The Pharmacy(TM)

It’s an old article at the Wall Street Journal, but it encapsulates the new reality in Night Manila:

http://www.mindfully.org/WTO/2003/Phone-Center-Workers20oct03.htm

Interestingly, I almost became "first-generation" call center worker years ago. I was originally to be part of ETelecare’s "Batch One"–I took their exams, which I found pretty amazing since it had clerical typing tests, voice tests, role-playing, and lateral thinking–none of which I had much exposure to in my University education.

Admittedly the thought of becoming "a telephone worker" (as it was affectionately referred to at the time) was quite unnerving at the time, but none of my batch would realise the impact that call centers would have in a short span of time.

As fate would have it, Securities 2000 called me with a job offer before ETelecare announced that I had passed their tests, and I took to the PSE trading floor instead–which in hindsight, was also a "telephone operating" job anyway. But this pivotal chain of events ensured that I would now be forever on the other side of the call center phenomenon unfolding.

The bear market in equities was reaching its zenith going into the end of the year 2000, and I would "painfully" resign my trading position for a clerical desk job at HSBC, only to find myself assigned to a night position supervising contractual analysts processing credit card applications. This would prove to be one of the most reflective periods of my life.

Traversing Night Manila in 2000 was nowhere near the 24-hour city we are familiar with nowadays. Traveling to and from Makati via EDSA-MRT was still cold, clean and comfortable as ridership had not yet grown to the "sweat-soaking-body-mashing" levels we see now. I always got a kick out of seeing the opposite-direction MRT full of people and horrendous traffic jams around me while I was riding counter-flow in 5-star convenience.

I initially had a 9pm to 6am shift so I would travel to Araneta Center in Cubao to take the evening trip to Makati and likewise take the morning trip from Ayala back to Cubao on my way home. Cubao was still mostly seedy cesspool of vagrants, (the fabulous Gateway Mall and the Aurora LRT-2 were still a distant dream). Every morning at 630am before I went on the first Jeep or FX ride home, I would have a nice piping-hot cup of coffee or hot choco at the small Mister Donuts stand at the corner of Aurora and Edsa. The garish-pink MMDA chicken wire would not come until 4 years later, and lining the sidewalk sleeping around me were dozens of street urchins, beggars, and cheap prostitutes.

I shared my morning FX rides with GROs, callgirls, and massage therapists, going home from their night jobs, swapping stories about their guests the night before–which I heard too often enough I felt I already shared childhoods with the archetypes (i.e. the generous Chinese regular, the sadistic police sergeant, the nervous first-timer, the 40-year old "unmarried" man…)

Working a night job gave me quite a cashflow — as night-differential was mandatory for work done after 7pm, and banks paid double for even one hour of overtime rendered on a night shift. Since I worked Friday nights, my work after 12midnight was automatically priced as Saturday overtime (HSBC has since fixed this little loophole) — so I was really raking it in. Rumors in the bank abounded later that I actually earned more than my boss on a net income basis, and in hindsight, I probably did.

The cash meant I could later go home by Taxi, so I also got to know drivers’ moods pretty well. The cabbies who work 24-hour runs are very talkative on the wee hours of the night and with all the political turmoil of 2001, I had my nightly fix of political commentaries, sob-stories, and anecdotes. There is a notorious corner along Makati Avenue near the Atrium building, that is usually the pickup point of old gay transvestite prostitutes–and me and my cabbie for the night would usually have a good goof-off pretending to "window shop" only to speed off at breakneck speed at the grotesque sight of a "drag-hag" poking his/her(?) heavily-foundationed face at our door. I still crack-up a little remembering this.

One cabbie was particularly curious about my living and asked where I worked. "HSBC" I said. To which he nodded and asked "Talaga? Ok ba pasweldo ng security guard sa HSBC (Really? How’s the security guard pay at HSBC?)" To which I confidently said "Ayos naman pare. Nabubuhay. (It’s peachy dude. I’ll live.)"

Security guards, apart from the aforementioned prostitutes and goofballs like myself, were really the only other people lingering the night streets at the time. When I started my night shift, I was still in based in HSBC’s offices at (ironically) the PSE Center Tektite, my MRT ride home was preceeded by a brisk quiet walk from Tektite to the corner of Shaw along Shangri-la. Those streets were cold and quiet, and not a 7-Eleven or Ministop in sight.

Now, six years later, sitting in the small call center I’ve formed, and watching young agents man their stations every night, and as I walk the bright streets of Night Manila, dotted with 7-Elevens, restaurants, and americanalia/hip-hop clad youths puffing their nth cigarette on their breaks I’m always amazed at how fast time changes everything.

My night shift ended in late 2001–thirteen straight months of pure introspection. A brief period in time when Manila had quiet streets and poignancy before the advent of the call center boom. None of my friends would remember this period the way I would remember it, to be as close to the pulse of a slumbering city and its secrets–open only at night.