公司的圣诞午餐和我的同事们 (The Christmas Lunch and My Colleagues)

马上龙年就要到了，我还在这里补圣诞节的博客。最近这三个多月实在忙疯了。

文山会海

现代化办公，虽然没有打印的文件了，但是这电邮每天多如牛毛。我11月份出去休了一周假，回来之后就彻底被电邮埋了。超过500多封电邮，其中最多的一天就收了124封。新的电邮每天还在不断往里进，旧的还没来得及处理，只能抓最主要、紧急的先做。直到现在我那邮箱里还有超过200封未读的电邮。知道有些事情压在那里没解决，但又实在没有时间去做。

我现在终于明白为什么我们部门就没有一个人敢出去休假不带手提。我这假休得真是重创啊！其实之所以这么多电邮同我们公司这组织结构是分不开的。我们公司一共分四大类：洗发护发类，护肤品类，香水类和彩妆类。每个人只负责一大类里的一个Component，我就是香水类里的瓶盖（你可不要小看就这么个瓶盖，用化妆品的人都知道，香水的瓶盖几乎没有重样的）。

做快速消费品行业（FMCG)的人都知道，新产品是每个月不停地推出，我们现在做的产品都已经到2014年了。每个新产品的开发是要包括市场部的人（Marketing)、包装设计师（Packaging Engineer)，成本预算的（Costing）、采购（Sourcing)和生产计划的（Planning)的（我们公司光计划这一块儿就分三大类，以后有机会再说）。

一个新产品从最初市场部拿出idea，我就要参与，中间要反复多次修改，直到最后下订单，整个过程长的话可能要一年到一年半，短的话也得在8－10个月。从我进公司接手，比如说那时候接到手的新项目是10个，每个月都有10－20来个新项目的话，这一年下来，你算算我到最后手里有多少项目要跟。

我负责瓶盖，其他的有负责瓶子的、包装盒、商标、薄膜等等，一个新产品加上各部门、各种类的人就是20多个人跟一个新项目。不是说我只负责香水类的瓶盖（香水类是主要），但其他几大类里也有我要跟的项目。这期间的交流全是电邮，一发就是跨部门、跨四大类群发，简直是铺天盖地。

我还只是负责EMEA区（欧洲、中东和非洲），如果项目牵涉到公司的全球项目，那就是欧洲、亚洲、南美、北美全包括了，那涉及的人就更多了。

我现在是除了睡觉的时候不查电邮，其他的时候那电邮就象雪片一样往里进。我们经理大清早5－6点就开始不停地发。我主管刚有孩子，估计半夜起来换完尿片，然后就开工了，那电邮进来全都是凌晨1－2点。要是2个小时以内没有我们经理的电邮进来，大家就知道准是在飞机上飞呢。

就因为项目涉及的部门多、人也多。一旦有什么问题就开会，一天平均3个会，多的时候会在5个会以上。因为会议太多，涉及的人也多，经常会有会议撞车的时候，所以现在安排开会都利用午饭的时间，下班以后的时间。一个会要开1个来小时这一天一大半的时间就搭进去了。

并不是所有做的项目最终都会投入生产。我进公司的时候就接手了一个项目，一直跟到休假前。周一去休假，周末干了两天。等休假回来没有两星期，这项目在下了单之后又被上面毙了。7个多月的辛苦全部打了水漂。

我说的这跟带新项目，事实上只占我全部工作量的50%左右。其余的以后再说。

公司的圣诞午餐和我的同事们

公司在圣诞前请来了小孩子们唱圣诞颂歌，我这照片是在楼上拍的，所以照出来全是脑袋。公司的圣诞树，我第一次见这么大的真圣诞树。

这是中午公司安排圣诞午餐时我拍的我们Team的照片。索菲（左）和梅兰妮（右，主要负责洗发护发品里的瓶子）。

左面的法国女孩是卢秀儿（在公司里可以同我中文交流，而且她的中文竟然还是在青岛大学学的，这年头世界真是越变越小。）右边的帅哥是马修（主要负责彩妆的）。

卢秀儿右边的是我们Team的经理汤姆。汤姆是典型的英国人作派，是我工作以来碰到最认真负责的经理，头脑清晰、公正、开明，而且极富人情味。圣诞节前我对他说因为老爸的病情，我随时会回国。汤姆就对我说会随时准我假，而且还说他圣诞节去教堂的时候一定会为我父亲祈祷。

