MY TASTE... (Human Elective Assignment 1)

My tastes in audio arts are Original Pilipino Music and Instrumentals.  As a "person who sings", I love songs made by Filipino artists.  Filipino songs go straight to the hearts of everyone when sung—that’s how I see it.  Filipino songs, especially love songs, are more romantic and more emotional.  I relate to some of the songs.  As an instrumentalist (I play flute), I appreciate and love listening instrumental music as well as playing my craft.  I love these two audio arts not because I only listen, but also because I do them as well.

My tastes in visual arts are in the field of painting, drawing, and photography.   When I was in grade school, I used to be our school’s cartoonist and poster maker participant in every intra and inter-school competitions.  As time passed by, my talent tarnished.  I ventured new skill/field—music.  But when I see paintings and caricatures anywhere, the feeling comes back.  When I have leisure time, I always try to draw or paint something (I use pastel color).  It was late in my college life when I appreciate the beauty of photography.  I believe that photography is not just taking pictures but also taking memories—making memories live in every shot.  I appreciate pictures that depict emotions.  I am blown away by different pictures that tell stories.

My taste in audio visual arts is circus performances—Cirque Du Soleil.  Circus takes me to another world.  I feel their effort when they perform.   I love seeing them exaggerating their costumes, makeups, and facial expressions as if they are free people doing free things performing on stage.  Sometimes I feel I’m doing their stunts together with beautiful mix of music—aerobatics and maneuvers.

The On-The-Job Narrative

It is my pleasure to share what I have learned from my OJT experience, from simple nostalgic lessons and skills, to complex maxims worth living for.  I will talk more of those, the values, than what I technically did—they are in my daily journal.

I have been too attached with my work that I thought I was actually a regular staff of the cooperative and as if I was being compensated regularly for my work—though I made it sure that my efforts must be away from any monetary motifs. Well, I suppose every intern thinks that way, as how we paradigm map ourselves in the entity we are in.  I have favored that way rather than doing nothing or be an errand boy.  Somehow, I feel a soupcon of proudness (I want statement to be humbler) to my job;  Sometimes you need to think that way to uplift your confidence.  I still remember how I started as an applicant, how I was nervous to face the manager and anxious to death that I would not be able to be accepted or not be able to do the work efficiently and effectively, but here I am now—the OJT System Specialist.

I learned to manage my work well at a given time especially that Processing office and Pawnshop do a lot of encoding and keeping an update of their members’ requirements and at the same time the scheduling of interview, pre-membership seminars, and general assemblies.

I am glad to experience once in my life in giving instructions to my supervisors how to audit and operate the database and exchange thoughts with them on how to make things well.  I was somewhat scared because I deal with persons older and way too experts than me in terms of their craft.  Sometimes, I felt cautious to discuss with them some accounting matters.  I also was hesitant to explain how and why things were right and were wrong for I might see something that would make me more rough.

I also learned to be diplomatic in interacting with the staffs and customers.  Words and actions are very important in personal relationship.  Knowing the timing of when and how you utter the response or reaction helps you become a better listener and responder.  Understanding the different moods of the customers help you think what to say proper to them.

The most important things are attitude more than intelligence, people smart more than brain smart, and relationship more than familiarity; the rest of characteristics will follow if you start with these things.

Talent alone is insufficient.  Yes it is significant, but it does not assure attainment.  One must also be hardworking and self-disciplined.

I learned also to sacrifice a lot of things;  I hardly have leisure time even in weekends.  From the moment I came to the office, I stared encoding everything and check and check, encode again then cross-reference again with the sources, and then work on every problem the system has.  Nevertheless, I really enjoy the pressure I gave to myself.  Pressure sometimes gives me a rush of doing different things.

Real world will be so exciting.  This means having to deal with different challenges world will give us, so it is best to know first what we are doing and what we will be doing in the future— to love those no matter what.  To learn is what we ought to do and to be inspired is what we will have.  The key is to love the path we take and doing the best we can do to always have a positive outlook in life.  Four corners could not give these things. I saw all these in my on-the-job training.  I saw all these more than any academic related values.

DOLEFIL FUN RUN 2013 (My RUN. My TREEbute)

June 1, 2013—Dole Philippines Inc. starts its 50 Years of Quality, Quality, Quality celebration through a run.

STRIDER, ASACOLOR, DXMD, inchem, ALTAWELD, GEA, MSI, Transway, GSC-TSB, ROVY, Cortess Printing, STUDIO4 Productions, GENPACK, Indent Industrial Trade Corp, and DCTECH joins Dole Philippines Inc. in this activity.

