International Women's Day

So how many of you in the US celebrate "International Women's Day?"  And by that I don't mean that you've heard of it, but how many get gifts or time off because of it?

I honestly don't think I had heard of it really until moving to China in 2008 for the first time.  I guess most of the rest of the world celebrates it to some degree, all certainly celebrate it more than Americans.

Well for now the 3rd year in a row I've had to give the women in our office a half day of work on this holiday.  That wouldn't be so bad except 85% or more of our office is women!  In fact to make matters worse we had two guys in our office who worked this morning but never came back to work after lunch.  Unless they've had a gender change that I hadn't heard of I can't figure why they didn't work today. 

I'm all for holidays, vacations, etc but between the Chinese holidays that are on weekends and then if you get certain days off you have to make them up during a different weekend and Women's Day 1/2 day of work, I simply don't get it!

Future employee

I thought I would share an email I received today to give you an idea of some of those things that happen here, make me scratch my head and say over and over "you can't make this stuff up."  This is from my HR manager regarding a person we have hired who is starting next week.  I removed his name and put "future employee" instead.  

To top it off I've spent the last 3 days working here with two people from our New York office, being our COO and the CFO.  The CFO just started the beginning of this year.  Since our NY office doesn't have an HR department, he unofficially has that role too.  So needless to say with them in town my time is preoccupied and a bit stressful.  I passed the email to him so he could see why in fact we need an HR department here.  Enjoy the story.  

Nolan,
I received a call from the future employee (Nolan: name removed) girlfriend (or ex-girlfriend)’s mother’s call this morning, complaining his issue with her daughter. She said (future employe) made her daughter pregnant but he does not want the baby and asked her daughter to do an abortion. She said (future employee) has bad ethics and no virtue. And why (future employee) left the former company is because he cannot stay there, because she has gone to (future employee's) old company to talk to his manager about this issue and defamed his reputation. So (future employee) cannot stay and find a new job. And she even told me, if we hire him, she will still come to our company to talk to me and GM. She asked us not to hire (future employee) and will try her best to let (future employee) lose his job, as she claimed ‘(future employee) is a person with no virtue or ethics’….

I also did a reference check to (future employee's) former company; their HR said his performance is very good. When I tried to explore his personal things based on the phone, their HR did not want to talk about it.
I have talked to Paul about this at noon. We both think it is (future employee) private things. We have no right to interfere with his personal issue. But we both have a concern: this woman, the girl’s mother, probably will come to our company to ‘talk’ to us, which will have a really bad influence on the company. People will gossip. Therefore, I also called (future employee) to get his personal things done, not to let this influence the company or his job. (Future employee) claimed it is slander.

Maybe it is too funny or ridiculous to foreigners: a mother involved in a relationship made the things so complicated: the boy lost his job, and the girl has no fame…What’s the good point to let everyone know this poor story?

Please advise. We ignore this, or give him up. I know you are very busy and don’t want to bother you. But it is emergency. (Future employee) is supposed to be on board on Monday.

There is lots in this story that doesn't add up but two things stand out.  Firstly how in the world the mother found out he was coming to work with us?  Secondly, he wasn't fired from the previous company unless it was in the past couple of weeks, since we know he was employed when we made him an offer.  My ruling on the issue was that this is a private matter and our offer still stood.  If the mother comes to our office to complain we will simply call the police...or I have an alternative to that.  That being we have US person here running our quality control department.  He's about 50 years old but still is a power lifter and has a very deep voice.  I'm sure if the mom got out of control that Kevin could handle most anything!
 

Chinese New Year - Awards

So we started a new tradition this year in my company.  I wanted to acknowledge those people who had worked for the company more than 5 years.  These days in China there is less loyalty than in the past, so employees jump jobs all the time.  I figured it we can recognize everyone it would go a long way towards building loyalty.

In this case I only told one person in the office that I was doing it.  That was our GM (the bald guy in the far right of the photo).  I arranged for our CEO and myself to sign a certificate that shows their achievement and then I also got a coffee mug with 5 year service and company logo on it.  Lastly in an envelope was 500 rmb (about $80).

The reaction was awesome when they opened the envelope.  In fact the taller woman on the right literally started fanning the money out and yelled to everyone something to the effect of "see what happens when you stay here and work hard?  They give you extra!"  It was perfect. 

