A/B: July 2007

I received a report a couple of days ago from a China client, complaining that our products are all scratched(aka fucked, since no-scratches is the standard). They commented that nothing will save it, so they are gonna charge all cost of the materials to us since they provided the materials to us in the first place...

It is shocking news to me and my dad. Firstly, no one would possibly be able to pay for those materials since they are non-standard products and cannot be found in asia, as far as we know. It was custom made from Africa, sold to Singapore and then resold to our client. And it takes 3 months to create it, too. So even if anyone has got money, they wouldn't be able to speed up the process. With such a delay, the amount of manpower set aside to install these goods would be totally wasted. We are talking about 300-1000 people here, with highly paid 1 manager per 10-20 people...

Secondly, I, being in charge of QC, has been there for 50% of the time and has paid special attention to this batch of goods since its so freakin important. I cannot apprehend how these boards could possibly be screwed up since I've been fucking everyone to make them bear in mind how easily these materials can be damaged. Its surface, in reality, is almost as soft as tofu. Even a person with long fingernails would damage the materials if there's no safety tape on it...its that easy.

So we found our clients QC. And the client's client's QC. We opened up the latest batch of goods which I brought over personally. No damage, except for 5 pieces in the front. It was a case of accident, caused by my dear undead goblins who really, cannot be pack things properly. I fired the fella over the phone, with immediate effect, as a show of determination to get things right. I learnt that from local tv and authorities :o

The 2 QCs were generally around my age. We weren't very friendly at first, knowing that someone's gotta take the blame for these mishaps/accidents. Atmosphere was tense and everyone was unhappy about the quality of goods. But no one pointed fingers at anyone yet.

Client QC: Eh how to settle this? all your goods are scratched. if we use it, we're gonna be so fucked...
Client's Client's QC: Yeah. Fai, how?
Me: I'm not quite sure if its our fault that these materials are damaged. When it left our factory it was as perfect. I personally checked it all and I've photos to prove it.(K800i, my anti-responsibility device)
Client QC: But how do you explain all the goods are damaged now?
Me: Well, I don't think its my workers because, we are all trained on how to handle these materials with extreme care. Your workers aren't.

Babble babble babble. I couldn't argue with them much on the topic; they are the client. they are always right. Talk more, annoy them more. Annoy them more, your life = more miserable.

So there, we verbally promised to pay for the goods. A bold move.
The meeting ended amicably, since we had already taken the blame temporarily.

Dad left me at the factory to supervise further movement/transportation of the goods and to have dinner with the QCs. We checked a couple of the latest batch; no problem. Into the electroplating plant it went. Then we had dinner at a restaurant, talked a lot. I took the opportunity to squeeze some internal information about their companies and I got what I wanted. Anyway, these two guys were university grads, earning a quarter of what i do and actually only graduated half a year ago. We had some good food and banter. Everyone was happy.

Casually, I placed into their pockets (knowingly) what they earned for a month. The temptation was big for them. I gave them further reasons to pocket it, like 'oh your boss that day, told me to pass this money to you for your transportation and lodging here...', etc. Lame excuses, but its citizens of china that you're dealing with. Works a treat :)

The reports coming from them the next day, was much, much more pleasant than before. All the damage reported was halved, which was actually true. It was just that someone was trying refuse to work on this project, thats all.

I was glad the little money minimized the problem for us. Now what is left to pay, is about SGD$100,000. On a positive note, its been halved. What more could we ask for?

---

That night after dinner with the QCs, I took a bus to wander around that area. It was all industrial zone, full of ceramic factories and distributors. Pollution was extremely heavy and a thick fog of smoke was constant on the road. I felt like i was breathing in sand. Coughing was continuous; there was no 1 minute without anyone coughing...

The bus came to a t junction. I saw a body lying in a pool of blood. A damaged bicycle was a few metres away from the body. A hit and run incident has occurred. Many vehicles passed by, none bothered to stop. They were not intending to become involved in such an incident. That's the general thinking of all these bastards around here.

I got off the bus, asked someone for a number to call an ambulance. They told me to call police first, because the police would arrange an ambulance over together with them. That sounded fine to me. I stood next to the body and waited an answer from the 110. They were very busy; 1 whole minute to answer the bloody phone? what the fuck?

An impatient lady answered the phone, demanded the reason for calling and first my name and contact number. I told her what happened, but she was amazing with the misinterpretion. I told her an UNKNOWN car has knocked someone down, she asked me what are the TWO CAR'S plate number. etc etc etc... yes. They are, the amazingly deaf/misinterpreting police officers.

10 minutes later, the police arrived. They acknowledge arrival to location and declared they have found the body. ONLY THEN THEY CALLED FOR THE AMBULANCE...

So that's a total of 25 minutes to get an ambulance. A person in such a state probably can't wait even for more than 8-10 minutes lor. What are they thinking anyway? I personally conclude it as a total lack of values for other people's lives.

When the ambulance came, they took their own sweet time to go walk up to the body, touched a little and confirmed she's dead by feeling for breath through the nostrils. What the fuck? What happened to checking for pulse? And then they left quickly, telling police officers to get the funeral car to pick up the body...

The crowd gathered on the road to check out the latest drama. Half an hour later, they were all there. No efforts was made to tell those idiots to fuck off the road before another accident happens again... well done.

For me, this has been an eye opening experience for me. Don't expect anyone to call the ambulance for you unless you have 'save my life for RMB$102354263577566' written on you somewhere. That is all.

I've been entrusted with more important task in the factory these days, since my dear Goblin Zombie Taskmaster has not been executing his orders properly through his own methods.

The scalar chain of command needs to be enforced. Paperwork on quality/quantity of our products must be done to ensure all our products are done well. But goblins / zombies / goblin zombies can't do such things. If they could, we Hongkies won't get paid exorbitant salaries to work there... haha~

I plan to introduce a new system in the factory. I call it, the "mission note".
All task assigned to the goblin zombies will be written on paper and stamped with my personal seal. Whenever goblin zombies complete fulfills the requirements/completes the mission, I'll reward them with cash when they turn in the note and show me the completed tasks. If they don't, then I'll mark the note as 'failed'... and they will be punished if they can't complete it more than a given number of chances.

Its like a dog treat. It is.

A part of me feels wrong to treat people like that. The other part tells me to feed cat food to cats and feed dog food to dogs, not feed human food to any of these animals.

And oh, I think I'd hire another personal secretary to do all that chinese writing for me. She'll be pretty, has technical knowledge on our products, intelligent, helpful, etc etc... :x

...

Enough of fantasy and back to reality. That would probably not work, because the monetary incentive would be really costly. We have so much things to do... imagine paying them $100 to get a job done? What if we have like 500 jobs for them to do? Shitty.

What if they disagree on the terms provided and refuse to work? That'd suck too. Maybe they'd even give me a punch if i deem their work as shitty :o

But the scalar chain of command... it really has to be enforced...

...

You guys don't need to understand what I'm saying. I'm just frustrated over stupid people that are working for us... bloody goblin zombie peons+taskmasters... grr...