Corporate Social Responsibility—This run is for Dolefil’s TREEbute advocacy.  The seedlings will be given to Valencia Valley in Northern Mindanao.

Almost 12,000 have participated; all excited to burn some calories and to notch the experience.

Almost all walked the five-kilometer course together with family and friends.  No one thought of the competition, just the FUN.

DECCO and I

What and where is DECCO?

DECCO mean Dole Philippines Inc., Employees Cooperative Complex, a non-agricultural multipurpose cooperative organized under The Cooperative Code of the Philippines, otherwise known as RA no. 6938.

The types of services DECCO provides are Pawnshop, appliances and furniture, and of course, loans. They offer nine types of loans: regular loan, emergency loan, appliance loan, consumption loan, educational loan, house renovation loan, transportation loan, computer loan, and special loan.

DECCO is committed to provide the highest level of customer service, responsive financial assistance and to continuously pursue relevant business opportunities to the benefit of its members.

OFFICES

Main

·      The main office where transactions involving ins and outs of money are made.  Here, members claim their loans or dividends in cash.

·    My job was to file, segregate, tally, fasten, and compute the total dividend vouchers of different members from different company extensions considering two kinds of vouchers, for MIGS or members in good standing and for non-MIGS.

Processing

·   Next section is the Processing office… the busiest office in DECCO… this is where all paper works are done…

·     Here you will see the members falling in line and consulting the credit analysts about their loans, what loans can they afford and how much money can they loan.  The credit analysts evaluate their records from their database and then explain everything those are in connection with the members’ inquiries…

·   My jobs here were to print checks and loan ledgers and to file the clipped checks and loan ledgers alphabetically.

Pawnshop

Last but the best is the pawnshop… but not a simple pawnshop at all… loans from the processing are processed for 3 to 5 to 10 days before members could get it, for some confidential reasons.  Nevertheless, members need immediate money that is why almost all of them go straight to the pawnshop; why? Because they offer loan advances at a flat rates…

My job here was… I mean was to convert everything from legacy system to Quickbooks.  My major problems were, how the transactions would be inputted in order for the accounts to reconcile with the excels… so what I did, I reviewed every single passage the Quickbooks has.

I corrected their errors, I inputted every detailed transactions and every period, I ought to check if the amounts were the same... and if not, investigate again and again and again from sources to sources and references to references, statements to statements, records to records, working hand on hand with my supervisors until we balanced everything… there was a time when I and my supervisor quarreled about it… and we did not talk to each other for a day… and the rest is history…

Brownout Jobs

You noticed almost all of my jobs involve electricity… what if brownout?

·         Wipe in, wipe out

·         File everything together with my supervisors

·         Clean old folders

·         Straighten the fasteners with my co workers

·         Check up the plants from aphids

I say…

In a month… in just a span of one month… I learned a lot more than what I expected…

In one month I became their son, friend, and brother… and I will cherish those moments for the rest of my life… now, I am proud to be part of DECCO…

