when an anti-establishment hippie is established...

Suffice it to say that when Starbucks first came out in the Philippines and the elated mass of laptop- brandishing professional career ants fell on their little knees worshipping it, I was nothing short of nauseous.

I was the eye-rolling, wise-cracking Janeane Garofalo of the corporate world, the anarchist who drew up defenses at anything vaguely resembling a navy blazer. I made it a sinister point early in my college years never to ever in my life concede to the gaping jaws of capitalism, and for 4 years following graduation, I was successful.

I became a beach bum, a night owl, a drifter, a rat—anything except a respectable young woman on her way to a respectable job. I felt that the 10-letter word “employment” was synonymous to death—death to freedom, to rights, to self. Surely anything that held you confined for 8-hours against your will qualified as oppression. Surely a soul would get lost somewhere between the blank white walls, the programmed lunch breaks and the monotonous, ceaseless marching of starchy white shirts. Death and demise, no doubt..

My first foray into the workforce consisted of snorkeling in the brilliant blue seas off a skinny island in the South China Sea, checking for plant organisms and possible seacow strandings. For a good two months I violently refused to get in line for a social security number and a tax identification number, requirements for the proper processing of one’s salary. Having to get one, to me, was equivalent to being run under a scanner at a grocery shop and being priced. I would inexorably and eternally be tagged and all the intricacies and nuances and little quirks that made me  unique would be reduced to numerical figures with dashes. I was indignant, but I needed the money, and so I went. I figured that as long as I was wearing slippers and picking fruit to eat during work hours, I wasn’t a real, honest-to-goodness employee anyway.

My second job was just a little less exciting than my first. I romped with tiger cubs, cuddled piglets and trained a bear. I was high up in the mountains, surrounded by hundred-old trees, and could sneak off into a nearby waterfall whenever I wanted to. I had to get additional requirements like health insurance and loans and tax forms that I didn’t really understand, but with the nature of my work, who had the chutzpah to complain ? I was far away from the city and farther than ever from donning a real corporate suit. For four years I dipped and dodged my way around the exasperated chidings of family and friends, purposefully avoided better job opportunities and defiantly shirked from promotions to more professional settings. I was adamant in holding on to my self-formulated dictum. Independence: good. Companies with cubicles: bad. Self-expression: good. Nameplate and title on desk: bad. Slippers: good. Closed pumps: horribly bad.

My rationale was that I was in charge of my own beat, the drummer in my own band. The only problem, as I had to find out some time later, was that I couldn’t keep up with my own tune. If I kept chasing after only what I thought I wanted, then I would be running around in circles and most likely end up with a trombone down my throat. It was a crucial moment, but I had to make a decision. It was dawning on me that the life I wanted--fun as it was—seemed to inevitably spiral towards disorder without borders. I hated to admit it but the years of chasing thrills, pipe dreams and daisies had left me hopelessly lost. I didn’t know where I came from and even scarier, I had no idea where I was going. I took a deep breath and chose.

Today I work for a newspaper firm located in the main valve of the corporate artery that is Makati. I wake up at six am every morning, slide my feet into a considerably more formal pair of slippers (no pumps, thank you) and take a bus into the very zone I used to abhor. There are blank walls most anywhere I turn, I go to lunch at 12 noon everyday and I meet an onslaught of white-shirted commuters every afternoon. I very recently filled up forms indicating the transfer of my monthly tax remittances to a new branch and now spend hours bundled in front of a computer screen, often awaiting instructions from my superiors regarding my next assignment. Minus the three-piece navy suit and the detached, glazed-pupil look, I have become the very person I used to run away screaming from.

My fellow hippie-gypsy friends would have gone up in arms had they found out I’ve enlisted, but the strange thing is, I haven’t seen any of them in a long time now. Maybe they’re holed up in anti-establishment tunnels somewhere, thrashing firms or perhaps, like me, they’ve discovered that there’s nothing infuriating, really, about being a company employee. I still wear my favorite shirts, still use the single, weird-looking character as my signature, still confound people with my food choices and essentially have not lost my soul. On top of everything, my job requires me to do the one thing in this world that I know I will always love doing, no matter what: writing stories.

So if I could only go back in time, I would love to try and track myself back when I was a 20-year-old senior, when communistic sentiments were just beginning to ferment. I would then smugly teleport this past self to the present (hey, if time travel is possible then anything else would be, too) and show her just what a great time I’m actually having. But if I did that and she let go of her radical thinking, then I would lose this sensation of wonder , this almost humorous awe at actually liking this job that I have right now, in this building within this “evil network”, this spirit-usurper that I had such ghastly nightmares about. It’s weird and wonderful that by letting go of what I believed was my artistic freedom of self, fate turned around and showed me who I really was.

Heck, I’m enjoying the whole working vibe right now I might even grab myself a Starbucks latte on my way out.

Over my rotting carcass. I haven’t sold out that much just yet.

Posted by: Hoon at 04:12 | link | comments (8)

Comments:

#1  07 April 2006 - 10:31

 

I, for one, am very thankful you are writing stories rather than checking for sea cow strandings in the South China Sea. I was so riveted by this story that I read it before I poured the day's first cup of Starbucks.

InMyLife

#2  07 April 2006 - 11:36

 

love it. Refreshing truth.

hookemup

#3  07 April 2006 - 13:16

 

brilliant!

limine

#4  09 April 2006 - 11:40

 

You make it sound like you've sold out but if you're writing articles and still make informed choices with your food and so on then all it seems to me is that you're doing good things. Especially if you can be in that environment and still know that starbucks sucks.

roddem

#5  13 April 2006 - 02:45

 

this reminds me of myself and my quest to stay out of the mainstream and of something i wrote awhile ago...

this quest for differentness
has led me to an odd realization
that since I was old enough to be aware
of my personality
I have courted
a unique form of uniqueness

I've always wanted to stand out from
but be accepted by those around me

I piously look down my nose at the fashion challenged
I enviously gaze up at those appearing happily blessed and complete

striving for the latter
I tried to separate my-
self from imaginary competition
- boring is bad you know

now I find
after all these years of effort
that I am reasonably fashionable
that I appear to many as happily blessed and
complete
that there is no one similar to me
in all the world

mission accomplished

but what an odd thing it is
achieving lifelong goals
only to have them feel
so empty

bluematrix

#6  13 April 2006 - 22:30

 

Seeing things as they really are, comes from disassociating the object or event from labels and our conditioning. If you put Starbuck's coffe in a plain cup and compared it to other coffee you could buy on the way to work, would you choose it just because it's the best there is? If so, a dislike of Starbuck's coffee just because it has a label, is just another form of conformism. If you want to be a free thinker, make your choices outside of the confines of the societal cage. I have a similar aversion to Wal-Mart, the great American place to get cheap whatever. But then, if I shopped there, I could save enough money to take my vacations somewhere where they don't have Wal-Marts. Life is a conundrum of principles.

paperboy

#7  16 April 2006 - 02:31

 

astig.

BanzaiDescent

#8  27 April 2006 - 11:08

 

Karla,

Reading this blog made me miss you so much and remember how much I love you...Wala akong masabi, you're just as talented as ever, and I'm happy that you're happy. Do you know I never once worried about you because YOU HAVE THIS GIFT. A wedding's coming up, kita-kita tayo!!! Mwah!

ilangq

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