Thoughtlessness

So it was lunch time and I got a call from one of the Asoks that they are waiting for me at the carpark downstairs to go to lunch together.

I half gasped as I instinctively looked at my watch. I totally did not realise it was lunch time already.

Anyway, I dropped what was doing and galloped down the stairs as I do not like people waiting for me.

I got to the carpark and Crown Prince's car was there and ready to move out.

Let's see.

There's an Asok in the driver's seat. Shotgun was empty as the other Asok was squeezing in a cigarette while waiting for me to show up. Crown Prince in the backseat absorbed in his ebook (he was lending us the car and so he was merely hitching a ride). Another colleague in the back seat....

.... and there.

A baby seat.

Then I sit where?

That really pissed me off.

Not because I was bumped off the car but....

DID I REALLY HAVE TO SHOW UP BEFORE SOMEONE ACTUALLY REALIZES THAT THERE IS A PROBLEM IN SEATING CAPACITY?

WAS IT SOOOOO DIFFICULT TO ANTICIPATE THE PROBLEM?

REALLY?

What pissed me off was that NOBODY bothered to move a single cell of their brains.

So what happened next, was that I just told them coldly that I lost interest in joining them for lunch and walked off to the street stall outside.

I tapao-ed Fujian dumpling for a mere RMB 3.00 (SGD 0.60) and accompanied by a glass of milk from my fridge.

It was a good lunch.

I hate brainless people.

So that's that.

Had it been me in that situation where I was one of them waiting for the last person to show up and there isn't enough seat on the car. I'd gladly give up the car and offered to walk or take a cab with the last person to the lunch venue.

Now. Was it so hard?


Image Credit: https://bk.taobao.com

- Voxeros

The Asoks - A Year On (Part 3 of 3)

The first two parts were about the incumbents and for the final installation of this series, I shall touch on the new Asoks that have joined us later on.


Asok #7

This is a chap in his 40s. Yes. 40s and restarting his career after an unsuccessful stint in the US.

We put him in charge of our retail outlets due to his similar experience when he was in the US. Sad to say, he is struggling to keep this business unit afloat. Fortunately, this is a very small SBU and so we can afford to lose it, if the day comes that we decide to flick the OFF switch.

This is a guy with a strange personality which a penchant to flip flop so much that I deal only with him via email in Black & White. Not that he is a habitual liar or anything but this fella has the memory of an autistic goldfish. This is a fella that will come to you with a problem, only to come back a few days later with the same question and is stressed that he is stuck for days, grinding his operations to a standstill, when I specifically gave him the solution earlier.

I believe it has something to do with his thick skull where when he doesn't get it, he really doesn't get it, no matter how much you explained and taught.

To sum it up in a Chinese phrase, his 脑筋转不过来.

Can I get a facepalm?

Still Alpha-Male is unwilling to give him the boot coz we can't really find anyone suitable to replace his position. I, however, do not foresee this person reaching Year 2.

There is a reason why he failed in the US and I am thinking it will be the very same reason here soon.


Asok #8

Another nephew from Alpha-Male's clan. Late thirties and going nowhere with his career in Taiwan. Was in the F&B line as a busboy then later on a cook and is a licensed bartender.

Alpha-Male took him in and gave him another SBU to run. Fortunately, he is doing well. He certainly has the street-smarts from his year's of working to overcome his lack of academic qualifications.

He is a very hands-on person but when it comes to numbers, he is a lost boy. I have to teach him the basics of how to work out his costings as well as to do a simple P&L, explaining the difference between fixed and variable costs.

In short, I am proud of this Asok for he has fully made good of this second chance in life.


Asok #9

Asok #9 joined us after having working in Shanghai for a Taiwanese electronics components factory for about 3 years. He is now the understudy of the Prince-In-Law doing sales.

We had a corporate split this year and his SBU is now an independent company. It was a great learning opportunity for him to be expose to the various parts of a business, from learning the set up of a company to office/warehouse leasing to logistics planning to human resource management.

A very keen learner but at times share the same stubbornness as Asok #7 when his 脑筋 also 转不过来.

There are people who refuse to budge when they can't see the road ahead of them. Asok #9 however is willing to take the blind step forward (after much coercion and threatening from us). With that faith in his mentors, the reward is that breakthrough epiphany that has gotten him stuck initially.

