From Showbiz to the Shoe biz

As an initial post, I'd like to share the essay I wrote for the "My life, My SM" contest during it's 50th anniversary. Fortunately, it bagged first place.

FROM SHOWBIZ TO THE SHOE BIZ

I have never been a numbers guy.

I graduated 20 years ago with a degree in Broadcasting, and the majority of my career has been spent producing shows, writing scripts, editing features and doing voice-overs for various television shows. I’ve spent the night with a camera crew in a van parked in EDSA acting on a tip that a row of tanks was scheduled to pass there on the way to Malacañang to start a coup (they never came) and I have experienced the excitement of covering numerous live PBA finals. During these 14 years, the only time I used a calculator was to compute the running time of the shows I produced. I had no idea what a spreadsheet was. My attire at work was usually a shirt and a pair of jeans and never had I been addressed as "Sir" by my subordinates.

So what am I doing here in SM?

You see, the problem with the showbiz industry, though very exciting, is it isn’t too stable. And as I got married and had kids (a.k.a. got older), I wanted to start, and possibly end, my career in a rock-steady Company. A job opening as Store Manager for SM’s new retail affiliate, Sports Central, presented itself. At that time, I was a writer for a sports magazine show in Studio 23 titled "Sports Central" so I took that as a sign. I took the job, thinking "what could be so difficult about selling sports stuff - hey, I’m a sports fan! This is going to be a cinch!"

It is during times like these, when you feel that you will breeze through a new job, that reality suddenly rears its ugly head and bites you in the arse, bigtime.

My first year on the job was, to say the least, tumultuous. For one thing, I was inundated with Acronyms. When I ordered office supplies for the new store, I filled out an MSRS (Materials/Supplies Requisition Slip). Tables and Chairs required a different document - FAPR (Fixed Assets Purchase/ Request). I learned to operate the POS (Point Of Sale) via COTC (Counter Operations Training Course), got immersed in the use of our MMS (Merchandise Management System) and communicated with my peers through LN (Lotus Notes) - well, you get the picture.

And speaking of my lack of experience using a calculator, I learned that going to an Affiliates Meeting without it is like being trapped in a soup factory without a spoon. My contemporaries were uttering terms like "growth" and "to plan" which were completely alien to me and were dishing out, God forbid, numbers!. When my turn came, with all the dignity as a Manager I could muster, I simply said:"We have a lot of customers."

Needless to say, my morale at that time was at an all-time low. From hotshot TV producer to bumbling idiot in a flash. I went through the scene in movies where the protagonist sits on a park bench by the sea ..with slow music in the background...thinking about what to do next. But, just like in the movie, I got back up and did something about it.

My first order of business was to learn how to make sales reports (read: not look like a fool during Affiliates meetings), and the first people who enlightened me in the Ways of Casio and Lotus were my Back Office personnel. They taught me the formulas to get sales figures, how to use the % key with confidence and told me the difference between a row and a column in a spreadsheet. Oh, by the way, I also made a Dictionary of SM Acronyms.

So inch by inch, with the help of my posse in the branch, and of course, my bosses, I learned the ropes, and my confidence in my abilities grew. Along the way, I also gathered a few experience points in the stuff they don’t teach you in College - dealing with people, from the irate customer to the untrustworthy employee.

Six years later, and along the way being given an NPA (Notice of Personnel Action) and having opened several new stores, I’m still not a numbers guy. My proficiency has increased tenfold from when I started, but I shall never reach the level of the left-brain dominant who can compute percentages in a snap. Though I rarely bring out my Dictionary of Acronyms, I still feel I have a ton of things to learn and develop in this job. But my life here in SM is fun and challenging, and the best thing about it is I know that my bosses, my supervisors down to the rank and file shall always be behind me.

With the friendships that I have developed, the things I have learned and have yet to learn, plus the never-ending quest to master the calculator, my life in this Company has been, well...SM (Simply Marvelous)!