波兰出差、今年的生日（The Business Trip and Birthday in Poland）

最近一个月不到，整个我工作的敞开办公区，已走的加上辞职未走的一共有10位，其中包括我的主管考史克。英国的经济环境如此不好，如此高的失业率，但就这样我们公司都留不住人。

原本是找一份安稳的“朝九晚五”的工作，只是现如今发现这份工作变成了“朝五晚九”，每天工作时间在14－16小时是正常现象。

我算了一笔帐：每天平均100封电邮，如果坐在电脑前不停处理的话，需要至少10个小时以上，才能把手上的活儿完成到70－80%。如果平均每天有3个会（每个会1个小时的话），3个会用去3个小时，也就是说你要工作13个小时才能把活儿完成到70－80%。这余下的20－30%就越积越多。每天要想完成到90%以上的工作量，无论如何要工作到15-16小时以上。

而且我们公司每件事情都给你时限完成，所以你忙着做最紧要，马上要到期限的。等你这刚忙完，发现原来那些放在那里未处理的电邮也变成了马上要到期的。坐我旁边的那法国男孩马丁就说怎么每天都有种要淹死的感觉。我觉得自己就象在沙漠里被沙埋到了头顶，每天忙着只能把头顶的沙拨掉，还没等露出鼻子、嘴巴，接下来一阵沙又给埋了。

在香港的这两周，虽然也在工作，但是因为时差的关系，我根本没法把所有的事情处理完，越积越多。而且在香港远程登录我们公司的数据系统速度超慢，打开一个Excel的表格至少要20分钟（我们公司那表格太复杂，一个表50多个TAB，N多个链接）。等回到英国还没把积下的工作处理掉，接着又被公司派到波兰出差。

公司原本让我2月初去波兰出差的，因为我回香港陪老爸手术，所以我经理汤姆就让我同马丁来了个对掉。改让马丁先去了波兰。结果那两周是欧洲最冷的两周，马丁说他在波兰每天都是零下16－20度。

我在波兰的这一周温度基本在零度左右。公司给安排在华沙的喜来登酒店。（Sheraton Hotel)。

酒店住得挺舒服，看过我前文“第一次境外出差”的朋友都知道，只是我们的工厂在荒郊野外。每天7点半从华沙出发，晚上回到到酒店也已是晚上7点半左右。每天晚上吃饭时间都要到8－9点。汤姆算是很细心体贴的老板了，把行程安排的比上次相对合理的多。而且拿出了一个晚上陪我到华沙的老城中心转了转。

汤姆月初的时候陪马丁也到老城逛了一晚。不过马丁说零下20多度走到广场的餐馆时，他连耳朵都要冻掉的感觉。所以这次我来华沙全身武装，把N年没穿过的羽绒服也带了过来。

在第二次世界大战中，华沙美丽的古城遭到严重破坏，几乎被夷为平地，全城85%以上的建筑被毁，那些富丽堂皇的古典建筑几乎荡然无存，到处是残垣断壁，一片焦土。1945年华沙摆脱战争后，便按原样重建城市，庆幸的是，重建不仅保持了中世纪古城的风貌，而且兴建了新市区，超过了战前的规模和水平。在重建过程中，保护和修复历史古迹的工作受到格外重视，战前市内900多座具有历史意义的建筑物，几乎都进行了修复和整饰，那些昔日的宫殿、教堂、城堡等更加显得巍峨壮观。

下图为王宫城堡(Zamek Krolewski)，城堡建于13世纪末，原为木制结构。1569-1572年改建为王宫和议会所在地。1598-1619年扩建。王宫座落在古城堡当中，为五角形建筑。王宫屡次遭入侵者的破坏，在修复过程中不断地扩大。1939年王宫再遭德机轰炸，部分焚毁。1971年靠社会集资重建王宫。1984年修复的王宫对外开放。

 

总统府（Presidential Palace）。

圣约翰教堂（St. John’s Archcathedral ）。

老城集市广场(Rynek Starego Miasta），华沙老城的中心广场。18世纪前一直是城市的中心，举办集市。如今广场周围是餐馆、礼品店、咖啡馆。

 汤姆特意选了一家地道的波兰特色的餐馆，让我品尝了一次波兰美食。汤姆点的鱼，他帮我要了当地的兔肉。

这个是今年欧洲杯足球赛的体育馆。不过公司已经下了通告，足球赛事期间，所有出差机会全部取消。

出差感觉最辛苦的就是白天要么到处跑见供应商，要么就是在工厂里同各部门的人不停地开会。等吃完饭回到房间已是晚上10点来钟，再忙着处理些电邮一工作就是干到凌晨。

周五那天本是我的生日，周四晚上躺下，睡了3小时就醒了。凌晨2点起来工作干到5点。5点钟吃了点儿早餐，6点就直奔机场。在出租上汤姆对我说“生日快乐”的时候，我脑子里全是工作，一点儿生日的感觉都没有。一大早7点的飞机，要从华沙飞到波兰南部Rzeszow去见供应商。