Asok #10


Another rose amongst the thorns as she joined us as a designer overseeing product packaging as well as trade fair booths design.

Very sociable person who has quickly endeared herself to everyone. Certainly a welcoming contrast to Asok #4 whom the latter has earned the unfortunate nickname of SiaoPor (Looney Woman).

The only issue is that she kena makaned by Asok #1 over the CNY holidays and has since been a lovey dovey couple. While this may not be a bad thing, I still harbour some reservations about eating and shitting in the same place.

So now the talk over the dinner table is how they planned to be engaged at the end of the year.

Again, I have some reservations over this although I do wish that my worries are unfounded.

Image Credits: http://bp0.blogger.com/; https://dilbert.fandom.com

- Voxeros

The Asoks - A Year On (Part 2 of 3)

Asok #4

If I were to describe Asok #4 in a single sentence, I only need three words.

"Sum Ting Wong"

Initially, I admired her for her guts to venture out here as a girl, in an unknown land. While I don't mean to be sexist, Taobaoland is not only not a gender equal place but a very skewed one at that.

You need to be one tough cookies to make an impression here.

She appeared one of the more intelligent Asoks amongst the lot but I was sorely disappointed that all that had faded soon after.

As I slowly got to know her better, some aspects of her mentality just totally goes against my grain.

1. Lack Of Perseverance.
   
   She has a basic grasp of the English language but like most of these folks, they can't speak but able to read and listen by picking up the keywords and guessing the gist.
   
   Writing is easier coz one can take all the time in the world to draft with the help of the dictionary. While the spelling is relatively accurate, the choice of words can some time be very obscure as they just copy whatever words shows up on the translator without knowing if it fits. Grammar leaves much to be desired as the word arrangements in a sentence between English and Chinese are often in opposite directions.
   
   She approached me for help in improving her English which I was happy to help after office hours and since she has a blog, I suggest that she blogs in English in draft mode to let me vet before publishing. So for a couple of times a week, she will print out her blog draft on a piece of paper and I will go through her entry, proofing and explaining her errors along the way.
   
   Sadly, this only last for around 3 weeks as the quality of her writing has gone from bad to worse. I soon begin to realise that her efforts starting to dwindle. It got to a point where it appeared as if I was simply editing her draft for her so that she can post her blog.
   
   I stopped teaching her immediately for I did not feel that it is worth my time, if my efforts were not reciprocated.
   
   
   
2. Pride.
   
   For every new initiatives that began as a project, there were a lot of nitty gritty tasks e.g. info gathering, number crunch, data porting, to do which essentially can be very tedious. She has a tendency to push it to the local staff to do it as if these menial tasks were beneath her.
   
   
   
3. Expat Princess Mentality.
   
   Speaking of local staff, this probably annoys me the most. She has this Me Taiwan Superior-vs-Them China Inferior mindset where she feels the local Chinese staff are supposedly below her. So while she is just a management trainee, she behaves as if she is some kind of manager ordering some of the local staff to do her bidding.
   
   One such incident was taking the company car to send her out of town to meet a friend for dinner, WAIT THERE, and then send her home. Since when the hell was she entitled to use the company car for private matters? The driver also one kind of gong gong fella, obediently fulfill her bidding. We later found out and the Admin Manager gave her a big dressing down consequently.
   
   
   
4. 
   Acting Wounded.
   
   I believe the Chinese phrase for it that would more accurately describe it is 装可怜.
   
   I remembered the day Asok9 first arrived and joined us. We entered the elevator to our apartments and it just so happened some asshole local resident smoked in the elevator before us. She suddenly convulsed into a cough fit.
   
   Problem was, the coughing was so exaggerated what we all saw right through it. Asok9 threw me a WTF? look to which my rolling of eyes was the perfect answer to his query.
   
   Seriously, we weren't sure if we were offended by the fake acting or that fact that she thought that we'd be fooled.
   
   
   
5. Sum Ting Wong.
   
   A strange incident happened some time ago. She didn't turn up for work one day. Initially, we thought she was ill as she was coughing (real this time) the whole of the day before.
   
   So when the Admin Manager called her up to verify her medical leave which she didn't apply, he was told that she has a day off because she did OT the day before?
   
