A feeling of belonging

When I checked into the hotel in Singapore on Tuesday night the first person I saw was a Filipino sales manager due to attend this week's training session. I asked how he was doing and he replied, "Pretty well, considering."

Considering?

Ah, yes.

At dinner he described the grim chaos that had swept through Manila on Saturday, September 26. In passing he mentioned that he'd been rescued off the roof of his house ignoring the blithe corollary that everything he owned was lost in the flood.

The real point of the story was that he had spent all of Sunday, Monday and Tuesday driving his 4WD around the city to collect every member of his sales team he could find and depositing them and their families at the company's offices, situated on the upper floors of a relatively unaffected building. He showed us a text message sent by a rep who didn't know if he'd survive the night. He told us how one employee's 15-year-old daughter had been caught at home alone and had to swim a few hundred metres through swirling water to a neighbour's rooftop. He joked about having to console a new team member who felt personally responsible for the destruction of her company car.

He spoke with tearful pride at the way the boss had ordered him to do anything and unquestioningly pay anything until everyone employed by the company was accounted for and how food, water, blankets and medical care were waiting at the offices for each influx of refugees.

It wasn't work, he said, it was tribal.