Dead Busy

This morning I had arranged to spend time working on reception in the hotel here. I wanted to get to know the staff and to understand all the procedures they use - including the all important system for reporting to the police who is staying at the hotel.

 

There's a special machine that processes guests' identities. By placing the card on top of a blue box, the card holder's photograph, name, address and personal details all appear on a computer screen. The computer then emails all the details to the local police station. The receptionist then has to fill in two paper copies of the information that are used as an audit trail. One copy is kept at the hostel, the other copy is filed with the police station every month for them to check that everything matches up.

 

The police had visited early this morning and dropped off a photo of a man. The man working on reception told me the police want us to be aware that the man is a suspected criminal and we should call them if he arrives. The man was asleep in the photo and looked very peaceful. I suppose that is sort of helpful if you think he might be staying in the hotel and you sneak in to look at all the sleeping folk.

 

A few hours later, a police man arrived. He was holding another copy of the photo and told the other receptionist that this man had possibly stayed  in our hotel in the past but he wouldn't be staying again. The police just needed her help to find the man's name. The man in the picture wasn't asleep. He was dead.  My colleague spent an hour flicking through all the photos of all the guests who had stayed within the period the policeman outlined. I felt strange looking at all the faces passing by on screen and wondering if one of them was now the dead man I was looking at on a piece of paper.

 

I was so distracted by this incident that it didn't occur to me to ask why the police weren't the ones flicking through endless photos trying to find the man's identity. No one else seemed to think that anything about this was odd, so my guess is it's a regular occurrence.  

My First Meeting

This afternoon I had my first formal project meeting with my boss, Mrs Shi. I bombed! I made the huge mistake of preparing for the session in English and then spent a lot of time translating sentences (badly) in my head. It was painful for both of us! 

 

My Chinese is fine in informal situations and I don't mind that it takes me much longer to say things than my rapid fire English delivery - but when I have to access my business vocubulary and the verbs that you would use for your boss (rather than in regular speech), I am a bumbling mess.

 

We muddled through and got some decisions made but it had made me realise how much work I have to do, not only on this huge project, but also on my Chinese ability.

 

Once more into the breech!

Back - and in business

I am back in Shanghai. My working visa is sitting happily in my passport and as soon as the Spring festival holiday period is over, I will apply for my resident's permit - a joyously bureaucratic experience involving the four corners of this fair city.

 

I arrived at 7am this morning to this exciting new world with its new American president. I missed all the action as I was watching terrible films in a tin box flying across the gobi desert...luckily Sam is in Washington and so I have very good videos, photos and blog updates to read.

 

I started work at 10am. I am now the manager of The Phoenix - a cultural activity center, bar and hostel in the middle of Shanghai. Rather a different role to my last few - but exciting and challenging as we're starting it from scratch and the majority of my work will be done in Chinese. I am writing this while I figure out how to write my plan for the next 12 months in Mandarin. The place is still a building site - but has improved dramatically since I left in December. The bar is on the roof and overlooked by some impressive skyscrapers. I'll put photos up soon.

 

I've had an interesting lesson in recruitment and management today, the first of many I suspect. I hired an intern to help with the project management over the next few months, she was due to arrive in Shanghai from Chongqing and collected by my friend and colleague, Aaron. Sadly, her flight was delayed by 6 hours and due to other commitments, Aaron couldn't meet her. She arrived at the site and was so unimpressed by her surroundings and welcome that she left without speaking to Aaron or me and put herself straight back on a plan to Sichuan and didn't answer any phone calls for 2 days! Remarkable! I tried to be understanding about it, and you'll all be able to imagine how awful I felt that she didn't have a nice welcome, but now I'm just left feeling like she's a bit too delicate for me.

 

Perhaps my jet lag is making me harsh.

 

So, tomorrow I'm writing a business plan in Chinese and recruiting interns who can cope with the odd hitch.