Kenneth Cobonpue

So far in my life, I have already come close to two people who have been featured in Time Magazine. For someone who reads Time like it's a graded homework, this is big. Like, whoa!

One is Carlos Celdran; the other hired me on my 21st birthday. Allow me to brag and introduce you to my boss, Kenneth Cobonpue. I wonder why but it's easier to introduce him as the designer of the bed that Brad Pitt bought, than the designer to whom Time has given the credit, Rattan's first virtuoso. Most possibly, it's that more people watch Brad Pitt than read Joel Klein. Okay.

For almost 2 years, I've had the honor to be seated two office chairs away at KC's left. But to be honest, the honor gradually disappeared starting on the third or fourth month. By the time it has completely faded away, KC has been relegated to just a boss. The Time recognition is just a page off the magazine, laminated and placed against a mini-standee on the production head's desk, and Brad Pitt a vital namedrop to make his way to celebrity level. Good news though, he's a one-of-a-kind boss.

First, I don't call him boss. I am among the 10 or 15 people in the office who insist on calling him Sir; the rest are comfortable with Kenneth, which he very much prefers by the way. Second, I've never heard him scold anybody. This I can say is the most remarkable about him. Believe me, the company has suffered enough production failures and mixed-up shipments to give him the right to belt it out.

With this being said, as a head of the company, he's pretty laid back. He gets tense when it's show time (international furniture shows) or when there's a negative complaint in his inbox (like of a badly warped rattan chair or a hularo that was not sufficiently secured around the metal frame), but his amateur sarcasm is about as far as his reprimands go -- as subtle [albeit slightly mean] as a sneer. But not always he cares enough to respond this way to every problem. Most of the time, he will just hear you out. Speak, and he shall understand.

Quick, find me a boss whose boss-ness sounds like mine and I shall gift you with the award-winning Kenneth Cobonpue original Dimple chair. Criteria are as I have already mentioned -- plus, plus, plus his desk should not be cordoned off by white walls and a requisite knock on the door. He should also be available for consultation whenever one feels like he needs it. He should be able to sit on a table with his office workers and eat puso, barbecue, and ngohiong. He should have enough respect for local showbiz denizens as to allow them instant Chiquita stools or a tour around the showroom with himself curating. He should be busy enough as to leave to his clueless Marketing Officer, yours truly, the job of answering interview questions from important magazines (*humbled*).

And lastly, he should be a design genius. No outpouring of words about him is ever complete without re-upgrading his image from just a boss to the rattan virtuoso that Time Magazine has called him. He gave the dented can a pedestal in the Lolah, an easy armchair that the most prestigious design award given in Asia (the Design for Asia) has noticed. In Croissant, he turned the French breakfast staple into a living room spectacle. The Pigalle easychair is his interpretation of the human curves.

Not all of us has a boss who turns the mundane into brilliance, and gets Brad Pitt to appreciate it. What more, Time Magazine to plaster you on a full page feature. For my first job, I have it pretty good.