Saturday, March 17, 2007

One of Those Days

This has been one of those days: one where I would have been better off, just not getting up. I should have known it wasn’t gonna be good when I didn’t see the Morning News.

I just hate those days. I got up and raced down to see the ABC Evening News from the USA (remember it’s the next morning already here at that hour). Charles Gibson came on and introduced the night’s headlines. All was great until it switched to commercial and never returned! NO! Instead some Aussie chef popped up to show some new fish recipe! Forgive me, but that’s NOT NEWS!

It happens all too often. China must be unhappy with ABC and pre-empts the show. Usually it never starts. Often, like today, it gets started, but cuts away to something else. The other day public service announcements were on for the whole ½ hour. I must have watched about three in a row before I realized the News was late! This is happening far too often lately.

And I really enjoy Sandra Brown’s Travel documentary about Seville, Spain, but I bet it’s been on 20 times in the last couple of months! Doesn’t she go anywhere else. Usually it’s Sandra in Seville whenever they pre-empt the News! ENOUGH!

But I was started this talking about my day. The rest of it wasn’t much better. It hadn’t been too good the night before either. I raced from the China Visa office to barely make the ferry. Then I stayed at the factory to be with a customer who had made contact about an unexpected visit today. That was okay. I figured I would just stay at the factory and get a massage and good rest. Only someone messed up my reservation and our masseuse wasn’t booked. So that was a wasted plan.

And the customer didn’t get plans to us regarding his visit. It gets pretty tough arranging visits and details in Chinese, when the customer is speaking Hebrew, and the call originates from the USA. And to make matters worse, another communication snafu in the morning didn’t get him connected for a drive to the factory. Soooooooooooo, I get to spend my Saturday night off to Guangzhou to see the customer.

What is it the last few weeks anyway? We’ve had non-stop customers! It was as if the floodgates opened after the Chinese New Year. I don’t think anyone wanted to travel between Christmas and the New Year, and they have come in droves since then! We’ve had French, Danes, Meiguas (Americans), Germans, Indians, and Japanese. I’m exhausted from all the tours I’ve given.

At least I got an interesting article about my blog in the Winston-Salem Journal. Check it by clicking here, or from the link in the right column.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

posted by A Bryson (formerly) in China @ 6:15 PM Comments: 0