I dropped my businesscard holder-thing (kind of like a small wallet but for businesscards) on the train and realized I had lost it only hours later. The businesscards I couldn't care less for but I had stashed aside some 700 Hongkong Dollars there and I worried suffering a financial loss due to my carelessness.
So, half-way to a meeting somewhere in the outskirts of Guangzhou I realize I don't have the holder with me. "Blast!", I think to myself, "I put it in my pocket, I'm sure of it." Well, it wasn't there and I started thinking of all the places I could've put it but nothing came to my mind. As I remembered clearly having it with me at morning, it left only one option: I had dropped it somewhere. "Aiyaa.. I hope it's in the car we too since from there I could recover it." I was painfully aware of the fact it was more likely I dropped it in the train when having my jacket on my lap. If I dropped it in the train, how would I get it back? Moreso, with 700 HKD inside the holder, how could anyone (especially if a mainland Chinese (700 is almost the average monthly income) found it).
Well, I didn't get to think about it too much when my mobile phone started ringing. It was a man, from Hong Kong obviously which could be heard from his accent, who spoke good english in a nice and polite manner. He told me they had found a card-holder such as mine at the train and that I could pick it up from there. I think he mentioned something about the money but later I wasn't completely sure because the call caught me a little off-guard and I didn't really want to say things like "so, just to double-check, the money is still in there?" on the meeting table. So, I thanked the person and closed the phone.
Two things came to my mind. First, did he say anything about the money? I think he did, but I wasn't sure. Finding it was nice enough but the money was my main concern. Second, how on earth did he get my cellphone number? It's not in my namecards and even I need to check my number from a piece of paper because I don't remember it (just got it a few weeks back). Well, doesn't really matter.. I suppose he had called office at first and asked for my number - but still it's quite perculiar how it went.
Well, I go to the Hung Hom station next morning to pick the holder up. They ask me a bunch of questions related to its appearance and also ask for ID, and have me sign a few papers. Then they bring the holder. And the money 's in! Hot damn! All of it! I didn't believe such honesty exists! I know I would've probably returned it with all the money (I would feel bad if I didn't... got to get rid of these restraining morals!) but I know most wouldn't.
If you found EURO 70 folded in a small holder with a few businesscards.. what would you do?
Saturday, 28 April 2007
Sunday, 22 April 2007
The Great Fair Adventure
The trip to Guanzhou was a great disapointment: despite our best efforts, we didn't receive a single free pen. That's the main purpose of trade fairs. Free pens. Second most important purpose is to make good business connections. However, in comparison, it falls way behind the free-pen-factor. Last year at the Guangzhou fair we managed to pile up at least five or six pens per person - a fair result in my opinion.
Nevertheless, the Great Fair Adventure experience wasn't tarnished by this bitter defeat. With roughly four hours of traveling per direction and additional five to six hours of walking at the fair managed to convince me that fairs are the greatest human invention - ever. Even greater than sliced bread. I mean, who wouldn't enjoy walking through a selection of hundreds similar company displays - none being what we were searching for. It is peculiar how even from a group of 20,000 companies there, we couldn't really find what we were looking for. Well... Luckily we found some good companies so it wasn't all an utter waste of time. Yet, it could've been better.
There will be plenty of fairs still to go within the next month. My feet will literally climb up from below and kill me. I'm sure.
.. ah, the great fair adventure.
On a side note, I went out last night with friends and it was fun. Lan Kwai Fong is ever so generous in good scenery to behold at. Unfortunately we didn't stay there for the whole even but were dragged to Wan Chai's shady areas and so the evening became night, and night became morning. So, yeah... history repeating itself: I was back home at 06:00. Fun as fun can be. Well, it wasn't all bad; going it out is fun and this time it wasn't too expensive in the end. It's great having someone pay for everything but it's also something my liver usually disagrees with. (More info on some of the other blogs.)
Nevertheless, the Great Fair Adventure experience wasn't tarnished by this bitter defeat. With roughly four hours of traveling per direction and additional five to six hours of walking at the fair managed to convince me that fairs are the greatest human invention - ever. Even greater than sliced bread. I mean, who wouldn't enjoy walking through a selection of hundreds similar company displays - none being what we were searching for. It is peculiar how even from a group of 20,000 companies there, we couldn't really find what we were looking for. Well... Luckily we found some good companies so it wasn't all an utter waste of time. Yet, it could've been better.
