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.