the InTern is From Arrheneeo!

“The Culture of Ayala Foundation Inc."

Before I describe the culture of the people working in Ayala Foundation, it is best that I first define what culture is. Culture is, as defined by Merriam-Webster dictionary, the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes a company or corporation.
What then are the shared attitudes, values, goals and practices of the people inside this company? The first thing I noticed is that everyone in the workplace knew each other. In fact, they called each other on a first name basis even though they are of different departments. Mr. Mario Deriquito is a director of Center of Social Development of Ayala Foundation Inc. He interviewed me for my internship request and assigned me to Ms. Adel Licos, Solid Waste Management for my first two weeks of internship and Mr. Tito, BASULTA (Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi). During my first days there, people were friendly to me, especially Ms. Rona who during work introduced herself when she saw me print, photocopy and fax tons of letters. She explained to me that everyone had to go through that type of work. She also explained that knowledge about business machines like photocopying machines, computers, fax machines and telephones are very important when applying for a job. People here are generally friendly, my superior, Ms. Kakay, is the person who I recently made my friend, as we shared each other stories about school, work and family. Although I consider her my friend, it did not change the work that she allotted for me, as she constantly gives me things to do. Fax this, print this, photocopy this, find this contact, call this number, go to this place, make a flier, make a letter, proofread this, follow-up this person, buy this stuff, make coupons, make a press release draft and the like.

Second thing that I noticed is that my two superiors, Ms. Kakay and Ms. Adel, when giving me tasks, would never specify the things that are to be expected. Ms. Kakay explained to me as I continued working there is that it is assumed that I already know what is to be expected. The superiors give out orders and it is up to the new guy to do his best. Every 12 o’clock people are given a 1-hour lunch break and eat together at the pantry, Ms. Hanna and Ms. Kakay would make fun about me being an Atenean by speaking exaggerated English. We would engage ourselves in conversations about careers, work, vacation and food. I would ask them questions if they were happy working in this company. Both of them said they prefer fieldwork rather than their current administrative jobs.

The directors are set up in individual offices separate from the cubicles. While those cubicles set on the corners of the entire room are the managers. The cubicles set in the middle are either staff or officers. Each person is provided with an Internet-ready workstation and a telephone. Websites for dating, pornography, gaming and gambling are blocked to assure that there would be no distractions.

People are mandated to wear office attire every Monday to Thursday to promote and show professionalism. Polo barong or long-sleeved polo and leather shoes for male staff while corporate attire and pump shoes for female staff is the appropriate attire. Although during Fridays, people are allowed to wear casual clothes. As the HR director would say, “So that people can feel to unwind every Friday.”

There are disincentives for not complying with the rules set by the HR. Suspensions are served when employees continuously do not comply with dress code, cleanliness and punctuality rules.
People in Ayala are normally on the go, everyone constantly in front of their workstation doing something, with a few exceptions of course, there are times where individuals will catch a break, but hey who doesn’t? People will phone a friend, eat a snack or drink coffee at the pantry, engage in conversation with co-workers, go to the rest room or check their mail.

The division that I work with, Solid Waste Management (SWM), organized an event called Earth Day 2006, people involved in this event including me, spent countless hours preparing for it. It was an enlightening experience for me to witness and help organize this event as I applied and saw firsthand the things I learned in Project Management, which is planning, implementation, monitoring, evaluation and proper documentation. I have learned here that an incomplete documentation is equivalent to no documentation at all. Ms. Kakay also taught me how to use the business machines and taught me different techniques in MS word, excel and PowerPoint that would document the event.

During my stay at the Solid Waste Management department I have been exposed to the many types of work. Administrative, creative, grunt type, field work, you name it. Even though most of the stuff assigned to me was menial, I learned a lot as I have read all of the documents, workshops and trainings from Ms. Kakay’s workstation.

After two weeks with the SWM program I was then assigned to work for Mr. Tito Rivera of BASULTA department. BASULTA Stands for Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi. Its program involves provision of education and training in those areas. During my training with him, I was given a lot of administrative work. I was given tasks like summarizing meetings, creating a project proposal workshop in Tagalog language, organizing data, contacting agencies and organizations, researching for environment data, summarizing academic papers and the like. Even though it was administrative work, I was happy not to see the fax machine for two weeks.

Mr. Tito Rivera has an aura that would make other people smile and laugh around him. Because he isn’t as bossy as Ms. Kakay in terms of assignments, there are times where I would be left idle because I would finish his assignments ahead of schedule. The result, is when I ask what to do the reply I would get is “Sa ngayon wala pa naman”.

Because of instances where I would finish Mr. Tito’s assignments ahead of time, he would often “loan” me to Ms. Chiara and Ms. Nyla under GILAS that is basically a program with a mission to place internet-ready workstations on every public school.

Ms. Nyla’s assignments would include the creation of a directory for Middle Eastern Embassies, organization of data, phone call inquiries for funding, article-making, organizational profiling and the like. Ms. Chiara assignments are menial and out-of-the-blue which involves only typing
Is Ayala Foundation Inc. a healthy and an ideal environment to work on? If you are looking for a desk job, friendly environment, great office, great benefits and with proper equipment/materials that you can work with, then this company would be great for you. My only say here is that, much of the work here is very delimiting. I couldn’t move freely without getting a say from my superior. Even if I feel that I could do this task alone, it had to go through the approval of the superiors. Overall, it was a great learning experience and I would greatly consider working here if given an opportunity.

Kristopher Carlo Vita
IV AB Development Studies
Ateneo de Manila University