Office Fit Out

I once heard the CEO of MNC explain that you will never have as bad a relationship with your board of directors back home as you do when you construct something in China. It is easily the worst relationship I had with my superiors back in the states, and I was just fitting out our office space, 1/2 of which was largely complete when we leased it. I'm very easy going, but that experience is one I hope not to repeat.

It took centuries to get plans approved. Once plans were approved and construction began, things went down hill. Our construction team was constantly harassed by building management and by the city building department. We constructed and tore out and constructed and tore out.

I began to catch a lot of flack at the speed of progress from an otherwise exceptionally understanding group back home. We were leasing space at an exorbitant rate per square meter for office space we were unable to use.

Finally construction was complete and we were ready to call the building department and the fire department for the necessary approvals to obtain our occupancy permit. Both departments had approved the plans and specs and required changes to them prior to approval. The fire department walked in the front door and immediately instructed us to remove all the wood paneling in one half of the premises. I'm a bit confused seeing as how we didn't put up the wood paneling - ie, your office approved it when the prior tenant did fit out - AND you approved the plans and specs we sent you which clearly showed the wood paneling. Nope. Wood paneling had to come down and drywall had to go up.

By this point I was avoiding phone calls from the US hoping that the construction would be complete before I had to face another conversation. No such luck. I promised by boss that we'd have the occupancy permit early the following week (the conversation was on a Friday) because I was assured construction would be complete by the weekend. And it was.

Breathing a sigh of relief, I came in Monday morning waiting for the fire department to inspect the premises, the last step in the process. Then I receive the phone call from our architectural firm: the fire department in Shanghai is taking the week off. WHAT???? Yes, they are attending a function in town this week and will not be going to work. What happens if there is a fire? Silence.

How do you explain that to the people back at home who think you are completely incompetent already?

Interior Decorating

Wonderful story today. We have had a number of pictures lying around that everyone has been too lazy to do anything about, mostly me. Nothing you could call art - a Rolling Stones concert poster from spring 2006, a ticket from Clapton several months ago and one from James Brown in 2005 (normally I'm not a fan of hanging on to concert tickets, much less framing them, but they are in both Chinese and English and pretty cool, plus James Brown is dead. Could be worth some money some day), a Communist Party tree from 2005 (we are on the ball here) and a few other things.

Rather than go buy a hammer and nails, we figured we'll take advantage of the cheap labor. So my secretary calls the management company for our building who normally does this stuff for free, and they announce a new policy effective last week. No longer will these services be rendered for free, the charge is 60 kuai. My secretary was appalled and flatly turned them down. 60 kuai is less than US $10. I stopped arguing with her long ago.

Not easily discouraged, she called the architectural firm that designed our fit out over a year ago. They agree to send someone down for the price of a taxi ride (roughly US $1.40). The gentleman showed up, almost on time, to scope out the work. After getting a sense of the labor and materials needed to hang 5 pictures, he announced he would need to return to the office to get his tools. This did not make my secretary happy since she was then required to shell out US $2.80.

Thirty minutes or so later he returned with a helper and his tools. I was in the open area of our office talking to an intern and my colleague when we glanced up to survey the work. The gentleman was using a pair of scissors to dig a hole in the wall (he opened them into a V shape and shoved one side in twisting it to enlarge the size of the hole). At this he had our attention. Once satisfied that the size of the hole would accommodate the screw, he took a screwdriver and used the handle to pound the screw in far enough to finish it off with the other side of the screwdriver.

This kept us entertained for the better part of the afternoon. My colleague took pictures which I will post if we can figure out how to get them off his camera. No one in the office thought there was anything unusual about this except us (3 westerners) and we were doubled over in laughter.