Teamwork makes the dream work

After my life and death situation battling with the worst diarrhea of my life at Samal, I successfully landed back at Cebu. I would've wanted to get a quick rest and breather after my long solo backpacking. I know it's absurd to take a break after a break but travelers out there knew exactly why I need this. Of course, on top of the diarrhea that's only getting worse by the hour. But my wish wasn't possible; we had this National Sales Convention to attend the following morning. I couldn't find the courage to excuse myself and let my team do the legwork for me.

Our task was pretty straighforward: to bring all the delegates safely at the convention venue. It sounds easy but this one and only task of the committee I'm handling required weeks of preparation. It involved coordinating with the main event organizers, getting flight/boat information of everyone attending, grouping and assigning people based on their arrivals in a particular vehicle and patiently waiting for everyone's arrival at Mactan Cebu International Airport. Not to mention making last minute changes in the plans just to cater delays in the arrival of the delegates. And of course, we're the first touchpoint of most of the delegates, we were expected to set the one for the convention; we were all smiles and friendly and hospitable to all.

Despite all the changes and ending the day late due to flight delays, we were able to deliver what was expected of us, I'm even confident to say, we delivered beyond expectations! :)

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Day 1

We had a good night's sleep at Solea Mactan where we were hosted for 3 days. Yes! All delegates from all over the Philippines came to Cebu and were hosted in one of Mactan's famous hotel with full board meals! 🥺 My company is very generous!

During Day 1, we attended separate trainings that were customized for each of our needs (based on position). The learning session was both fun and insightful.

In the afternoon, the organizers prepared crazy physical activities that we were able to accomplish in teams. Everyone unleashed their competitiveness and was eager to complete the physically taxing activities first. A reward awaited the winners that's why.

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Day 2

The highlight of the next day was unleashing the creativity in each one of us. At the onset, we were group into 10-12. The main task of the day was to start our own milktea business. We were given limited resources (play money which acted as our capital). They had store where we bought everything we needed to kickstart the business; our budgetting and haggling skills was tested.

Mind you we had to make an actual stall, come up with a witty business name, create our menu which included identifying which milktea flavor/s we will offer and how much each will cost. Promotions to capture our customers curiosity were offered, too! And man, we made actual milkteas on the spot! I was in charged of this part of the business and I couldn't describe enough the pressure of making each order as timely and as hygienic as possible. It was challenging to sell even a single cup of milktea given there were other groups competiting against us!

To make things harder (but more fulfilling), each group had to prepare a jingle or theme song (advertisement) which we used to attract customers. All of this in a span of less than 8 hours! Our teamwork was tested to its limits!

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Day 3

On the last day, the culminating activity took place. This was more of a formal gathering where managers share their achievements of the past year and commit to a new goal for the year ahead! Our National Sales Convention was a huge success and I'm just glad I made it through despite having a bad diarrhea for the first 2 days of the convention. I would've missed a lot if I opted to rest and recuperate!

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