   HAR??? Got such thing one meh? You do OT, next day you get Off Day? Where got so good kangtao one?
   
   More importantly, where got such thing as happy happy create own HR policy one???

The last one really gets my goad for since she does not report to me, she is not in my jurisdiction. Alpha-Male did at one time lobby for her to come under my wing which I flatly reject and I picked a local staff instead to be groomed as my Executive PA.

For some strange reason, Alpha Male still wants to retain her while I would have sent her home in a heartbeat. So anyway, we posted her to the Shanghai office for a 6-week assignment and hope she would be able to flourish there and perhaps score a permanent placement there.

I wish she would do well there. I seriously do.

Image Credits: http://bp0.blogger.com/; https://dilbert.fandom.com

- Voxeros

The Asoks - A Year On (Part 1 of 3)

It's been a year since coming up to Taobaoland and perhaps it's time to look back at the year and see how the Asoks are doing.

While I am glad most of them managed to survive the first year, I am slightly disheartened that I didn't find any superstar performer amongst them. While some are quite good, it was still short of stellar that I was hoping for.

There were several changes to those who remained while we have new blood as well as some who left.

For the uninitiated, click here for the Brief Introduction to The Asoks.


Asok #1

His portfolio for changed twice, during the year, as the Business Units that he was in didn't perform well on each occasion. I won't fault him for that as we do have our weak spots in the company and he had the unfortunate luck of being in them.

So right now, he was been transferred to the National Sales Management department monitoring sales of our offices across China.


Asok #2

Left.


Asok #3
I couldn't use him as he wasn't able to fulfill any of the criteria that was required to work in my department.
Fortunately, we found a spot for him when I took over the Logistics department and he seemed to have a knack for that.

By June, I had him transferred to the Shanghai office as they are in need of an XO in the logistics department. While we all think that it was a right move, coupled with glorious praises from the Shanghai manager, we weren't too sure when the year-end stock take ended up in a disastrous mess.

3 stock takes over 7 days and they still couldn't get their numbers right until I have to send a team over from my side only to settle the entire warehouse inventory within 16 hours.

We are still in the process of evaluating what went wrong as I planted the team to be there for 6 weeks for a full logistic audit and at the same time migrate the warehouse over the 3PL.

Asok #4
This one was a piece of work so much so that it deserves a entire entry dedicated to here. How she spiraled from promising to nuts remained a mystery to us. Stay tuned.


Asok #5
One of the two 宅男 which from the beginning I didn't think very much of him but as I got to know him better, he has potential. Currently assisting Asok #1 in the National Sales Management department.


Asok #6
The ex-Starbucks barista, in my opinion, is your ultimate 宅男. Every Sunday morning, he would walk 3km lugging his laptop on his backpack to his favourite coffee shop and stayed there the whole day.

Reason? They have faster broadband for him to download his week's quota of animes. *facepalm*

Asok #6 left and return to Ta1wan to join some online gaming company which I felt was more suited for him.

Image Credits: http://bp0.blogger.com/; https://dilbert.fandom.com

- Voxeros

The Asoks - A Brief Introduction

I am starting to settle down at the company. It's good to catch up with the folks back here after so long. Everything is rather familiar except several new faces here and there.

Among the news faces, we have a few green horns who came over from across the Straits. These are really noobs who are fresh out of school with no real working experience.
 
I call them the Asoks. Named after Dilbert's little Indian intern. There are not really interns but given that they are all blur fucks and possibly the lowest life form in the corporate ladder (for now), Asok seems to be a pretty apt name for them.

Asok #1

Leader of the pack. 9 months into the job already when I arrived. So relative to the rest of the new arrivals (same time as I), he is not so blur fuck. He handles more responsibilities and also overall "welfare officer" of the Asok Brigade.

He does come up to me for advice from time to time and is a very smart chap judging from the fact that he gets the point where I only need to say once. This one has great potential in time to come. I have high aspiration for him. Possibly the fastest climber among the lot and it will be a big gap between the rest of the Asoks and himself considering he has the advantage of a 9-month head start.

Asok #2

Asok #2  left us yesterday. Technically, he went AWOL and as such is a career-ending move. He reminds me of The Apprentice where folks comes from all walks of life to climb the ladder. This one dropped out when the going gets too tough. Age-wise, he is the oldest. The opportunity here was perhaps his second chance in life after having screwed up most part of his earlier life. I heard he was a cab driver prior to coming over.