There will be plenty of fairs still to go within the next month. My feet will literally climb up from below and kill me. I'm sure.
.. ah, the great fair adventure.
On a side note, I went out last night with friends and it was fun. Lan Kwai Fong is ever so generous in good scenery to behold at. Unfortunately we didn't stay there for the whole even but were dragged to Wan Chai's shady areas and so the evening became night, and night became morning. So, yeah... history repeating itself: I was back home at 06:00. Fun as fun can be. Well, it wasn't all bad; going it out is fun and this time it wasn't too expensive in the end. It's great having someone pay for everything but it's also something my liver usually disagrees with. (More info on some of the other blogs.)
Thursday, 19 April 2007
Project management
I just added that brief text about project managers from Wikipedia to introduce my blog. As I was double-checking from wiki what I should actually be doing at office, I realized my work is quite different from that definition. I can relate to that, however, but it just seems like a nice line of fancy words. There's nothing fancy about this work.
However, I like my work. I am my own master.
And it makes sense. I would hate to work with a task that includes a lot of business jargon and theories about Life, the universe, and everything.
I like the fact that I don't have tight deadlines, nor do I need any timetables as such because my work is quite organic and can't be done in a scheduled way. Of course, I set goals to myself and press matters that are turning urgent - but I don't have to take shit from people, at least not that much.
Since I explained my daily routines in the previous post, I might as well explain my job in this one.
I am a project manager, with my main project being my company's sourcing project. Sourcing itself is a relatively simple process: you look up companies that may produce products of interest, you contact them and ask for a quotation. If quotation is good, you order samples; if samples are good, you order more. I have a few clients from Finland and I report directly to them.
My daily routine at work is basically a mixture of looking for companies, communicating with Chinese manufacturers and Finnish clients, and keeping information flowing. In addition I write short reports quite frequently and work with additional projects assigned to me (usually with other bigger concepts our company is working on).
The job itself is quite interesting. I learn a lot about different kind of products, productional issues, and most of all, I work as a negotiator between the Finnish and Chinese parties (I don't really conduct extensive negotiations - I just do the preliminary work, and once it's done, the Finnish client will then take care of the finishing touches). I meet a lot of companies and with it, I meet a lot of interesting people. Chinese business meetings are always interesting - especially when going to mainland's side.
Now that I've said something about the background I do, I can start typing in more rants about stuff that takes place at work.
Tomorrow we head for Guangzhou. It'll be a painfull, sweaty and tiring day. I don't look toward it but it goes with the job. I will report on our trip later.
However, I like my work. I am my own master.
And it makes sense. I would hate to work with a task that includes a lot of business jargon and theories about Life, the universe, and everything.
I like the fact that I don't have tight deadlines, nor do I need any timetables as such because my work is quite organic and can't be done in a scheduled way. Of course, I set goals to myself and press matters that are turning urgent - but I don't have to take shit from people, at least not that much.
Since I explained my daily routines in the previous post, I might as well explain my job in this one.
I am a project manager, with my main project being my company's sourcing project. Sourcing itself is a relatively simple process: you look up companies that may produce products of interest, you contact them and ask for a quotation. If quotation is good, you order samples; if samples are good, you order more. I have a few clients from Finland and I report directly to them.
My daily routine at work is basically a mixture of looking for companies, communicating with Chinese manufacturers and Finnish clients, and keeping information flowing. In addition I write short reports quite frequently and work with additional projects assigned to me (usually with other bigger concepts our company is working on).
The job itself is quite interesting. I learn a lot about different kind of products, productional issues, and most of all, I work as a negotiator between the Finnish and Chinese parties (I don't really conduct extensive negotiations - I just do the preliminary work, and once it's done, the Finnish client will then take care of the finishing touches). I meet a lot of companies and with it, I meet a lot of interesting people. Chinese business meetings are always interesting - especially when going to mainland's side.
Now that I've said something about the background I do, I can start typing in more rants about stuff that takes place at work.
Tomorrow we head for Guangzhou. It'll be a painfull, sweaty and tiring day. I don't look toward it but it goes with the job. I will report on our trip later.
Monday, 16 April 2007
A case of Mondays
Weekend's are great! They're really great! They just pass too fast.
The daily life here is quite fast-paced. A normal weekday so far has looked like this:
07:15 Wake-up
07:55 Off to work
08:55 Arrive at office
12:00 Lunch-break
13:00 Back to work
18:00 Off from work
19:00 Back at the apartment - start cooking
20:00 Eat and watch some TV
23:00 Bedtime, read a book untill you pass out
07:15 Wake-up .... And so on.