坐我经理对面的是克瑞斯，9月份他带我们去波兰出的差。

汤姆右边穿蓝毛衣的是卡拉（主要负责香水类瓶子的），我的超级搭档。比我早进公司3周。

这个便是我的同桌马丁，英法混血。记得当时他没进公司前，那时候卡拉正在找男朋友，特期待公司能进一个帅哥。结果看到马丁我们都有几分失望，我问卡拉这做你男朋友怎么样？卡拉开玩笑地回了一句：我可不要哈利波特做我男朋友。我仔细看了看马丁倒还真有那么几分象。

最后这位是我的直接主管考史克。在英国出生的第二代移民，在美国上的大学，超级精明的一个人。那天公司现场抽奖，马丁和我主管都被中了奖！可惜我只抓拍到他的背影。

克瑞斯、索菲、马修都是我们经理以前的同事，被汤姆直接从以前公司带过来的。公司的工作压力很大，特别每个月要拿出新产品报价的时候，从我们采购拿齐资料到最后交上报价，只有7个工作日，我11月份休假休的回来后，离最后的时间只有3天，我是日夜给供应商打电话，差点儿没把供应商给逼疯。那7－10天的时间我们Sourcing的人几乎全都在日干夜干。马丁最晚的时候干到晚上9点多，早上6点又接着开工。

总的说来公司工作环境不错，同事之间相处也算融洽。我的主管将于2月底离职。很遗憾他的离职，如果从外面重新招来一个人做我主管，业务不熟，很多事情没有人在背后挺你，会工作得格外累！记得汤姆当时就对全组的人说过：公司已经有125年历史，考史克的离开是为了个人事业的发展，每个人都会有自己的事业规划。所以他支持并理解考史克的离职。

最后来张我在公司的圣诞午餐。

 

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Company Christmas Lunch and My Colleagues

I use a Chinese idiom “文山会海” as a subtitle – literally means a mountain of papers and a sea of meetings. When the idiom appeared, there was no internet. Nowadays with advanced computer technology, we are buried by mountains of emails and endless meetings like sea waves, one after another.

Before I joined this company, I had never seen so many emails everyday. When I came back from 7 days holiday in November, I was completely buried by emails – over 500 emails in 7 days. The new ones like snowflakes still floating in every second. I can only deal with the urgent and priority ones first. Some old ones just lay in my mailbox and I have no time to look at all. Even now I still have over 200 unread emails.

Finally I understand why nobody in my team can afford to go on holiday without carrying a laptop. The main reason for so many emails floating around everyday is due to the structure of our company. There are four categories in our company – personal care and hair care, skin care, fragrance and colour cosmetics. Each sourcing associate is only responsible for one component, for instance, I am only responsible for closure for fragrance. You may think a closure is a simple item, however if you go to a fragrance shop, you will notice that there is no two perfumes with the same closure. In the FMCG industry, new products are launched every month. Some new projects I am working on at the moment are already for 2014. The development of each new project involves Marketing, Packaging Engineering, costing team, sourcing and planning (there are three types of planners in the company).

A new project from a marketing idea through development, cost approval to raise a purchasing order normally takes 8-10 months. Some even take more than a year. The design, drawing, material colour and finish can change all the time during the development. Imagine I have 10 new projects in hand when I first joined the company, if we have 10 new projects each month, by the end of year I have to follow up more than a hundred projects.

I am in charge of closures. Other sourcing associates are responsible for bottle, jar, pump, carton, sachet, sleeve and label, etc. etc. One project involves more than 20 persons from marketing, packaging engineer, sourcing and costing team. Fragrance is my main category. I also have projects in other categories. Every time when a person sends email, he/she has to copy everybody in – cross all four categories and all departments. You can imagine how many persons are in the mailing list – most time are over fifty.  

Particularly for fragrance category, one third to half of projects are not only for EMEA region (Europe, Middle East and Africa), but also for global level — APAC, North America and Latin America all need to be included in. Due to the time difference, there is no single minute that emails stop flowing in.

Sometimes my manager starts sending emails on Saturday or Sunday early mornings. And my supervisor keeps sending email in the middle of night or early morning – I always think he gets up to change baby’s napkin and couldn’t sleep, then starts working.

If we do not receive any emails from my manager for more than two hours, everybody knows he must be on the airplane.

As so many projects need to be followed up, if any issues arise, we have to arrange a meeting and cross all departments. Average 3 or 4 meetings in a day are normal. Maximum 5 or 6 can happen. Because of too many meetings everyday, meeting clashes all the time. People start to arrange meeting during lunch time or in the afternoon after working hours.

Not all new projects can be implemented at the end. One project I had followed since I joined the company. I was working on this project even the weekend before I went on holiday. Eventually it had been killed two weeks after I came back from holiday. All efforts and time consumed has gone like the wind.

