A few weeks back I set myself a goal of not only writing regularly every week day here at PhilFAQS, where you get the answers to the common questions about living in the Philippines, but also to be more organized. So far I give myself a score of perhaps C- or D+, and this coming week is unlikely to get much better, because I am off to our new agriculture venture in Zambales for another couple days. It’s not that I couldn’t blog physically there, even our farm out in the boondocks (how many of you know that was a Filipino words, one of the few that has made it into common American English usage?) has wireless DSL available ,,, but I digress. It’s more of a case of not having time.
Actually, I have time … the one thing I have that I share absolutely equally with all of you reading here is time. None of us is richer or poorer in time, we all own what we own of time and we can’t get any more of it no matter if we are a high school dropout or hold multiple PhD’s.
It’s how I choose to use the time I have … and right now, in many cases, the bukid is going to have to come first. But today the sun is shining (first real tropical cyclone of the season has blown out to sea), income is trickling in like clockwork (a small clock to be sure, but then again, I am supposed to be retired), did I mention the sun is shining? … and the house is bustling as a visiting sister and her children and the rest of us get ready to go to the hospital in Quezon City to visit a little lady named Isobel (not sure of the spelling yet) our eagerly awaited grand-niece, the first of a whole new generation … born about 16 hours ago.
To be born in May of 2009. What that must be like. What will her bright little eyes have seen in 2072 when she is as old as I am now? You realize that while I am well immersed in the “Information Age”, I can clearly remember when steam trains, not airlines, were the common mode of travel and when to call a neighbor we picked up the handset and asked the operator to “Ring ‘J’, please”. We were on a party line (I still remember the number, Mountain View 8-2187W, and my best friend next door was on 2187J … and this wasn’t out in the boondocks, either, it was in suburban New Jersey almost in sight of the Empire State building in the distance. How far we have come. It’s fascinating to contemplate, isn’t it? I wish that little girl a lot of good things, but one thing I am not yet sure of is wishing her what passes for a conventional education in today’s world and that somewhat archaic thing we call a ‘job’ in today’s world.
One of the things that depresses me from time to time is to look at the search terms that bring new visitors to this site. “Job for Americans in the Philippines” outnumbers all the other search terms by a long chalk. Why does this depress me? Because it’s exactly the same in my mind as people looking for information on telephone party lines … a way of life and a ‘technology’, if you will, that is dying, if not dead.
A while back I read an interesting report on a fellow who was regarded as a scientific genius. A major appliance maker hired him as a consultant to their marketing and engineering departments. His first task was to advise them on what features to focus on for future improvements in their extensive line of refrigerators and freezers. They were, of course, thinking on their own about “advances’” like better door seals, more efficient motors, better energy efficiency by things like computerized refrigeration controllers … things anyone who has ever owned a refrigerator might think about if the spirit moved them.
The consultant’s answer? “None of the above”. “If you want to position yourself for the future you shouldn’t be pursuing better ways of building better versions of boxes that keep food cold (which is after all, technology from the 1800’s). Instead you should be focusing on skipping a whole generation of technology. Let you competitors focus on how for save a Watt or two of power consumed, or build a more ergometric door handle. For your next business idea you should be concentrating on biotics, irradiation and other means of preserving food without refrigeration at all. Don’t play follow the leader, leap into the real future”.
I don’t think my scientific hero stayed on very long in that consulting role. I if your granddad delivered ice for a living (my dad did, by the way, blocks of ice from an insulted wagon), and your dad was on the team that moved the condenser coil from the top of the box to the back, and you designed a little vacuum pump interface that ‘sucks’ the freezer door closed tight automatically … can you focus on anything aside from refrigerators?
Well man has been around for about 125,000 years and using cold in a box (wither mechanical refrigeration or natural ice cooling) has only been around for about 1/10th or one percent of that time, so obviously a “whole lot of life” happened without refrigerators and it’s also quite likely that sometime in the future we’ll look back and wonder why everyone used to have those funny humming boxes in the corner of their kitchen.
I write here frequently, as well as on some of my other sites, (like www.retiredpay.,com) about why you seriously do not need a job to make a living in the Philippines.
But who reads these articles? I don’t know. Sometimes I think that the level of reading comprehension of the average ‘Net surfer just too low to even make it out of elementary school … sounds pejorative, but then when I write, research and write some more to try to show people why they:
- Don’t need a job to make a living in the Philippines
- And why they don’t really want a job here in the Philippines
No matter what I write it just seems that people don’t want to hear it … I write, they say they read, but they just write me privately or else search incessantly with Google for “foreigner jobs in the Philippines”. I guess I am just by no means as good a writer as I would like to be … I prefer to try to show people how they don’t need a refrigerator with coil on the top or a regular old ‘report in to the boss every morning” J-O-B. But then again, maybe I’m wrong … what do you think?
Popularity: 5% [?]
Hi Dave – I’m one of those guys that reads your articles and for the most part I get what you are trying to say about jobs. I’m fairly computer/internet savvy but I still can’t come up with a viable business (in my mind) for me to make an online living there. I have no doubt it can be done, and there are many examples of that.
So keep writing and I’ll keep reading. One day I hope you hit the right button and the light goes on for me. In the meantime, I’ll keep looking at options both online and brick and mortar. But don’t worry – I hear what you are saying.
I don’y mean to imply it is necessarily easy … But as you said, keep an open mind and see what comes along. The main thing I want people to ‘dream big’ about is the notion that ‘where you live’ is tied to ‘where you earn a living’. In today’s world, this is less and less so. But I’m a realist. Not only is the concept hard to grasp for some folks, but there are employers who go out of their way to fight the future. I need to take a look for a file I have here and somehow mislaced. When I worked for the US government back there in the US, my organization spent more than $100,000 USD hiring a researcher/author to write a report explaining to the White House why we were “so special” that people couldn’t possibly telecommute to their work. The ‘zinger’? The contractor who produced the report was a lady who worked from home confined to a wheelchair … she found a way, and enjoyed what she was dioing, while the whole ‘might’ of government could only find reasons we could not find ways. Hmmm I ought to write that up in more detail I think.
Here’s a simple example. Think of any business in the English speaking Western world that requires people to answer a telephone or make appointments (self employed trades people come readily to mind). Using VoIP and Internet technology, a Philippines based business could offer services to take calls and make appointments.
In addition, I have a friend in Melbourne (a carpet cleaner) who pays a woman in Manila to scour the internet Real Estate ads for new rentals and she prepares all the data for him to do a mailout to potential clients.
Exactly, Laurence. Thee main thing is to separate ones skills from where one is. I loved the carpet cleaning example.
I’ve mentioned a number of schemes like that myself, perhaps your explanation will resonate better.
One big stumbling block I run into … and others have told me about it too … mention the Internet, either directly or indirectly and some folks won’t even continue to hear what you are saying … I’ve ha dpeople tell me, “Don’t talk to me about the ‘Net, I only want to hear about “real” buisiness”.
Well even if you never move to the Philippines and even if your particular job can only be done hands on, it’s better to explore and learn, becuase who knows when the ‘Net will provide a valuable supplement or even enable someone else in your family to make a living. The little underlying idea that it isn’t ‘real’ as some seem to think is a hazardous notion … it will become real to all of us siome day, that’s for sure.