14 days

Author: Yawen Feng

To be honest, when I stepped on the plane from Hong Kong to Manila, I was mentally prepared for an ordeal. Looking outside the window, what rose in my mind along with the last glance of Hong Kong was a weird sense of failure and deep misery. From an extreme utilitarian point of view, I questioned myself critically. Is this trip really the best choice? Is it more valuable than an internship, where I could sit in a better environment, and eventually get a recognized certificate? Most importantly, will the business want to listen to me? Will they be double-dealer?

1. Marina and Susan

The way I met my business, Rosas Cookies (or Rosas in short), was hilarious. In front of the sales window, I met Marina, the packaging operator of Rosas. I thought she knew everything beforehand and was going to open the gates, saying something like ‘so you must be Judy!’ But instead, she said,

‘You want to buy some cookies?’

Her colleague Susan then added,

‘You want to come and eat with us?’

Clearly, I’m still Ms. Question mark in their eyes. Fortunately, my business partner and the coordinator came; she introduced us to the staff in Tagalog, and everyone finally understood what the two young girls were here for. They laughed, we laughed, and the problem got solved. Beyond the laugh, I truly realized in reality, we’re not consultants arriving to rescue the local enterprises, we’re just strangers entering their workspace, and sometimes they’re not always prepared for us. This scenario reflects a common problem in the consulting workplace. We often overestimate our importance in the clients’ eyes. 

2. Ivy and Emily

The next day we went, a young Filipino girl sat on the bench, watching her phone. As we walked near her, an employee talked,

‘Ivy, here’s Judy and CC that helps Rosas.’

Just then, the girl looked up, and a slight smile appeared on her face; her big eyes curved. With some shyness, she said hi.

Fortunately, the shyness only lasted for a few minutes. As we started chatting, we got to know her being 16 years old, soon stepping into senior high school. Keeping up our conversation, I asked

‘What will you study in high school?’

Thinking it would probably be local courses that we might not know. 

But it’s STEM

I was stunned. The answer was completely out of my expectations. But on a second thought, why not? Before arriving in Bohol, I thought this little island was isolated and lacked opportunities. Without seeing what it really looks like, I had pictured what people here can or can’t become. Ivy’s appearance immediately broke that picture. It wasn't the females in Bohol that’s been limited. It’s my thoughts on them.

The next day, Emily came; she’s the manager of Rosas cookies, and the entire morning, we sat and chatted with each other. She’s a great responder and always answers us with patience. From her, we learnt the history of Rosas. It was established by members of the Pangdan Barangay women’s association, where jobs were offered to women so they could support their families financially. Emily’s passion and humor touched me. She said,

‘The women here support the whole family because their husbands are lazy; we should throw the husbands into the sea!’ Then we laughed our heads off together.

Before meeting Emily, I viewed Rosas as a small, survival-oriented business that might lack motivation due to limited alternatives available to them, like how the Pre-departure reading Poor Economics introduced such businesses. Yet Emily helped me realize that Rosas isn’t like that at all; it’s a growing platform that’s enabling women to earn, to support their families and each other, and to strive for a better future. Therefore, it couldn’t be understood simply through numbers. For the first time, I wanted to work on this project with my full commitment. The last time I’ve had this experience was back in high school.

That doubt that had followed me from Hong Kong was slowly disappearing.

3. Marlene

   
   

   

We saw the lady’s work before we saw her. Back in the first week, Emily brought us 4 physical book ledgers. Inside were all handwritten numbers, small and neat. There was no professional ratio analysis, no summary, and no digital Excel form. I felt pressured by the amount of homework. The school got us fully prepared for digital accounting information, for specific and advanced recording skills. But now, we have to start from scratch.

Initially, we tried feeding the work to AI. While it was able to read the numbers and organize them. I thought we would save a significant amount of time by relying on AI. However, I was wrong. When I recalculated sales revenue for checking, I found that it was wrongly calculated. After 30 minutes of checking, I decided to apply the most primitive method—to calculate manually. Though this took a lot of time and effort, fortunately, the numbers look normal after recalculation. Then I realized, Marlene taught me a lesson before we met her; before seeing her work, I believed financial analysis was mainly about ratios, forecasts and sophisticated Excel models.

However, standing in front of handwritten ledgers, I got to see the origin of accounting, and realized none of those techniques matter if the original records do not exist.

 When we met Marlene, I was very curious about all the handwriting, so I asked,

‘Did you do all the recordings?’

She said,

‘Yes. Because we need to keep track of the sales.’

I felt touched and truly respected her. The reason is so simple, but she has persistently recorded the sales and costs daily. Others might question why repeating such redundant and tedious work, though it seems so useless. But these recordings helped us construct a solid and comprehensive financial analysis. This is the second lesson Marlene taught me—some tasks might exceed your capability, so just start with the basic things you know, the core logic, and continuous implementation can be better than fancy thoughts and advanced skills.

Fourteen days ago, sitting on the plane from Hong Kong to Manila, I questioned myself whether this trip was worth giving up an internship opportunity.

Fourteen days later, I still don’t have an internship certificate to put on my CV. What I gained instead were new perspectives, unique friendships, and attitudes to face everyday life and work from people of another country. Looking back, I no longer think I came here to help Rosas. In many ways, Rosas helped me more than I helped them. Going forward, I hope to carry these lessons into future internships and projects. Listen, observe, and understand before analyzing the data.

And that’s only 14 days.