到了Rzeszow，下了飞机，供应商派车来接，到供应商处仍需近1个小时车程。一路上到处仍可见白雪覆盖。

华沙市区内大部分居民住宅还是以flat(公寓)为主，但车开到郊外，或者是别的城市，马路两边都可以随处见到下图这样的house。看上去波兰居民的住宅比英国大很多。同我们生产计划员聊天的时候，他就说他在忙着盖自己的房子。200多平米的房子，自己找设计建筑来盖，大约10万英镑左右。

波兰是一个受宗教影响很深的国家，90%以上的居民信奉罗马天主教。居民区里教堂比比皆是。英国教堂里去礼拜的人不多，除非是重要节日和周日。但我和汤姆去老区的那天就是很平常的周三晚上，7点多钟所有教堂全都是礼拜的人。过道上都站满了，很多人就跪在后面的过道上。

参观完供应商的工厂，同供应商开完会。下午2点多，供应商领我们去公司附近一家据说很有当地特色的餐馆吃的午饭。很有点儿童话故事里小木屋的感觉。（下面这几张照片都是供应商用手机拍的，效果可能会差一些。）餐馆里一切摆设全是木制，就连菜单都是厚厚的木头册子，刻在上面的。

上面这张照片上背景的那个据说是波兰传统的烤面包的烤箱。波兰的饮食同中国竟然有很相似的地方。当时供应商推荐了一个Dumpling（饺子），我觉得同中国的锅贴很相近，个头大很多，是煎熟的。可惜供应商没给我照”饺子”的照片。

下面的这张是野蘑菇，有种特别的香味。很有点儿在国内吃山野菜的感觉。

下午6点半的飞机，Rzeszow的国际机场只有两个候机室，从外观上看就是一个小棚（hut)。

从英国Stansted机场到家又是一个半小时，到家的时候已经快10：00了。直到老公把生日蛋糕和贺卡端到我面前，我才惊觉这天是我的生日。谢谢Nancy寄来的卡片。

虽然这几天奔波下来很累，不过这次出差又学到很多东西。每年公司从我手上花出去的钱如果换成人民币的话早已过亿，所以能同主要的供应商保持一份良好的关系很是重要。

 

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The Business Trip and Birthday in Poland

I have completely lost track of time as I have to work day and night plus weekends. Every month when the cost cut-off date passes, I know one month has finished. When company’s new catalogue appears on my desk, it indicates that a new month starts.

 

I always thought a job should start from 9.00 a.m. till5.00 p.m.(朝九晚五), however the current job completely changes my routine. It starts from 5.00 a.m. till9.00 p.m.（朝五晚九）. Everyday working 14 to 16 hours seems normal.

 

Suppose everyday I receive a hundred emails. It takes me at least 10 hours to deal with 70-80% of my emails. If I have to attend 3 meetings a day, each meeting takes an hour, which means I have to work 13 hours to finish 70-80% of my workload. The rest 20%-30% of workload accumulates everyday. If I want to finish over 90%, I have to work over 12 hours without attending any meetings. No matter how much time I spend on business trip or holiday or meetings, I have to compensate all hours’ loss by working overtime.

 

All tasks are set up with deadlines. I do my best to finish the urgent and priority ones first, however when these have been finished, the deadlines for the others are almost reached. Sometimes I feel like being completely buried in the dessert. I do all my effort to remove sand away from top of my head till my nose and my mouth, without taking chance to breathe yet, another strong wind blows the sand back to cover the top of my head again.

 

Although I worked in the Hong Kong office, I still accumulated huge amount of work in these two weeks due to time difference and slow speed to access the database in NHT. The company sent me to Poland for a business trip before I finished catching up.

 

KC, my supervisor left the company at the end of February. This trip was with my boss Tom before KC’s leaving. I did not have too much time with Tom since I joined the company as I reported to KC directly. This trip was a chance for me to present myself to Tom.

 

Tom is a fair-minded boss. There is a 360 degree evaluation in our company. After I passed my probation, he forwarded me the evaluation from the marketing and planning team. Most comments or opinions were not fair to me after joining the company for two months. (I can see the evaluation was made in June from the projects mentioned.)

 

I was lacking knowledge of all products developed in the last few years due to KC not passing me any related information. Even there are no basic records for the costs my predecessor filled in the tracking sheet as each project takes a long period of time for development. Not as lucky as Karla, she joined the Glass team three weeks before me, but she had much better view for the history record and all expertise passed from her supervisor.

