Wednesday, May 26, 2010

I Thought Retiring in The Philippines was Easy

Sold my construction company in the USA, i had slaved over and built from nothing, sun beating down on me in the summer, freezing in the winter, beat to death from the bull dozer, stressed with all the paper works, red tape, and employees.......

Finally I decided to retire early, come to The Philippines, start a business and live the easy life, layed back, no stress, good marriage, easy street...... WRONG< WRONG

I have worked harder here, and more stress, just trying to stay my head above the water.. Its not at all what i expected.... No time for nothing, just working and running the business.

Short post, cant type anymore because i am so tired... get the point...

2 comments:

  1. Well one thing, you chose a business that requires your presence most of the time. Restaurant business is a lot of work.

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  2. interesting comment anonymous but have you had a business here? I have a friend who has a call centre where originally they were losing 50% of the staff year in year and through no fault of their own. Or even getting housemaids here we are on what will be no.3 within 4 months. Or maybe a website design company a friend of mine owns he lost most of his staff after the first year because now they are trained they all left to compete against him. Pretty much every business in the Philippines has pitfalls and many are more than you would expect in the West doesn't mean its impossible but it does mean you have to spend a lot of time working round things that should normally be straight forward.
    Restaurant businesses are also prone to staff theft which also may not be as obvious as it seems as I know of chefs at other restaurants actually bringing their own food to cook then skimming the money off the register.

    Advice to anyone wanting to retire here is unless you want to work hard and get stressed its either better to work another 5 years where you are or fully retire here. Its just not healthy the amount of work that goes into getting things done here and unless you can get a few partners on board to share the burden its just not advisable.

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