TAKING A STAND

My brother has transferred jobs twice in three years. And he's looking to transferring to another office again before the year ends. What's up with that? Does he think that looks good in a resume? And what about corporate loyalty? Is it really dead?

Maybe not so. I talked with my mom about what's happening with baby brother and I learned something new about my brother which I never thought he had in him. My brother takes a stand for what he believes in. And if it means losing his job, no matter how good the pay is, he'll go ahead takes a stand on things.

His first job was as a call agent in one of the biggest call centers in Manila. After a year, he was promoted to team leader. He wasn't exactly popular among the other agents. Hindi daw marunong makisama. He took his job seriously, as anybody should, and it seems that this trait earned him the respect of his superiors. One day, two of his subordinates asked permission to go on overtime. He agreed. But when he went back to the office a couple of hours later, he found out they didn't go on overtime at all. When he reported this to the operations manager, it turned out that the two guys were buddies with the operations manager and the ops manager would rather not do anything about it. He elevated the issue to operations director. When the ops manager found out about it, pinag-initan nya brother ko. He later resigned because he was having such a hard time at work.

His second job was as a customer service manager for a Philippine-based Japanese firm which deals with call cards in Japan. Six months into the job, he uncovered a scam in the company. Some managers who had access to the PIN numbers on the call cards were selling them outside company channels and were pocketing the money for themselves. He informed the head office about this and some managers were fired. After that, he thought everything would return to normal. He was wrong. For some unknown reason, he would find his car with the tires blown, he would find threats of physical harm emailed or pasted to his car, that sort of stuff. Fed up, he left the company.

I was so surprised when I learned this from mom. I never thought my brother had this in him. I felt ashamed because all the while I thought he wasn't taking his work seriously, and was quick to blame this attitude on him whenever we would find ourselves arguing. Bro, salute ako sa yo. I'm sure dad is proud of you as well.