 

I was pushed onto the stage – sitting in the matrix meeting to confront marketing, NPD, costing and other sourcing members, without any background knowledge. Everything I learnt later was based on my own observation.

 

It is easy to criticize anybody if you do not sit in their position, particularly main criticism was from marketing ladies. I did prepare several emails to cover myself in case Tom asked me about it, but he did not ask at all. I also did not explain to him because when he forwarded this evaluation was already four or five months after it had been made. In Chinese, we have a common saying “日久见人心” (rì jiǔ jiàn rén xīn, time reveals a person’s heart; it takes time to know a person.) I don’t like explaining myself, particularly for some comments I did not care at all.

 

Not like my ex-boss, Mick. Tom would not allow anybody slamming doors in front of me without saying anything, it did not come to that, sometimes just the tone of comments in the email was not fair, Tom definitely would push it back. As a boss he is good to support me all the time. 

 

The company arranged the Sheraton Hotel in Warsaw. Despite no swimming pool, it is still a nice and comfortable hotel. The hotel even serves Chinese plain congee as breakfast, however I think it is more Japanese style.  As our factory is located almost 1.5-2 hours away fromWarsaw, we had to get up early every morning and return to the hotel already around 19.30.

Tom brought me to the Old Town of Warsaw one night to look around. Several weeks ago Tom brought Martin to the same place. The only different is I am a bit lucky. When Martin was in Poland that week, it was the coldest week in Europe. Everyday in Poland was around -16C to -20C. Martin told me that his ears almost fell off when he arrived at the restaurant.

 

I prepared a down coat, wool hat and scarf for the trip. However the weather was not so cold. Temperature was around 0.  Tom took this photo for me in front of the Royal Castle. The Royal Castle is a castle residency and was the official residence of the Polish monarch. It is located at the entrance to the Warsaw Old Town. 

 

On the way to the restaurant, I took these photos – Presidential Palace. It is an elegant classicist latest version of a building that has stood on the site since 1643. Over the years, it has been rebuilt and remodeled many times after having been destroyed by invading armies.

 

When we passed the church/cathedral, we can see that all churches were still hold services. It was impressive to see so many people praying in the church that some had to kneel down at the corridor and back.

 

This is St. John’s Archcathedral. It is a Catholic church in Warsaw’s Old Town and the only one archcathedral in Warsaw. It is one of the oldest churches in the city and the main church of the Warsaw archdiocese. St. John’s Archcathedral is one of Poland’s national pantheons. Along with the city, the church has been listed by UNESCO as of cultural significance. 

 

Warsaw’s Old Town Market Place(Polish: Rynek Starego Miasta) is the center and oldest part of the Old Town of Warsaw. Immediately after the Warsaw Uprising, it was systematically blown up by the German Army. After World War II, the Old Town Market Place was restored to its prewar appearance. Now there are restaurants, cafés and shops around the Old Town Market Place.

 

Tom chose a traditional polish restaurant at the Square. I have to say Tom is a very effective communicator, friendly and open-minded. I enjoyed discussing business, colleagues, culture and hobbies etc. with him. It was good to discuss business issues outside of the office.

 

Tom asked me whether I have T’s photo on my iPhone. He was surprised when I answered no. I think the most important is you have somebody in your heart instead of on your phone. 😉 I told Tom I even never bought a birthday card for T and T either. Just two days after, T broke his record.  🙂

 

I can’t remember why we suddenly discussed the Chinese Zodiac. Tom asked me Chinese Zodiac of this year, I answered Dragon. Tom asked who decides which year is what animal? Is it Chinese government? I couldn’t help laughing. I was not laughing at him, but quite amused by his answer. You can’t imagine somebody who went toChina12 years ago and dealt with Chinese businesses for the past decade. And read “Economist” aboutChinaall the time, but did not know about basic Chinese culture.

 

Anyway I have been living inBritainalready nine years, many things I still do not know. I explained to him that Chinese Zodiac is a scheme that relates each year to an animal and its reputed attributes, according to a 12-year mathematical cycle.

 

When I said both Martin and I are Oxen. Tom asked what are the traits of Oxen? Are they all hard working and diligent? Shall we recruit only Ox next time? I laughed and told him that I am not sure these traits apply to all Oxen. I did read a few books of Chinese Zodiac when I was a teenager, but never care about it too much afterwards. I believe each person has his/her own personality.

 

Tom asked me about his Zodiac. I told him it is difficult to say because his birthday is around Chinese New Year. If his birthday before the Chinese New Year Day in that year, he is a Snake, otherwise would be a horse. He laughed and said he prefer to be a horse! To my surprise he searched the Internet first thing when he returned the hotel that night.

