Hello, Manager
My new place of work is a giant office building- two actually, connected by a three story glass atrium- called Gateway Plaza. [To clarify, my last place of work was called the Olive Garden]. It’s in the city, only a fifteen minute bike ride from my house. I bought a new town bike [for $25 called ‘Wonder’] to get to and from and I love biking through town, especially as the weather is getting nice. And I get to go out for lunch, there are so many nearby restaurants. And places to buy things- grocery stores, bike stores, post offices- it makes my lunch hour an actual useful time to me as opposed to eating bad Chinese take-out and sitting in the freezing machine room turned cafeteria at the Olive Garden. The Olive Garden was in the middle of nowhere, so I couldn’t go anywhere for lunch. So those are the things I really like.
My boss’s phone jingle is a loud cock-a-doodle-doo followed by Elmer Fudd saying “Hey! It’s me! You’re buddy.” [was he famous for saying that?] He’s a short pudgy Hong Kong man that says he’s from Canada despite the fact that when he speaks English it sounds like he has marbles in his mouth. I only understand 50% of what he says, but I get the general idea. He’s a serious worker, a workaholic, but sometimes laughs like Santa Claus. He smokes constantly, in his office and during meetings, which is just delicious. He oversees 20-30 other Jones Lang LaSalle projects [no one is really sure how many] so he’s a pretty big guy [despite his smaller frame]. He has high expectations and hopefully will have plenty for me to do, despite that fact that in our ‘what is my job’ conversation he said that my job is mostly out of the office “patrolling”. Am I the police? Patrolling for what? So I fear that he does just want me to be the white person on campus again, but this time it is not the developer who is paying me to do nothing, and he reminded me that I need to prove to the developer that I am worth the money.
My office is very busy, filled with very busy people, and almost all positions are occupied by young Chinese women. When I took the building tour with Amy, the duty manager, who speaks no English but goes by Amy anyway, when we walk into a room the workers all stand up and say, ‘hello manager’, she replies with the Chinese equivalent of ‘at ease’. The head of security [60+ boys] is a women. The head of cleaning, HR, and almost all other positions except for head of engineers, renovations manager, and the operations manager [still not sure just what that covers] is a female. Did my boss, Kelvin, employ all these women because he’s a creepy old man? Or because they are smart, trainable, obedient, and hard working? In typical Chinese style, although there is a lot to do and everyone seems very busy, there seems to be a severe overlap in job duties. And many people still do not have computers, yet sit at a desk all day. What do they do? I am not quite clear.
What am I doing there? Good question. I am the ‘customer service manager’ [that’s better than ‘butler’]
So that’s the job update. More to come but I am finding I have little time to write anyone because not only am I actually working at work, but I am working out a lot to prepare for a bunch of races that I am participating in.
On April 15th I will be going to the middle south of china to Yellow Mountain to participate in a 50 km mountain biking race. I’m flying down there with the mountain biking of Beijing club so it should be a fun weekend. http://www.nordicways.com/view/en/view.asp?indexId=20051215195325
On June 13th I am going to a mountain south of Shanghai called Mo Gan Shan to do a 24 hour Adventure Race sponsored by North Face. This is a new kind of race, I think originally started by MTV [ha!] but its caught on in Asia and it should be pretty crazy. Here is what I will be doing:
http://www.seyonasia.com/
Summary of disciplines and activities over the 24 hours:
Trail running – 17.5 km
Mountain biking – 82 km (approx. 30% of time on sealed roads, the rest on rough surface)
Bike Carry – 2 km
Canoeing – 6 km
Swimming – 50 meters
Orienteering
Map navigation skills
Regular abseiling – 50 meters
Diagonal abseil – 80 meters
Zip line – 120 meters
Rope ladder – 15 meters
Mystery team-work tests
Mental/logical puzzles
The race starts at 9 am and the first team is expected to finish by 8 pm. I will be competing in the male/ female division [there is less competition and therefore it is easier to win] with a boy named Tyson Meadors who actually seeked me out to do this race. It involves a lot of mountain biking so he found me through the mountain biking club. Tyson is taking a break from going to school at Annapolis, yes the Naval Academy, where he plays football and is participated in the Ethics Bowl [why not?].
