The Company Memo

We began shift work on Tuesday, meaning they had too many people with too little to do at once, so they divide us up and have us sit around twiddling our thumbs in small groups.  When something does pop up there are like 4-5 people hovering around the problem contributing minimal input while two who actually know what they are doing attend to the issue.  This has been an issue throughout my time with this department in the games, but here it really is par for the course because that is the cultural mindset of China.  There are so many additional workers for each position compared to other places.  There is a catered cafeteria in the IBC where we get our meals, and the kitchen is really funny to watch because there are so many cooks, they can't really move around.  I'm really loving having 20 ounce cokes that are the equivalent of about 60 cents.  Also the bottled water being even cheaper has been really nice.  Its strange to see what is more and less expensive here.  Shrimp is far cheaper to get than chicken or beef.  They don't really have cheese here.  That is noticeable.  

Now on to the good stories from Tuesday.  Let me give you some context. We have a unique picture ID accreditation to get into our building.  It is checked everytime by official military officers.  Very thorough.  Then you need a magnetized keycard to get into the BOB Tech area, where I work.  In the past the key card has been given to us either with a hole in it for a lanyard to be attached or in a lanyard itself so it can easily hang around our necks.  We go in and out of the room with some regularity at times, and its nice to have it around our necks for instant access.  This time we have to basically keep them in our pockets.  I'm all about efficiency, solutions, and best practices.  So George, my Greek friend from Athens, and I thought it would be smart to drill a hole in the card for a lanyard.  Its been done before, why not do it here?  We have drills.  So he gets the drill and puts a beautiful little hole in my card near the top middle section.  We go outside to check it at the door, and it doesn't work!  Then much to my chagrin, I notice a little speck of copper wire that is now discontinued in the hole.  We looked at each other with a collective look that said, Oh Crap, that was not a best practice.  Luckily he had a contact upstairs that could get me another card, but as that was being processed during the day, an all company memo was put out asking that we refrain from drilling holes in our card, because it might not work anymore.  Apparently I was not alone in my efforts, but I was the straw that broke the key card ladies back, necessitating an all company memo.  That is my first and hopefully last, and I did get a copy of it for future proof.  

The other fun activity which I got to partake in was the picking up of the punch tool from the Koreans.  I volunteered for this activity for two reasons.  One, it was something to do, and would allow me the opportunity to see some more of the building.  Two, the Koreans are notorious gift givers.  So I went in search of SBS Broadcasting.  Found it, recovered the punch tool, and received a token of appreciation.  A writing pen, with SBS written on it, that also had a built in LED light and laser point on the back.  Very useful for small dark wire chasing issues, and annoying other members of the team from across the room with a red dancing laser light.  The pen side actually broke within two uses, but the lights still work.  Today we are to test with the Koreans which brings up the final comical reflection.  Here we are in China.  We have like 8 Chinese students.  They've spent the last two days....learning how to confidently test in English.  What is wrong with this picture?  Our supervisor has been practicing with them on English numbers and the needed test phrases so all the other broadcasters won't feel like we've outsourced our testing, some will know what I mean by that.  That's all for now.  Exciting happening to look forward to today: Uniform distribution.