Managing the Midnight Fat (2000/05/28)

Many people have been asking me why I am working every day until midnight! Well, here is the answer:

I work in a very small company. But we have much work to do. I have had to become a Cam-of-All-Trades so to speak.

I am the design manager.

Currently at work I am in the process of designing our new image on paper; I have spent the last month and a half working with my best friend back home - he has been designing our new catalogues, and a lot of other stuff. The printer here just finished printing a big batch (I wrecked a bunch - about 50 - when the puncher went awry!)

I am the planning manager.

We - no, I- am so busy getting ready for MIDO 2000, the biggest optical fair in the world. This is our first year to participate in it (Milano, Italia) so I have to do everything. My boss can't help because he doesn't speak English. It has been really difficult getting space, extremely tough trying to figure out how to rent the stuff we need, etc. etc. I am also responsible for all the scanning of images, cutting, "pasting" and making our complete technical manuals. I have to do all the translations for the new products that my boss suddenly wants to display! This is my weakest point - If I don't have peace and quiet, I cannot translate from J to E at all. And there is no peace and quiet in my job!!!

I am the promotions manager.

On top of that I have been trying to contact as many companies in Italy as possible (through targeted e-mail (which seems to work great, by the way!)). I write clever e-mails and faxes, experimenting with different approaches to see which is most effective. I also have to talk directly with the printer here to make sure all of our posters, and handout cards are printed and correct (actually I misspelled PAVILION - to PAVILLION!!! and printed out 300 handout cards on color laser before noticing the spelling error! I hope people pass it up - I will just say my Japanese staff did it and I didn't get to see it before it went to the printer).

I am the sales manager.

Many have responded and want to meet me. I have asked them if I can meet at their businesses after the fair as we will all be very busy and probably not able to have a relaxed, in-depth talk. Many agree so I have had to extend my stay a week and travel 200miles around the country in three or so days by rent-a-car to find their companies. I have no idea where they are because the cities they state never seem to be on any maps I can find of Italy! So now I have to try to plan all these meetings. If we had time, I could leave the booth and visit their booths - which I really NEED to do. But there are only two English-speakers in our entire company - the other one is Chinese in Hong Kong. As she will be likely very busy with her own clients from Asia, if I leave, then the majority of the people will not be able to communicate. So what does my boss say? "You may NOT leave the booth." Does it make sense? No. Especially since I have gathered so many people that want to see me at their booths!!! Why am I wasting my time on advertising if I can't do the follow-up? I ask you!

I am the stock manager.

I have to go every day to the warehouse, receive our stock, categorize it, record it. This takes a tremendous amount of time as we have a lot of heavy products that come in on a daily basis. When customers purchase, I need to choose the products to ship out and be sure that all records are true and correct.

I am the shipping manager.

All product that is ordered from my customers, and from the other offices around the world have to be processed by me. I take the order (usually they are via e-mail, these days), find the product at the warehouse, lug it back. Lug it upstairs. Lug it to the tiny office in the back - my office-workspace. I have to make the boxes because most of the ones we have or ordered don't fit that well. I have to pack everything, make the invoices, contact the shippers and ship out. I also have to do all the documents.

I am the finance manager.

Once the invoices are all complete I have to record all of the money transactions in the books, being sure that the trading side of the business and the head office books are all balanced on every account. This is very important of course.

I am the translator.

Now that we have machines we want to sell in Europe, Asia, etc. I have to do all the translating from Japanese to English. Do I have the time? If I ignore all of my Euro clients, all of my Asian clients I do!

I am the head secretary.

Every call/fax/email that comes in to me gets forwarded to me, by me. I have to deal with all the telephone communications.

I am the delivery boy.

I have to take the orders for in-Japan and deliver them to the customers, driving all around the city and dropping off the stuff.

I am the webmaster.

Currently I am redesigning our website - wait until you see the change! Fast and cool. How is this for a catch phrase: "At (our company) we don't just sell material, we provide solutions!" This takes a tremendous amount of time. To me it is the most important aspect, and the one I have the least amount of time for. It is what I was hired to do, but what I have no time for. It is what I am still doing at midnight every night when every other sane person is asleep in their bed.

I am almost done. I need some diagram schematics that were supposed to arrive yesterday. The shipping company lost the documents - a grave mistake on their part. A very "secret" venture that we are partnered in could go awry if these documents are not found immediately. They are also supposed to go to the printers so we can make our tech manuals and put 500 sets of 40pp each together before we have to ship all of the MIDO stuff out on next Friday! (It all went out, they all came back, the web page got redesigned, MIDO went off fantastically and now I am busier than ever!)

Talk about a busy life! Sometimes I look back and long for the 11-7 with lots of free time to enjoy the mountains, the sun, the air. But then I think to myself, "this is so much damn fun!"

Have a great weekend. C

2000/05/28