There is something about high school friends that makes you feel right all the time. Yesterday, I was feeling kind of bored after waking up from my night shift earlier in the day. I called up the usual people from UP Diliman and invited them to a night of billiards. As reliable as ever, they agreed.
I won't go through the details of going to UP and spending again a considerable amount of money. Rather, I want to share the ideas we shared after we had our 4 hour billiards session (again!). At Jollibee at around 2 in the morning, we began another of our intellectual discussions. Just as always, we converse in a witty and at the same geeky kind of way that only high school buddies can relate to. One of the ideas that came to mind was how to grow money.
We somehow got into discussing of good ways of implementing business strategies. Some of us mentioned of putting up small scale businesses like a computer shop or billiards or bowling alley. After much talk on the kind of businesses that seem suitable, Rodel mentioned that why don't we put them all into a mall. Operating a mall looks like a good business to be in to these days as most of the people can be found in malls rather than in theme parks. We even thought of having a fastfood joint called McBee and have spies work at Jollibee and Mcdo and see how their fries and burgers are being made. We even thought that we might as well buy the burgers at Mcdo and ask them to wrap the burgers in McBee wrappers instead. Imagine the scenario of someone going to Mcdonalds and order 100-200 burgers to go and have them wrap the burgers in a McBee wrapper and have them placed in a McBee plastic bag. It was hilarious! :)
We then started delving into how it was going to be operated. What was funny about this was when I raised the idea on who was going to be the President, the CIO, CFO, etc.... then who was going to be the sales person, the janitor, the pin boy. Vincent suggested that why don't we do it by turns and the one with the lowest income during that day will have to suffer consequences. Vincent, ever witty and the fast thinker, volunteered to do the sundays (as this seemed the most profitable during a week) but Neil retaliated by saying that Sundays should also be done alternatingly. I mentioned that one should work from 1-2 then another 2-3 and another still 3-4. :) That way is was fair. :)
We were getting pretty loony about the ideas and Rodel mentioned that the setting up a school was a good business oppurtunity in the next 10 years. He even cited some examples of some schools buying other schools, and the idea of the increasing young population. He also came up with the idea of having an internship program. By this time, we have decided that it would be an elementary school and that it would be situated near Pisay Mindanao and UPMin. This was so that those who need to go into intership from these schools may volunteer. The school will be located beside the mall. So our interns can now serve as the teachers, pin boys, sales clerks, cashiers, and bag boys! :)
Now, we thought on how to build these ideas considering that these businesses would require huge capital. Rodel suggested that we capture terrorists and collect the rewards. :) We even thought of how to deal with infiltration and who may be capable of doing it. We were getting bizzare and bizzare by the minute and contributing to the ideas was getting more and more fun. We even though of having the interns do suicide bombings!! :) Imagine an ad saying "Wanted Suicide Bomber Interns: Oppurtunity to travel anywhere in the world with high risk of death" plus we get to receive the insurance that comes with the death (if it comes to that) and add it to out capital.
But beneath that, we thought that by reducing the number of terrorists in Mindanao while trying to build up a business was a good idea. For one, you are eliminating the single biggest obstacle that stops investors in putting up business in Mindanao - the terrorists. By doing this strategy, we are being able to gain capital from the bounty we receive at the same time create a better climate for our business. Aside from that, if we were able to save Mindanao from terrorism, we would become heroes and our mall will become well known - Mall of Heroes? :p We can have action figures and have them in McBee Happy Meals! :p
We had more ideas that came including setting up a zoo, since in Thailand animal poo was used to produce energy and at the same time a place where our elementary students can go for a field trip. Oh, by the way, it will be located beside the school. :p Then we thought about the oppurtunities of going into the dirty kind of business, brought about by a phrase we got from our Drafting teacher back in 2nd year high school. That phrase was, "We suck your shit". The topic was about a service done to extract, well, shit from septic tanks. We thought that competition in these type of business, including garbage collection, seggregation and disposal, is minimal and that this woul provide key areas to gain money. And to think that seggregation can be done with cheap labor by organizing already existing garbage hawkers - and it comes in cheap as long as you can provide food and a place to stay. Again, we can have interns to do the seggregation as well. :p
Then there was the rice paddies placed into a building and the cellphone company and service provider. All with the same bizzare way of thinking that only our type can understand the seemingly fathom logical explantion behind them. Many of our other classmates in our solid class of 30 came into the picture considering their courses now as college students and their possible contributions to the mission.
It was fun and indeed a great exercise for my mind. These sort of things, I really miss from my high school buddies. Its a different kind of high when you talk about silly and nothing things but when you really think about it real hard, we see underlying ideas that may be bound to work, you may find ideas that reflect what the other is really thinking - the way they deal with reality.
We came into a more serious discussion if we have ever matured since high school. We didn't know. I mean, how do you quantify being mature? Is the way you deal with reality? The way you deal of real life situations? Is it your leadership skills or the way you deal with people? Is it determined by your thoughts and mind processes on things like courtship and love and friendship? How indeed do you quantify maturity. I guess I haven't personally figured that part out yet too.
High school friends are hard to take out of your system though. I'm glad I got to go out this one time with them again.