On-the-Job Training Daily Journal

1	April	8		I scanned, segregated, arranged, tallied, totaled, and checked the Coop’s MIGS dividend vouchers specifically the vouchers in Makilala and South Skyland Valley.  MIGS means Members In Good Standing. Day 1 Supervisor: Mr. Aries S. Villa
2		11		Their pawnshop opened a new accounting database—Quickbooks Pro 2013.   They made me its operator specialist.  I reviewed the mechanics, shortcuts, features, and specialties of the updated database.  My major goal is to convert everything from legacy system to quickbooks database.  Later that day, I started encoding the transactions of Period 1.
3		12		I continued encoding and assessing the transactions in Quickbooks—Period 1.
4		13		Morning—I finished encoding Period 1 and proceeded in Period 2 Afternoon—Investigated and assessed the rest of the transactions from Period 1 to Period 2 and cross referred the transactions from MS Excel copies to hard copies to Quickbooks and vice versa.
5		15		I continued checking customer payments and the sales receipt through hard copies, MS Excel copies and Quickbooks copies.
6		16		I checked and wrote the new pawn ticket numbers in the receipts of old ones to have an ease of encoding the transactions in the database (standard operating procedure).  After I finished checking the receipts, I commenced encoding the Period 3 transactions.
7		17		…continued encoding and checking Period 3 transactions
8		18		Morning—…audited the transactions again in Period 1. Afternoon—Checked and continued encoding Period 3 transactions.
9		19		Morning—finished encoding and assessing Period 3 transactions Afternoon—audited 2012 transactions encoded by the office staffs.
10		20		Reconciled the balance sheet made through conventional system with the balance sheet made by the database… scanned through inventories record in excel, masterlists, LERs and other hard copies. …find and correct some errors—mostly errors on dates, pawn ticket numbers and mismatching receipts of the customers(members).
11		22		…searched for the 207 pesos overvalued amount in Loans and Pledges account
12		23		…found the errors and balanced the QuickBooks balance sheet and conventional balance sheet. Day 2 to 12 Supervisors:  Ms. Emily C. Magallon & Ms. Gennifer S. Gadian
13		24		I was assigned in processing department because the staffs at DECCO Pawnshop went to a seminar. I printed checks and members’ loan ledgers, sorted and clipped the checks and ledgers to their respective members’ documents, and filed and alphabetized all afterwards. I continued encoding period 4 transactions in Quickbooks when the pawnshop staffs arrived at late afternoon. Day 13 Supervisor:  Ms. Mary Ann T. Genova
14		25		…continued the transactions in Period 4
15		26		I reconciled Period 1 income statement in Quickbooks and Period 1 income statement in conventional system; adjusted some accounts and corrected some errors; and investigated the rest of the suspicious amounts shown in the database. I have successfully reconciled some of the accounts but had a big problem with one account having a substantial difference compared to conventional records.
16		27		I continued reconciling the two income statements; corrected some errors and added some un-encoded sales receipts that correspond to each new pawn tickets in Period 1 2013. …reviewed the LER(Loan Extension Register) for some 2012 transactions that were paid in Period 1
17		29		The income statements were still not balanced…  I requested for more source documents.  I investigated and cross referenced their cash vouchers, official receipts, daily liquidation and LERs. This afternoon, I checked withdrawal slips to make them easy for clients(members) to fill them up.
18		30		I continued reconciling the two income statements… this time, I found some gray areas in their replenishment records.  My supervisors and I were thinking were to place the deficit found on the records, and why would we recognize it.  We had all day finding other gray areas that could help us solve the problem.
19	May	2		…continued reconciling the two income statements …reformulated the entries in period 1 2013 in Quickbooks At the end of the day, I finished encoding Period 1 in new formed transactions and found out that the some accounts now exceeded the accounts in conventional system… one factor would be the redundant transactions that were not yet deleted because of sudden brownout.
20		3		DECCO’s electricity wirings were badly detached because of some unknown reasons that were why I literally do not have the Quickbooks to operate with.  Therefore, I helped the staffs pack the giveaways and the groceries for their annual general assembly in Malaybalay, Bukidnon; I straighten the fattener wires to lessen my boredom. Later this day, I computed some parts of the ORs hoping to find out what made the latest update in quickbooks income statements higher that in conventional system.
21		4		…no electricity still.  I volunteered getting fasteners from old folders.  Imagine how many were the folders that took me 8 hours to finish arranging.
22		5		I straighten the fasteners and arrange some papers in alphabetical order… all day. The wire was fixed late afternoon, so I decided not to continue the Quickbooks yet.
23		7		I continued perfectly reconciled the Income statements.  My next problem was to reconcile the Period 1 Balance Sheets.  I investigated the overvalues and undervalues in all possible source documents the Pawnshop has. I gave up in balance sheets and continued with Period 2 income statements… before that, I reentered and edited other period 2 errors…
24		8		This morning, I stopped editing period 2 transactions, continued reconciling the Period 1 balance sheets with my supervisors, and ended up discovering more discrepancies.  I adjusted some errors and still the sheets were not reconciled.  My supervisors and I worked hand on hand to find what made the two balance sheets impossibly not reconciled. Afternoon—I continued period 2 and finished it afterwards… I started reconciling the period 2 income statements.  The LERs and LPRs rhymed with quickbooks but the conventional income statement did not.
25		9		Still period 2 income statements are not balanced so I decided to rest from investigating and continue inputting period 3 transactions.  I finished period 3 that day and I attempted to reconcile period 3 income statements.  There were accounts that were balanced and there were accounts that were not so I began investigating the transactions and cross-referenced those transactions with the source documents.  I decided to go to the processing office and helped them "checkwrite".
26		10		I continued encoding and editing Period 5 transactions…
27		11		I finally equaled the conventional balance sheet 2013 period 1 to quickbooks balance sheet 2013 period 1.
28		14		I commenced reconciling period 2 balance sheet and have reconciled it this day… however, the two income statements are not equal, that is why I investigated the period 2 transactions again… I have not found any errors in quickbooks as supported by all source documents.
29		15		I decided to reconcile period 3 balance sheets and found many errors in dated and in amounts… at the end of the day, I balanced them; But its income statement remained a mystery.
30		16		I commenced encoding, adjusting, and paying attention to the rest of period 5.
31		17		I continued encoding and auditing period 5.