That's how it's been so far. Now I started jogging and also need to start going to the gym, so one can add either of those two somewhere between 19:00 and 22:00. And since I finally got an internet connection to my apartment, the TV can be easily replaced with that as well.
Friday is usually a bit different compared to the other weekdays and that's because we quite often go out to Lan Kwai Fong straight from work. Lan Kwai Fong is one of the better known bar-districts of Hong Kong and is an completely different story of its own so I'll come back to that later.
After a long Friday night comes Saturday and usually it's nice to sleep late. However, it is already Saturday. Since weekdays pass so quickly, weekend's come soon as well and take a lot less time to pass, unfortunately. Saturday is my usual cleaning day so once I wake up I vacuum the apartment and clear up any mess I made during the week. Saturday will henceforth also be a longer jogging/excercise day for me - and a day for all the activities I can't do during weekdays because of lack of time. Sundays are the lazy days of just relaxing, and maybe just a nice walk outside - if the weather permits.
So, yeah. I know this kind of a post doesn't really hold much value as such to anyone. But I just thought I'd explain my daily routines to anyone who might be interested.
The bottom line of this all is that weekdays pass really quick. With not much time beyond office, it makes the evenings pass really quickly. Weekends tend to be a bit shortish in terms of full recovery of the past week, but well, that's what I get so I try my best to enjoy them. Vita non est vivere sed valere.
Can't wait to have my annual vacation though!
The daily life here is quite fast-paced. A normal weekday so far has looked like this:
07:15 Wake-up
07:55 Off to work
08:55 Arrive at office
12:00 Lunch-break
13:00 Back to work
18:00 Off from work
19:00 Back at the apartment - start cooking
20:00 Eat and watch some TV
23:00 Bedtime, read a book untill you pass out
07:15 Wake-up .... And so on.
That's how it's been so far. Now I started jogging and also need to start going to the gym, so one can add either of those two somewhere between 19:00 and 22:00. And since I finally got an internet connection to my apartment, the TV can be easily replaced with that as well.
Friday is usually a bit different compared to the other weekdays and that's because we quite often go out to Lan Kwai Fong straight from work. Lan Kwai Fong is one of the better known bar-districts of Hong Kong and is an completely different story of its own so I'll come back to that later.
After a long Friday night comes Saturday and usually it's nice to sleep late. However, it is already Saturday. Since weekdays pass so quickly, weekend's come soon as well and take a lot less time to pass, unfortunately. Saturday is my usual cleaning day so once I wake up I vacuum the apartment and clear up any mess I made during the week. Saturday will henceforth also be a longer jogging/excercise day for me - and a day for all the activities I can't do during weekdays because of lack of time. Sundays are the lazy days of just relaxing, and maybe just a nice walk outside - if the weather permits.
So, yeah. I know this kind of a post doesn't really hold much value as such to anyone. But I just thought I'd explain my daily routines to anyone who might be interested.
The bottom line of this all is that weekdays pass really quick. With not much time beyond office, it makes the evenings pass really quickly. Weekends tend to be a bit shortish in terms of full recovery of the past week, but well, that's what I get so I try my best to enjoy them. Vita non est vivere sed valere.
Can't wait to have my annual vacation though!
Friday, 13 April 2007
On sleep deprivation and headaches
I hate both of them.
Yesterday evening was way too long for a weekday. Went to meet up two friends of ours who came from Guangzhou, China and the original plan was just to say 'hi' and then go - since we knew we would have to work the following day.
Did it go like that? No.
Ended up staying in Tsim Sha Tsui untill 3am or so, and then took a bus back to Tung Chung, which takes around maybe 45 minutes, a small walk and back at the apartment sometime after 4am. It was an awesome evening though and all that, so I've no hard feelings concerning the evening itself. It was just the wrong time.
Got up around 07:30 which gave a nifty 3 hours of sleep. Then to work. Sleep deprivation and headaches (both from the lack of sleep and from drinking a decent amount of beer); gosh I feel Grrrrrreat!
I will never stay up late again, nor will I ever drink.
Well, untill next time.
Yesterday evening was way too long for a weekday. Went to meet up two friends of ours who came from Guangzhou, China and the original plan was just to say 'hi' and then go - since we knew we would have to work the following day.