So the story was that he has this girlfriend who is still in school back home. Their relationship was highly suspect when he broke down and cried at the dinner table (not to mention got himself pissed drunk) when he couldn't reach her via phone, msn, skype or whatever in the last few days. He was freaking out thinking that he has been dumped.

Well, so much for trust and foundation.

As it turned out, the girlfriend got into a traffic accident where she fell off her scooter and possibly sandpapered herself all over the tarmac. Normally that would be compassionate ground for immediate approval of leave for him to return. I am guessing that this girl was someone that many of them know back home (perhaps she was an intern in the Ta1wan office) and their relationship was frown upon from the start by everyone since everybody felt she is still too young and should focus on her school. Everyone was even more unimpressed where there was an earlier episode that she wanted to quit school and take up a clerical job here somewhere.

The drama continues to unfold as Alpha Male rejected the leave application. Well, not for immediate departure anyway. Perhaps Alpha Male's intention was to arrange for him to return home over the weekend so as to allow him more days back home while at the same time test Asok #2 mental toughness under such unfavourable environment.

Asok #2 failed there. When Alpha Male was ready to talk and arrange travel plans for him the next day, Asok #2 was already on the ferry sailing out to the Hong Kong airport.

Asok #2 burnt his bridge that morning.

Asok #3

This my personal Asok. As I am heading the International Marketing division as well as IT department, Asok #3 was assigned to me on account of the fact that he graduated with a Computer Science degree and had spent 7 months in Brisbane.

So Alpha Male's assumption is that he is 1) savvy in computers and 2) powderful in English.
Sadly that wasn't the case.

I spent the last few days teaching him some of the intermediate functions of wait for it...... Excel and Powerpoint. So I thought perhaps it is not fair to assume everyone is familiar with Microsoft Office and I thought perhaps his area of expertise is in programming. Sadly that wasn't the case either. So the rest of the time, I was grilling him trying to find out what he knows that I can make use of immediately.

Let's just say that all I managed to dig up was a very keen learning attitude and unfortunately that's about it.

Fortunately, that's something that I can work with.

So the conclusion is that I probably can't use him in IT and groom him to be CIO one day but perhaps International Marketing would be a better place for him to start climbing.

I will be starting him at the ground with the order data entry girls today and then next week, I will station him in the warehouse for the entire week come Monday and let the warehouse manager take over while I fly to Bangkok. I hopes he like sleeping on bunk beds in the warehouse.

Asok #4

The only girl among the bunch and a brave one if I may add. It's really a rough place here and a "man's world" if you get my drift. I admire her courage to go against convention and step out of her comfort zone. So far, I see her working doubly harder than the rest of the Asoks which I am duly impressed. She is one of the 3 Asoks stationed at the retail outlets for this week (we may extend it to a month) as a front-line staff.

She got the luck of the draw to be stationed near where we stay and as such, she gets to come home every night albeit around 11pm. The other two were assigned further out of town and had to make do with $20 a night hotels.
Still, I see her in the apartment after work to discuss her daily report to Asok #1 whom she reports to, though she is not required to. This girl has quite a bit of drive to excel. I think she will go far as well.

Only problem is that being the typical Ta!wanese girl, she is damn bladdy teh.... that one, I ish cannot take it.

Asok #5 & #6

Not much contact with them as they are stationed out of town but from what I have heard, the one who used to be a Starbucks barista kena food poisoning liao.

Welcome to QQLand, guys. Welcome.

Image Credits: http://bp0.blogger.com/

- Voxeros

1. Hamie left...

Thursday, 11 March 2010 11:32 am

may i guess tat you enjoy the time most with #4. hehehehe......

2. JF left...

Thursday, 11 March 2010 12:08 pm

i wanna book Asok No4

3. JayWalk left...

Thursday, 11 March 2010 1:41 pm :: 

Hamie: Word of the wise: Never eat and shit in the same place.

JF: Go away! Shoo! Shoo!

4. Ruok left...

Friday, 12 March 2010 12:50 am

I can't stand the tehness too.

5. JayWalk left...

Friday, 12 March 2010 8:58 am :: 

ruok: Apparently they are all like that. I think there is something in their water. Haha.