哭笑不得

There is a Chinese idiom (哭笑不得) that means “not knowing whether to laugh or cry.” That pretty much explains last night. The machine I spent all that time working on last week had problems over the weekend and could not run. So Sunday and some of Saturday were already lost for production and we were already behind on an order.

Well the local agent came in and couldn’t do anything, as is usual. So it went a lot like last week where I would take pictures and send emails to the company that makes the machine and then end up calling them to light fires under their asses to help us (some of those people have to hate me). I brought in my computer and used the built-in camera to make Skype calls so they could see what we were doing.

After many calls and instant messages (around 9PM) we found the entire problem that caused the machine to shut down was a loose plug in an outlet. At that point, I was not sure whether to laugh or cry—we had stopped production for two days and the second time in a week while we have a million piece order for Thailand this week—all for a loose plug.

We managed to pull off the order in time, which makes me look good to my boss and is nothing short of a miracle. But this makes me look like a dumbass to the customer since I warned them that we may be late twice only to be on time.

I really need some sleep after this last week. I can tell I am getting a little sick so I think I’m going to take it easy tonight and go to bed early.