All that is keeping me pretty busy… hope everyone is good. Sorry for slow emailing. More soon.
My boss’s phone jingle is a loud cock-a-doodle-doo followed by Elmer Fudd saying “Hey! It’s me! You’re buddy.” [was he famous for saying that?] He’s a short pudgy Hong Kong man that says he’s from Canada despite the fact that when he speaks English it sounds like he has marbles in his mouth. I only understand 50% of what he says, but I get the general idea. He’s a serious worker, a workaholic, but sometimes laughs like Santa Claus. He smokes constantly, in his office and during meetings, which is just delicious. He oversees 20-30 other Jones Lang LaSalle projects [no one is really sure how many] so he’s a pretty big guy [despite his smaller frame]. He has high expectations and hopefully will have plenty for me to do, despite that fact that in our ‘what is my job’ conversation he said that my job is mostly out of the office “patrolling”. Am I the police? Patrolling for what? So I fear that he does just want me to be the white person on campus again, but this time it is not the developer who is paying me to do nothing, and he reminded me that I need to prove to the developer that I am worth the money.
My office is very busy, filled with very busy people, and almost all positions are occupied by young Chinese women. When I took the building tour with Amy, the duty manager, who speaks no English but goes by Amy anyway, when we walk into a room the workers all stand up and say, ‘hello manager’, she replies with the Chinese equivalent of ‘at ease’. The head of security [60+ boys] is a women. The head of cleaning, HR, and almost all other positions except for head of engineers, renovations manager, and the operations manager [still not sure just what that covers] is a female. Did my boss, Kelvin, employ all these women because he’s a creepy old man? Or because they are smart, trainable, obedient, and hard working? In typical Chinese style, although there is a lot to do and everyone seems very busy, there seems to be a severe overlap in job duties. And many people still do not have computers, yet sit at a desk all day. What do they do? I am not quite clear.
What am I doing there? Good question. I am the ‘customer service manager’ [that’s better than ‘butler’]
So that’s the job update. More to come but I am finding I have little time to write anyone because not only am I actually working at work, but I am working out a lot to prepare for a bunch of races that I am participating in.
On April 15th I will be going to the middle south of china to Yellow Mountain to participate in a 50 km mountain biking race. I’m flying down there with the mountain biking of Beijing club so it should be a fun weekend. http://www.nordicways.com/view/en/view.asp?indexId=20051215195325
On June 13th I am going to a mountain south of Shanghai called Mo Gan Shan to do a 24 hour Adventure Race sponsored by North Face. This is a new kind of race, I think originally started by MTV [ha!] but its caught on in Asia and it should be pretty crazy. Here is what I will be doing:
http://www.seyonasia.com/
Summary of disciplines and activities over the 24 hours:
Trail running – 17.5 km
Mountain biking – 82 km (approx. 30% of time on sealed roads, the rest on rough surface)
Bike Carry – 2 km
Canoeing – 6 km
Swimming – 50 meters
Orienteering
Map navigation skills
Regular abseiling – 50 meters
Diagonal abseil – 80 meters
Zip line – 120 meters
Rope ladder – 15 meters
Mystery team-work tests
Mental/logical puzzles
The race starts at 9 am and the first team is expected to finish by 8 pm. I will be competing in the male/ female division [there is less competition and therefore it is easier to win] with a boy named Tyson Meadors who actually seeked me out to do this race. It involves a lot of mountain biking so he found me through the mountain biking club. Tyson is taking a break from going to school at Annapolis, yes the Naval Academy, where he plays football and is participated in the Ethics Bowl [why not?].
All that is keeping me pretty busy… hope everyone is good. Sorry for slow emailing. More soon.
posted by Claire at 12:44 AM
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