Did it go like that? No.
Ended up staying in Tsim Sha Tsui untill 3am or so, and then took a bus back to Tung Chung, which takes around maybe 45 minutes, a small walk and back at the apartment sometime after 4am. It was an awesome evening though and all that, so I've no hard feelings concerning the evening itself. It was just the wrong time.
Got up around 07:30 which gave a nifty 3 hours of sleep. Then to work. Sleep deprivation and headaches (both from the lack of sleep and from drinking a decent amount of beer); gosh I feel Grrrrrreat!
I will never stay up late again, nor will I ever drink.
Well, untill next time.
Thursday, 12 April 2007
Bad Badtz-Maru
Life in the office turned a bit better again: I got myself my official "office-mug". Office-mug is the porcelain cup you have on your desk filled with whatever liquid you drink all-day at office (in my case it's water and occationally tea). Office-mug is the porcelain cup that you take with you when you get off your desk to walk around the office, looking important. Office-mug is the porcelain cup that isn't made of cardboard or some sort of styrofoam material. Office-mug is the single most important item at ones desk at any given time. Mine is with pictures of Bad Badtz-Maru, the penguin friend of Hello Kitty. No one in the office really understands me.
I used to have an office-mug that had Fullmetal Alchemist pictures on it but I took it to Finland with me and forgot it there. Now they don't sell those anymore at the close-by shop. I got sad. But Bad Badtz-Maru is almost as good and now I'm not so sad anymore.
I understand none of this really concerns anyone, nor is of any interest. That's why I wrote it here.
Oh well, "parva leves capiunt animas." Or, small things occupy small minds.
Finally getting internet to the apartment on Saturday! Also, finally getting to work on music stuff. Crimson lotus is on the table again with a new song (well, it's been under works for a long time but finally we'll be finishing it up) and also we have plans to make new stuff. Also, I will get to work on my own material which will be fun. It's been over a year since I last did anything even remotely musical and I've been aching to do so for a long, long time.
My laptop doesn't have ASIO soundcard so it'll be a pain in the ass to work around with Cubase, but it'll get me started anyway. I'll get a desktop computer later in the summer and I have a few good soundcards in Finland I can have sent here. So, it'll take some time to get me full-speed, but I will get there! Huzzah for that!
I used to have an office-mug that had Fullmetal Alchemist pictures on it but I took it to Finland with me and forgot it there. Now they don't sell those anymore at the close-by shop. I got sad. But Bad Badtz-Maru is almost as good and now I'm not so sad anymore.
I understand none of this really concerns anyone, nor is of any interest. That's why I wrote it here.
Oh well, "parva leves capiunt animas." Or, small things occupy small minds.
Finally getting internet to the apartment on Saturday! Also, finally getting to work on music stuff. Crimson lotus is on the table again with a new song (well, it's been under works for a long time but finally we'll be finishing it up) and also we have plans to make new stuff. Also, I will get to work on my own material which will be fun. It's been over a year since I last did anything even remotely musical and I've been aching to do so for a long, long time.
My laptop doesn't have ASIO soundcard so it'll be a pain in the ass to work around with Cubase, but it'll get me started anyway. I'll get a desktop computer later in the summer and I have a few good soundcards in Finland I can have sent here. So, it'll take some time to get me full-speed, but I will get there! Huzzah for that!
Wednesday, 11 April 2007
ab imo pectore
I don't like blogs;
I don't like the fact that there should always be something interesting to say about one's day eventhough most of us live relatively dull lives (me included);
I don't like the fact that there should always be some awesome insights on things that we all take for granted - and that should make us ponder of the great questions of life;
I don't like telling deep emotions but I don't like telling about trivial daily issues either. In fact, I'm quite curious myself to see what ends up being writen here.
I don't like blogs, ab imo pectore.
(I don't like people who try to make themselves look smarter by using fancy words and quoting famous people, or typing in latin proverbs)
I don't like the fact that there should always be something interesting to say about one's day eventhough most of us live relatively dull lives (me included);
I don't like the fact that there should always be some awesome insights on things that we all take for granted - and that should make us ponder of the great questions of life;
I don't like telling deep emotions but I don't like telling about trivial daily issues either. In fact, I'm quite curious myself to see what ends up being writen here.
I don't like blogs, ab imo pectore.
(I don't like people who try to make themselves look smarter by using fancy words and quoting famous people, or typing in latin proverbs)
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