To follow up new project is about 50% of my workload.

Company Christmas Lunch and My Colleagues

Before Christmas, the company invited a group of kids to sing Christmas carols. The nice children’ s voices reminded me of Dickens’ novel – A Christmas Carol. Christmas does not mean too much to me, while seeing colleagues’ smiling faces, it brings to me of light, joy, warmth of life. I took this photo from upstairs – it is pity that you can only see kids’ head instead of their cheerful faces. J

Here is the Christmas tree in the lobby. I have never seen such a real, tall Christmas tree in a company before. Yilin, one of my friends, she came to the company for a job interview before Christmas. Although she failed her interview, she was attracted by the company’s atmosphere. (Good for her she did not get that job. She found a new job at the beginning of this year, which is much better and more suitable than this position in my company.)

All below photos were taken during company’s Christmas Lunch.

Sophie (Left) and Melanie (Right, she is responsible for plastic bottles). When I joined the company, she told me that she had also applied for a job in SS in 2010. She had been laid off in a similar period as me in 2009. 

The girl on the left is Lucille (a French girl, she studied Chinese inQingdaoUniversity, where my parents worked before their retirement. A small world!) The man on the right is Matt who is in charge of Colour cosmetics. He sits in front of me, but most of time we have to face our own computers. Every time when I talk to him, I have to stand up to see his face. He is always laughing and said I am like a meerkat. When he had an operation in September, part of his job had been taken by me.

Tom, my manager, he is on the right hand side of Lucille. He is the most responsible manager I have worked so far. He is an open-minded, logical, thoughtful and well-organised person. One Friday afternoon, I was still working in the office around 18.30 (we finish at 15.30 Friday afternoon). I had some questions and asked him just before he was leaving to home. I had thought he may ask me to discuss next Monday. To my surprise, he put down his laptop and sat next to me and showed me all the calculations until I fully understood.

When I told him my father’s health problem, he said he would pray for him when he went to the church on Christmas day.

Chris is sitting opposite Tom. He accompanied Martin and I toPolandin September.

On the right side of Tom is Karla, who joined the company about 3 weeks earlier than I. She is responsible for Fragrance bottles. As each project lasts such a long time and my predecessor did not keep any records and also did not teach me adequately. I have to find out everything myself. Karla has given me a lot of assistance since I joined the company. Her supervisor keeps a good historical record to track back all projects.

The one sat next me is Martin. When he joined the company, Karla was looking for a boyfriend at that time. I was joking with Karla and recommend her Martin. She answered that she did not want a Harry Potter looking boyfriend! 😉

Martin is half French. Before he joined the company, I was a bit worried due to experience I had with my predecessor, who is also French. Actually Martin is a very hard-working person (seems all ox around me are workaholic.). Although we are in charge of different categories, the components we are dealing with have some similarities. A lot of knowledge we can share and learn from each other.

He lives far away from the company, almost an hour driving. Every morning he comes to the company without breakfast and moaning in front of me. I suggested him to have breakfast in the canteen. However he said he couldn’t afford two meals in the company. Then I told him to keep some milk and cereal in the kitchen (There is kitchen on each floor.). At the beginning, he did not bother, maybe thinks too much trouble. In the end he could not stand starving anymore and followed my suggestion. Now every morning you can see him hold a huge bowl of cereal in front of the computer. 😉 Matt said sometime listening to our talk — we are like sister and brother at home.

This is my supervisor – KC. He is the second generation immigrants in theUK. He was born inLondonand obtained his university degree in theUS. He is a very smart and straight forward person. We cooperate well, maybe because we have similar Asian background. It is pity he will leave by the end of February. I think my work will become much more difficult if a new supervisor comes in from outside of company.

KC asked me whether I would like to move to the new company with him. His words reminded me of my manager in Nestle. When she found a new job and started working for a German company, she asked me the same question. Perhaps I am a good assistant and never cover the glory of my boss. J Seems they all prefer to have a subordinate like me. I did not accept her offer and recommended one of my friends in that position. Many years later my friend had been promoted to department manager. On the other hand, I married their big boss. 😉 If I were in that position, I could not imagine that I would fall in love with my big boss as I was never a romantic person. I don’t think I can allow myself to have office love.

Chris, Sophie and Matt are ex-colleague of Tom. After Tom moved to this company he brought them in.

Several days before Christmas lunch, Matt said he was inDominican Republicat the same time last year. Martin said that he was inIndiaand Karla said she was inFiji. I added I was in Ashby de la Zouch. They were laughing. But they did not realize that without those days in Ashby, I would not be here with them. I enjoy working with these dynamic colleagues.