Working with numbers, retiring with words
After attending a couple of writing workshops conducted by renowned literati Butch Dalisay, wherein words enjoy abundance and a generous supply of red wine serves as a treat for students, HR man Alfredo Damian had already in mind a clear picture of his post-retirement life. He would like to continue such productive sessions, but this time with him providing tutelage and popping corks to fill the cups of his protégés.
For almost the lifetime of Punongbayan & Araullo (P&A), one of the country’s leading accounting firms, Damian has worked as the head of the firm’s personnel department head, him being one of P&A’s seven pioneers. He has functioned accordingly as he recruited top-of-the-line accountants and auditors, allowing P&A the surge to become an industry leader. Also, several programs that honed and showcased the potentials of P&A employees could be accounted to his inclusive management.
But now that he is turning 60 (this year), Damian’s prominence in P&A comes to a close as retirement awaits him.
“It’s required in our rules that after the fiscal year when you become 60 you have to retire,” said Damian. “And I think it’s a good time to do so because since day one I’ve already been working non-stop.”
After retirement, Damian intends to settle in his retirement house in Bacoor, Cavite and establish an office there where he would hold writing workshops. This office, according to Damian, who is a self-confessed cat lover, shall be complemented by a small aviary of cats which he would call “Cat-mandu” (pun of Nepal’s capital city).
Comes now a difficult nut to crack. Why in the world would someone who specializes in numbers—and people relations, too—want to pursue a life dealing with words?
To that, Damian has a brief response: “I always stood to what I thought were some communication abilities I had which I developed simply because I just like it.”
Since childhood, Damian has always been fascinated with the aptness of words and the correctness of grammar; declaiming to carabaos in a long way home from school was never even an issue for him, just so that his spoken English get polished.
From there, Damian would continue his “wordy” musings, starting a personal writing life, which he extended by joining the Essay category of the Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature. But, as humbly confessed by Damian, joining the Palanca remains to be one of the biggest disappointments of his life, for literary glory stays suspended up until now.
Damian’s career in P&A began with a seemingly ambitious instruction from the firm’s co-founder, Benjamin Punongbayan: Hire the best people for us. As Damian, who at that time boasts of a reputable standing in executive search and personnel management, needless to say, in audit and accountancy as well, had in himself a certain slant for English fluency, he saw it important to go beyond the credentials of his recruits in order to bring in to P&A the crème of the crop. Aside from the with-honors status of his “chosen ones,” he, too, gave weighty notice to their utmost familiarity of the English language, using it as the means to express clear-cut organization of their thoughts.
“In the long run, assuming we all get good material—they know their accounting, they could learn new standards, all topnotchers—what will differentiate those who would reach the top would be their ability to deal with people and their communication skills,” Damian said.
“Good communication skills speak of confidence,” he added.
Incidentally, this was also how Punongbayan envisioned the edge that he wanted P&A people to have. Punongbayan opted for his associates to be distinguished not just by superb accounting and auditing skills but also through their effectiveness as communicators, for he deems that to develop solid communication skills would be advantageous as for global competitiveness. With this Punongbayan’s vision, Damian indeed exemplifies a perfect partner.
And what is a perfect partner without a legacy to be remembered for? To be regarded as a major contributor in observing the importance of sound communication in the success of each of the firm’s workforce is how Damian wants his legacy depicted, finally justifying one of his work’s principle.
For yet another personal legacy: To revisit the vastness that is the English language as host to several men and women, accounting and non-accounting people alike.
(Published, The Philippine Daily Inquirer, April 16, 2007)
