waiting 101

Des Ferriols of Philippine Star used to call it waiting 101. When I was still covering the central bank, Des and I used to wait for hours outside conference halls for officials coming out from meetings. Ofcourse, we would always hope they would dish out stories that would make the headlines so the hours we spent staking out would be worthwhile. But that's not always the case.

Sometimes, we would wait for my favorite government official for hours only to hear him say, "The peso is strengthening because of corporate demand for dollars." Moments such as those always make us wish that we spent the time having coffee at Seattle's Best instead of doing our job.

Last Friday, however. Donna (Philippine Star) , Myrna (Bulletin), Alena (Standard) and I got lucky.

We waited outside the meeting of the electricity spot market board of directors and went home with headline news. It wasn't easy, though. We had to wait for two hours for the meeting to finish.

Staking out can be fun sometimes when it turns out to be fruitful. I wonder if I'll be lucky again the next time I patiently wait for a meeting to end.