Xiamen

Looking back at this month you can pretty clearly see it is threadbare in terms of posting. The reason for that sorry state of affairs is that at the beginning of the month I was in Xiamen, China.
There really isn't too much to report.

Up at 6:30am most days, outsourcing company by 8am, lunch and dinner there, head out ~6pm, work in hotel lobby until late, talk to my girlfriend on Skype, sleep, and do it again. Besides talking to my girlfriend the highlight was seeing the graffiti below (it says "Heaven"):
I was there solely for work and that is exactly what I did. I arrived on Wednesday and then worked full days (plus using a few hours of hotel wifi to do more work when I got back) until I left on a Tuesday. So basically full days sitting in an outsourcing factory going crazy with emails, Skype, and all manner of other communication.

Back story is that I was there to monitor some outsourcing production we were doing. The company we were working with has a good reputation and in the end turned out a good product. The problem was that every step along the way was fraught with errors, problems, or delays. What should have been a quick project dragged on far too long. I'll keep the details confidential but it should suffice to say that the outsourcer had some serious problems with production management. At one point, the problems came to a head for me. Those of you who know me know that I do not get visibly angry very often--especially not in front of customers or in a professional setting. But this was not most times. Seeing these problems and the lack of urgency on the part of the workers made me very angry. Thinking like a Chinese person I knew there had to be a hard response but one that would allow everyone to save face.

So I first worked myself up even more to prepare for my show (I was angry but what I did was more of a show). When I was angry enough I took the lady in charge of this project and the manager aside for a terse conversation in Chinese. Basically, I told them, "We are going back to the office now! I cannot accept this situation because it has already taken you so much time to adjust this machine and we've had too many delays." That was to let the manager know I was angry. Then as we walked back to the office and inside the office I tried my best to bust the chops of the lady in charge out of ear shot of other; to let her save face. When I finished she went away smarting. I have no idea if it worked but after waiting 5 hours to that point the adjustments were done within 45 minutes. But, damn, did it feel good. Now I know why my GM likes to bust chops so much.

After that there were still problems. But we got things done and I've been taking care of shipping since then. Toward the end I was just tired of things. I was tired of the problems, tired of delays, and tired of not seeing my girlfriend. I made sure things were set and then promptly came back to Taiwan.