't even remember the day. I got home at 1:30pm.

And that, my friends, was my first business trip ever.

We're going back on Thursday.