 

Tom ordered fish and I had rabbit. Normally I do not have heavy meal in the evening and also have early dinner compared to British. Because of heavy and late dinners inPoland, I increased almost 2kgs in five days.   😦

 

Thursday Tom and I went to see one of my main suppliers. The most exciting part is always the plant tour, which gave me chance to see the production process. After this tour, I am fully confident of my suggestion – I did not agree with KC’s decision to allocate one of projects to this supplier. Tom agrees with me and we made a rough calculation if we move this business to another supplier, it will give us at least 800 – 900K US dollars saving for the next two years with current demand. If our demand keeps growing, the total savings can over a million.

 

I had a late dinner on Thursday evening and went to bed around 11pm. Woke up at 2.00am in the early morning. Started working until 5.00am to have room service breakfast and check out the hotel at 6.00am. Tom and I had to fly from Warsawto the South of Poland –Rzeszowto visit another supplier.

 

Tom said happy birthday to me on the way to the airport. He is really a thoughtful boss. When we visited another supplier inBurnleyin March, he took me to the railway station. He thought I may miss my train and told me that he would drive around in case I missed my train I can call him. As he expected, I was 2 minutes late and the train had gone. After I phoned him, he parked car and met me at the station, checked that I needn’t to buy a new ticket, bought water and food for me to eat on the way back.

 

Maybe because I never had a good boss before, I do appreciate whatever he does for me. To my surprise before the Easter Holiday when I sat in the pub with other colleagues I heard their comments about Tom are totally different to my impression.

 

Tom sent everybody a text message to say thank you for everyone’s hard work during these difficult weeks. As a boss, he works much longer times than anybody else in the office. He can still text everybody shows his appreciation. I don’t understand why my colleagues are still moaning?

 

Once after a meeting with Tom, he asked me where he needs to improve? I almost said you are perfect. J It is easy to say that to my friends, but sounds weird to say that to my boss. Actually he is perfect in my eyes.

 

After landing at Rzeszow, it took another hour to go to the factory by car. This is my biggest supplier. Sometimes I feel sorry when they come to NHT, I can not treat them a dinner or lunch and even not a cup of coffee or tea due to our company rules. I really don’t understand we spend millions every year on this supplier, why we can’t treat them nicely? I always keep good relationship with my suppliers, sometimes they are more like my friends.

 

Even my supplier noticed that I was overloaded. This is the supplier that once said I worked so efficient, like the lightning. Irek told me he only knows two persons working during the weekends – one is his big boss in theUSand another is me.

 

2.00 pm after the meeting, the supplier brought Tom and I to a local restaurant for lunch. The restaurant is made of wood, like a house in child’s fairy tale. Everything in the restaurant is made of wood – chairs, tables and decorations. Even the menu was engraved on the wood and felt quite heavy. (All these photos were taken by supplier’s mobile.)

 

The oven behind us is for traditional polish bakery. Tom told everyone it is my birthday. One Polish traditional dish is called dumpling. It is quite like Chinese Dumpling (Jiao zi), but theirs are bigger and are fried.

 

Our plane was 18.30 from Rzeszow to Stansted. The terminal looks like a hut from outside because there are only two lounges. Tom joked with me and asked whether he should buy a bottle of champagne to celebrate my birthday? I told him to save it for 12 days after. We all laughing because that was the first day he gave me the first round interview. Tom said that his impression was that I was so calm after the car breaking down and being an hour late.

 

When I returned home it was almost 10.00pm. T prepared a birthday card and birthday cake for me. I have known him 14 years and this is the first time I received birthday card from T. (Thanks forNancy’s birthday card.)

 

To give somebody a birthday card is not Chinese tradition, whereas inBritaincards become more like an obligation. I remember Luca, my ex-colleague, he told me that his English wife writes a card in return to say thank you for receiving a card. Particularly in the company, people are always writing cards when somebody is leaving or having a birthday. The funny thing is one day Martin passed me a card to write, I noticed that everybody wrote best wishes for the new job and he wrote happy birthday! He even did not know who it is for and for what reason. I really don’t like this type of formality card. If I receive a card like this, it will go to the bin directly.

 

For the last ten years, I only took my initiative to post several cards. I always believe thought is much more important than formality. If somebody remembers my birthday, a simple “happy birthday” is enough instead of sending me a formality card. But I appreciate everything specially prepared for me. I like T’s card, typical English sense of humor. I couldn’t help laughing when I read it.

 

I know the cake T bought is for me to bring to the office. It suits locals taste, but not for my taste. I still like Chinese cakes as they are not so sweet.