Only problem I had is that I took petty cash from our CFO to pay this cash out.  However since she was one of the recipients I couldn't tell her what I needed it for.  She told me later that we would have an accounting problem because it should be taxed to the company and the employee.  That's an accounting problem I'm happy to have!

McDonald's Special Meal

I've usually told anyone that asks that McDonald's does a pretty good job of controlling their food from one country to another.  Simply put a Double Cheeseburger, is a Double Cheeseburger anywhere in the world.  But alas Ronald McDonald does put out some different things in various countries.  For instance in China you would never find a Cherry or Applie pie, rather they are Red Bean pies.  Also here in China chicken is king so McD's sells lots of chicken wings.

But here is a new special they are running now.  I'm not sure it's available in the states or anywhere else but I'll be sure to avoid it.  Call it the heart attack waiting to happen.  It's two burger patties, bacon and lettuce on top and mashed potatoes on the bottom.  Thankfully the fries come on the side!

Enjoy it!

Happy Valentine's Day

Well for you all back in the US it is Valentine's day.  For me it is over but I'm up super early and couldn't sleep so I thought I would add this.

This photo was taken on Monday in small town in China, the day before Valentine's day.  The couple in the photo have been married for 60 years.  And get this, this was the FIRST time they had ever been photographed in color!  According to the caption they had never done that before.  I thought it was too good to pass on.

I don't know how representative this is of older folks in China but it certainly isn't the norm these days.  We've all seen the scores of Chinese tourists and their camera's everywhere, but maybe out in the countryside with the more remote villages it's more common than you think.

Hope everyone had a wonderful day!

I thought I had seen it all...

Until today that is.  It's amazing how I've become immune to so many different day in/day out challenges that I don't really even notice them anymore.  Yet when visitors are here they quickly pick them up and make comments.

In any event today I had a first.  I was out to lunch with our main mill in an area outside of Hangzhou.  As an FYI Hangzhou is a city of about 9 million people, but I'm guessing you have never heard of it.  In any event we are sitting there enjoying the typical round table lunch full of various Chinese food.  I ask the waitress for some rice.  While the Chinese eat rice as a staple I tend to do it when I'm in a place I don't know and don't trust the food.  This way at least I have something helping to fill me up.

Well about 10 minutes goes by and the waitress comes in and says they are out of rice.  Really?  Did that really just happen?  I'm in China, eating at a Chinese restaurant and they don't have rice????  Not to mention it was snowing outside, so I'm a little worried that "hell froze over" today...

Hard at work!

This woman was working as hard as I've seen to pull this wood down the street.  It isn't packed as high as some I have seen but it was heavy wood and she was doing her best.  Keep in mind this is downtown Shanghai where she is working, would think they would get some more automated help but no...

A day of mourning...

Well the day has come to say good-bye to a very dear friend.  A friend who has been with me for just over 9 years now.  This friend is my passport and I've run out of room for stamps.  It's had two additional sets of pages added to it and the government will not allow more.  So I need a new one sadly.

This passport has seen over 25 countries in its nine plus years, been stamped over 314 times, has visa's from China (8), Vietnam (4), Indonesia (1), Cambodia (1).

The passport will be missed but can't wait for the new one and see what adventures it takes me on...

Brawl on the Bund

Back in December I attended a charity event called "Brawl on the Bund".  Basically it's white collar boxing.  One of my buddies was supposed to be one of the 16 fighters, that is until he got his nose busted up during training and needed surgery.

All in all there were about 1,200 fans in attendance and 8 fights that we were to witness.

 The fights started at the lightest weights and went up higher and higher.  As the weights increased it seemed that the intensity increased as well.  This was some serious boxing and I'm mighty glad I wasn't in that ring!

The event was black tie optional and it was great to see so many folks dressed to the nines for this event. 

It's been too long, sorry!

Well I have a ton to report from the past two months, a Brawl on the Bund, Christmas in Chicago, Chinese New Year, Chinese New Year vacation in Thailand, apartment hunting, and so on.  I will ramp back up here shortly.  Sorry to those dedicated followers who have been waiting on the next big post.  Lots to come.

I came across this photo recently showing the growth of Shanghai over a 20 year span and figured it was a good way to get back in the swing of things.  It just shows you that life moves very fast over here and it's no wonder I haven't had time to update this of late.

One thing I find extremely interesting is the clouds back in 1990.  We unfortunately rarely see that type of cloud cover anymore.  Usually it's hazy or thick clouds, nothing like these.