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What I do for a living
As a Resort Cake Artist at the Madinat Jumeirah, I oversee the specialty cakes division across four hotels in our resort, the Conference and Incentive events unit that handle all the big functions and weddings, the 40 restaurants around the resort and Jumeirah Hospitality for our outside catering business.
Working with Jumeirah, I’ve taken part in several international competitions that have challenged me to be the best at my craft. Last year, I won at the Cake Designer World Championships, representing the UAE, in Milan, Italy – a first for the emirates, and a proud win to say the least. Previously, I’ve also joined the German Culinary Olympics and won gold medals for my two of my showpieces.
Aside from all of this, what makes my job so rewarding is being able to inspire others and illustrate how every single person can make a difference through hard work.
A typical working day for me
Before I go about my day, I check my emails. When at work, I initially make rounds through our breakfast buffet just to make sure it is clean and organized.
Then I start going through my tasks of which include: planning and finalizing designs, sending quotations, making requests to our kitchen artists, as well as setting up meetings with clients. After this, I hit kitchen for some hands-on work, creating and customizing cakes with my assistants.
Days at work can be quite unpredictable, and I often find myself balancing more than one duty at a time. This profession requires a lot of patience and focus, not to mention a genuine passion for the craft. It is very challenging at times, but you will survive if you love what you do.
Stories from the workplace
I have had so many interesting experiences throughout my career. When I was just starting out, I quickly realized that culinary life is not easy, especially when you’re new. People will test, bully, envy, and even judge you for no justified reason. I’ve been through it all and it was painful. I’ve even been trapped in a freezer, not knowing if I would even make it out – luckily, I did! I share my hardships because I want others to understand that no matter the situation you face on the job, giving up is not an option! Fight for your dreams. Embrace the discomfort, the challenges, and the pain, and rise above it all.
And when you rise above it all, you get to accomplish some amazing things. I recently took home a win at the Caterer Middle East Awards, being I the only woman in all the Chef categories. As we all know culinary industry is heavily dominated by men. As a woman of color, to have come this far and survive in the kitchen, receiving the title of Pastry Chef of the Year 2018 was truly gratifying.
Your message to fellow Kabayans
Never give up on your dreams! If you want to win in any game of life, then keep going, work hard, focus, keep learning, be willing to sacrifice, be humble, be grateful, and learn to respect others.
What I do for a living
I work for Voith, a 150-year-old mechanical engineering company and one of the biggest family-owned businesses in Europe. I belong to Voith Dubai – Industry Division which covers power, water, oil, gas and petrochemical sectors in the Middle East. As a Regional Retrofit Manager, I’m responsible for the complete overview of retrofit projects starting from the feasibility study, risk assessment, site evaluation, proposals, design, project management and delivery. Retrofit refers to optimization, re-engineering, replacement, and modifications of old systems to increase efficiency, reliability or add functions to existing plants.
Industrial plants are critical and sophisticated; they have the highest engineering standards and safety requirements. I handle various projects from small-scale plants up to national-government funded projects, and I’m so happy to have achieved outstanding results.
A typical working day for me
My time is divided between staying in the office and frequent traveling to different industrial plants in the Middle East as well as visiting various Voith headquarters.
Being a frequent traveler makes my job more enjoyable, because I get to go to new places, and meet brilliant people.
If I’m in Dubai, I usually start at 7:00 am and drive for an hour going to work. Whilst on the road, I use the time to pray, reflect, plan, and learn. I always listen to different talks about innovation, technology, business as well as self-improvement. Office works include internal reporting, project evaluation, preparing proposals, conference calls, and project monitoring.
Aside from my daily responsibilities, part of my advocacy as a person is free and open education. I founded Educspace (Education in Space) in 2015, a social endeavor established to reduce if not eliminate many problems related to Philippine Educational System including equality, quality, and cost. In this endeavor, my team and I are trying to democratize education as we believe that it is a fundamental human right and is one of the most influential tools to make the world a better place to live.
When it comes to free time, I have a thirst for knowledge, hence I write books and record academic and technical lectures. I already authored two engineering reviewers and recorded approximately 300 hours of engineering lectures. These products are now available in the market and helped many students and aspiring engineers already.
Your message to fellow Kabayans
To all my kabayans working abroad, my advice is to define clearly your passion and goals in life. Many young people look for better salary even though they land on different field or profession which after several years found themselves stagnant and unhappy because they don’t see the connection between their job and their passion. So, try to find a job or workplace where you can grow, save money, and most importantly give you a chance to do what you love.
Finally, as OFW’s, we carry the Philippine flag regardless of what our position and job are. Every failure and success we achieve in and out of work is somehow bringing impression to our race as Filipinos. Therefore, always do your best, be responsible, don’t stop learning, share what you can, be humble and do not forget the ethical values that we as Filipino have.
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