Employment History
Since I started working right after passing the licensure exam in October 1997, I normally spent an average of 2 years per company, institution or organization. It seems to me that after 2 years, everything had become routine (boring!), my job roles and functions have become predictable (boring!). The motivation to stay vanished.
Having experienced doing consultancy led me to think of retiring at age 40 and rather accept short-term engagements. I believe a penny here and there could already paid my bills and subsistence.
Then I got a LinkedIn message offering me a job as a Team Leader. It was from a FreeBalance HR in Kolkata, India. I declined the offer although I was looking for a new engagement. That time I was teaching in the nearby college on a part-time basis and it was not enough to pay my monthly obligations. But then the representative came back to offer me the Change Management Lead. When I finished checking the terms of reference, I accepted the offer, which was followed immediately by a personal interview and contracting.
Since July 2016, I have been working full-time with FreeBalance. It took me more than 7 years and 8 months when it restructured in March 2024. So it was kind of record-breaking for my employment history!
What made me stay?
I had no idea about FreeBalance before and even few months after being hired. Later I learned that it provides software and consulting services only to governments. It is a small player as compared to known ERP providers. Because of its small workforce around the world, it is not highly specialized, a flat organization, and has plenty of space for playing several roles, and for each one to be recognized.
One surprising thing really is the permanent employment contract. I was expecting to just stay until the project in the Philippines is finished and delivered. It was turned over for maintenance and sustainability since January 2019.
While the rest of the Philippine Team was coterminus with the project completion, I was absorbed in the APAC regional project management advisory service. My first assignment was in Bangkok, Thailand on partnership engagement in early 2018. I worked with the recon team to revive the project in Laos, Cambodia later that same year.
In 2019, I was sent to Dili in East Timor to conduct Capacity Building Assessment as part of the Sustainability Service contract. Then to Jakarta, Indonesia thrice in the same year to do product presentations to the government.
Then covid19 pandemic happened but it did not stop my work. It always feels like there is something to be done that I can do.
So when the aviation opened for overseas travels in October 2020, FreeBalance sent me to Brazil to assist in the pre-implementation phase of a project in Belem, State of Para. While the world was healing from covid virus, I was all around the world. Thank God, I was never infected!
I had a one-month stint in Sierra Leone for Change Management Assessment. Then to Honduras for the social security system implementation. Then on to Trinidad and Tobago to implement the Change Management Program. And finally to Tunisia as Change Management Consultant.
