First Day of Work

On Monday we started our first day at CNR Mall. Rick and I had plans to meet one of the head translators at the hotel in the morning so she could accompany us to CNR for our first day and so we could meet our driver for the duration for the month. We ended up running into Adam and Abbe, who are from QVC US and are here on a year-long assignment, and they helped us find our driver--no translator to be found!

We arrive and CNR, the driver let's us out, and I begin to start asking him in English if he will pick us up there tonight, but obviously he doesn't understand a word that I'm saying. I point to my watch and he takes out his phone and brings up an email in Chinese and the only thing I can make out is 18:15--our pick-up time--booya. So I nod my head in excitement, point at him, then point at myself and Rick, and then point at the ground--apparently that means "please meet us here for pick-up". We had literally been there for 18 hours and the language barrier was already apparent.

Since our translator didn't meet us, we have zero idea about where we're supposed to go. We decided to walk through the first floor and see a security guard behind a glass door--looks promising. He buzzes us in, we approach his table and he hands me a clipboard with a paper all in Chinese. I look at him and Rick and just start laughing--I start to motion to him tying to let him know I have no idea what the paper says. He points to it and gives me a pen--hilarious. I bring up an email on my phone and I point to the translator's name and motion that I'm talking on a telephone, I point to him and then to the number on my phone--motioning like, "you call this person for me." He gets up, and walks into a room and then about 3-4 people come out and  girl who speaks pretty good English asks us if we're on-air guests. Rick and I are cracking up and we're like, No! No! Not on-air guests--here from QVC United States! I show the girl my phone and the translator's number and ask if she can call her for me because we don't know where to go. She takes us in their version of a green room, which consisted of a couch and a table and a man sleeping, and then our translator comes to get us.

Language barrier: 2

Lauren and Rick: 0

Seriously, no one better challenge me to a game of charades when I get home. 

Once we found out where we were going, the CNR Mall team gave us such a warm welcome! We were given a tour of every floor and met with various people in each department. Rick and I met our translators Nicky and Glenda and found out where we will be sitting for the month. We met with team members in the morning and several team members took us out for lunch at a local restaurant. This was my first time experiencing a lazy susan at a meal--basically all the food goes onto the lazy susan and then you spin it around any time you want to get more food. I am pretty decent at using chopsticks, but of course the first thing they bring out is a tofu dish. I'm thinking to myself, are you effing kidding me? How am I going to grab tofu with my chopsticks and then not manage to drop it when putting it on my plate?! Luckily I made it, but just barely. I think they did it on purpose to test our skills! So once the tofu comes out, the dishes start coming out one after another and the lazy susan is packed. Everything was really good and the team was excited to see us try everything they ordered for us. 

We arrived back at the office around 1:30 and then had more meetings scheduled for the afternoon. This is where my jetlag starts to kick in. When I was in New Zealand my jetlagged kicked in at a café and I got dizzy, went back to my hostel and slept for 12 hours straight. When I woke up, my bunk mate in the room, was like, oh great, you're not dead! So as you can imagine--this is the same 12 hour time difference and I am started to get all kinds of delirious. We were sitting in a meeting and the fog on my brain just started to set in--I kept trying to take notes and drink water. We had our last meeting of the day and I became borderline narcoleptic. I think my translator Nicky was mortified. I went back to look at my notes the next day and it was all gibberish. I think they all understood since we had just arrived the afternoon, but it was still very embarrassing to say the least. The jetlag gods caught up with Rick the following day, so I didn't feel as bad!

So a quick snapshot of hat our day looks like... 

7:45am: Rick and I meet in the lobby to get a ride from our driver Mr. Liu

8:45/8:50am: Arrive at CNRMall 

9-12pm: we have a typical work day like meetings and email, etc. One thing we need to plan for every day is having our documents translated prior to any meetings that we have with the teams. This helps our translators (Nicky and Glenda) help communicate to the teams better so they don't have to think on the spot (but they do and they're quite amazing at their jobs!)

12-1pm: Everyone in the building takes lunch--everyone! It's a mass exodus to the convenience store and the break rooms, some people bring lunch and eat at their desks. Other people have pillows at their desks and they sleep for an hour (seriously). There is this one guy that has a pillow that looks like a watermelon and every day when we come back from lunch, he is just taking a snooze. I am in love with this concept.

1-6pm: More work and meetings, etc. I asked why everyone works until 6pmand was told that the shuttles that everyone takes to and from work every day arrive at 6pm, so they have the work day go this long so everyone can get the shuttle home.