A SUMMER EXPERIENCE AS A DATA ENCODER

   

It's the summer before my 11th-grade year, and I'm itching to shake off the boredom. I mean, who wants to spend their break twiddling their thumbs, right? So, I tried to find something cool to do—something that wouldn't just kill time but also bring in some cash.

After a bit of digging online, I stumbled upon this job at Connect Global Philippines, Inc. They were on the hunt for a WFH Data Encoder and a Junior Quality Assurance person. Sounded right up my alley, so I figured, why not give it a shot? The place was in Alfonso, Cavite, and I had zero clue how to get there. Big thanks to my dad who supported me and escorted me there.

Now, here's where things got a little difficulty. When I finally arrived at the office, the first Team Leader I met was less than thrilled about seeing me. Talk about a buzzkill. I was just about ready to throw in the towel and head back home when out of the blue, another worker pops up and tells me that the boss wants to have a chat with me. Saved by the bell, huh?

So, there I am, shaking like a leaf as I hand over my resume to Sir Lenard, the big boss himself. He fires off a few questions, then asks me to show what I've got. I won't lie, my fingers were extremely shaking, felt like they were dancing to their own beat on the keyboard, and not in a good way. But after what felt like an eternity (more like 30 minutes), he said that—I'm in! Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!

But the real kicker? In my first week on the job, I managed to make up a whopping 1,248 forms—without a single error to my name. You can imagine the grin on my face when they handed over my salary—₱7,063.68 pesos richer, baby!

First Pay Slip

For two months, I’m coding like nobody's business. And get this: I'm making in anywhere between ₱28,000 to ₱35,000  a month. Not too shabby for a summer job right? The deal is, the more forms I do, the bigger my paycheck gets. And oh, did I mention we're dealing in Euros? Yup, seems like our clients are across the pond in the UK. This is how it looks like:

Now, here's where things get really interesting. While most folks are grinding away for a solid 8 to 10 hours for 100 forms, I've somehow cracked the code and slashed my work time down to just 5 to 6 hours, so in 10-12 hours I can do as much as 200 forms, that's like ₱1130 per day! Sir Lenard can't stop praising me, calling me the youngest yet fastest among all the workers. Even the Team Leaders are complimenting me!

And there you have it, my journey on how I made it into a summer job and ended up making experience that will be helpful for my future job. Who knew boredom could lead to such epic experiences, until next time, keep chasing those dreams!