Thursday, August 19, 2010

CEO's visit

I had a terrible headache last evening after the business trip to Shenzhen but luckily was able to sleep it off. Went to Shenzhen for 2 purposes; 1. to interview a new Sample Clerk for my department in Shenzhen and 2. to standby for the visit of the CEO from HQ. He is our new CEO who had taken over the position from the founder of the company in April this year and he is on his first overseas trip to China and Hong Kong. The company's strategy is to expand our business in China and much resources have been deployed to China. Therefore he is here to see the progress. In my opinion, the company's strategy is not wrong but the execution is not right. They are rushing to employ many engineers and sales personnel but there is not enough manpower allocated to train them and support them. Many of these newly employed staff quit within a month or even a week because they had no idea what they were employed for! The managers in-charge of their training and orientation are just too busy with other jobs. So, we kept employing...

Nevertheless, all these "trivial" problems would not be made known to the CEO. The GMs of the Shenzhen sales office and Hong Kong sales office are hiding all these problems and only concentrating on presenting the superficial things. Things like making sure that all staff stand up and give a perfect bow to the CEO when he walks in, making sure that we have his favourite drink ready for his consumption, making sure that everybody dress presentably, making sure that the prettiest girls from Admin are tending the reception area when he arrives, making sure that a spare notebook is ready for his use in case he needs to check his web mail, etc. To the Japanese, this is showing respect to the CEO and making sure that he has the best impression. I of course followed all these "acts" and presented my department to him as best as I could.

Oh the pain on my tailbone is killing me! 11 weeks + 1 day now and I am afraid the pain is going to get worse as I grow bigger...

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