We want to get out of the rat race!

If you take a peek at our cubicles here in the office, you won't see a single technical or programming book. Instead, you'll find newspapers, magazines and books about business and finance. It's funny because we are all programmers yet we're more interested in reading about personal finance management and how-to's in starting and running a business. I guess this is because most of us have been in IT too long; or if not too long, burned out too early. We want to try something else, but we can't afford to let go of our current earnings just for the sake of a radical career shift. And so we see business and finance management as our ticket to the other real world out there.

I subscribe to MoneySense and my colleague regularly buys Entrepreneur Philippines. I also have Pwede Na! The Complete Pinoy Guide to Personal Finance and another colleague has Wealth Within Your Reach: Pera Mo, Palaguin Mo! These books and magazines are in constant borrowing-lending rotation and we're delighted when we are able to convert an officemate into a believer. Our latest "victim" is our junior programmer who just graduated this April and is enjoying and celebrating her new-found purchasing power with clothes/shoes shopping at Greenhills and even on the Internet! Mind you, we didn't force her to read on personal finance management, she just realized on her own that she needs to get a hold of her expenses, before it gets too late and she becomes one of us (did anyone say disgruntled? hehe). This is good because no amount of preaching can force anyone to change one's ways. It has to come from within and that's exactly what she experienced - the realization that she needs to change and the desire to be helped.

Now, if only I can charge a rental rate for those resource materials I lend out ;-)