My First Jobs

From this...

to this...

          All this talk about getting laid off and reapplying for a job got me thinking back on the kinds of paid jobs I've had in the past. If I were to go way back to elementary school, my first ever experience at earning some money was when I sold ice candy (ice pops) to players at the Jolo Tennis Club which was next door to our house. My mother made them in chocolate, coconut, and strawberry flavors. I don't know exactly how much I earned. A few years later I became a junior player at the same tennis club with my cousins Jimmy and Razen. The second job I remember was helping Uncle Ed with his summer job at the Bureau of Public Highways where I think I earned 2 pesos a week which actually came out of his salary. That money I spent playin Wahoy which was supposed to be a game of chance, but it was common knowledge around town that the game was fixed. Then it was off to college where I became an unpaid student assistant in tennis at the University of the Philippines. While I didn't get paid for that, with the exposure, I was able to gain a few clients for paid private lessons. At the time (1973-1979), my going rate was 20 pesos per hour. This led to teaching a summer class at United Laboratories with about 40 students in one tennis court. It's probably safe to say that they didn't learn very much, but I tried my best. That was my biggest paycheck right after college. I earned 1,000 pesos then, and at that time, that was a large amount for me. Yes folks, I was an erstwhile tennis pro back then :).
          After that, it was time to become an adult and pay my own rent without help from Dad and Mom. Fresh out of Physical Education school, I applied for and was hired as a physical fitness instructor along with my classmate Jay, at a small private gym in Makati called The Sweat Shop. No doubt the owner was a fan of I Love Lucy. It was in this gym that I had my first girlfriend Emy (she liked to be called Pepper back then, as in Sgt. Pepper Anderson) who happened to be a fellow instructor. Unfortunately that business only lasted over a year. But with luck, Jay and I were absorbed by a corporate gym in the same vicinity and I worked there until 1980. Then I left for the U.S., which happens to be another chapter.

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