The best office neighbor for people traveling

Lao Lu is the logistics director of our company's Asia Pacific region, and he is my office neighbor. Our company is relatively international. The specific manifestation is that no one has a separate office, and everyone sits in the open office area. HR departments often throw colleagues of similar rank into a cubicle.

According to Lao Lu himself, before I came, he negotiated with the Human Resources Department several times and asked to change seats. He said he couldn't stand the fact that an auditor was staring at him like an owl every day and couldn't do any small tricks. People in the human resources department don't like this: "If you can't stand it, others can't stand it either. You are the logistics director of the Asia-Pacific region, and it is reasonable to sit next to the new audit manager of the Asia-Pacific region."

I also I really didn’t know that people didn’t like me so much before. When I was talking about this past event, Lao Lu was sitting on my table, eating my rice balls. If I buy breakfast but forget to eat it, Lao Lu will always remember to eat it for me, euphemistically calling it "don't waste food."

I advised him: "It's lunch soon, don't be afraid to hold on. Look at your belly. Every time you enter the door, no one comes in. Your belly comes in first."

Lao Lu said disapprovingly: "What's this? Just give it a rest. I'm healthy and fat. We played badminton last weekend and I played for an hour. You guys are useless and you sat on the ground in just half an hour. , a waste of money!”

This is true. When Lao Lu was playing badminton, he was extremely flexible and agile when dodging and moving around. I said he looked like Sammo Hung, and he was overjoyed and said I praised him well.

I don’t even remember when I became so familiar with Lao Lu. He proudly said that he was familiar with everyone in the company, which was his special skill.

I usually only spend half of my time in the Shanghai office, and the rest of the time I am on the road on business trips. In principle, we have to visit more than a dozen factories in the Asia-Pacific region once a year. After returning to the company, several large boxes will be mailed to the front desk, which are full of sampling materials waiting for me to look through page by page. At this time, I discovered the good thing about Lao Lu. He usually helped me move the cartons from the front desk to the seats one by one without any hesitation.

Lao Lu Dafa sighed: "My children will not learn finance in the future. It turns out that this is a manual job. It is simply unreasonable to let girls do this. Hey, you do it every day and do it hard and hateful. Is it interesting?" ”

It’s really like a mountain apart, and there’s no way to reason with Lao Lu. I said: "They are all just like you, smiling and smiling every day. I always listen to you lecturing people on the phone, so I bet you don't have to do anything specific."

Lao Lu didn't like hearing this, "I don't What specific tasks should I do? They just assigned me the hard-to-do jobs. Last month, the French dock workers went on strike and the supplier's containers couldn't be shipped. I was here until midnight every day to deal with this matter. You went on a business trip to Hubei. I don’t know at all.”

It turns out that everyone has their own troubles. I only heard Lao Lu shouting “door to door, port to port” on the phone every day. In English, it means "door to door, port to port". It sounds like it rhymes with Hezhe, but behind it is Alexander.

If the supply of spare parts from the supporting factory is not timely, causing the production line of the OEM to stop, we will compensate the OEM according to the contract - 800 US dollars per minute. Therefore, "line shutdown" has always been a matter of life and death in the factory. At the same time, our company follows Toyota's example and does not allow overstocking of inventory. Lao Lu and his logistics department were pressed by two mountains and were in a dilemma. Thanks to his carelessness, someone with a fragile nerve would really not be able to hold on. It is said that Lao Lu's predecessor resigned because of too much pressure.

It is much easier for me to work in Shanghai than in Beijing. After all, there is a formal appointment, and everyone will remain polite on the surface whether they are convinced or not. The finance department of the Shanghai factory will also discuss some business issues together.

One day the little girl from the finance department came over with a few reimbursement forms, looking troubled. I took a closer look and saw that it was Mr. Zhang's travel expenses, and there was a receipt in it for drinks in the hotel room. The items in the small refrigerator in hotel rooms are usually extremely expensive, such as 50 yuan for a bag of nuts. Therefore, the company has a clear policy not to provide reimbursement.

As for alcoholic beverages, no matter when and where they are consumed, RMB 100 is not allowed to be reimbursed.

I said: "Are you not familiar with the company's policies or something wrong?"

She said: "I dare not refuse this order. Mr. Zhang is the biggest boss in Asia Pacific. What if?" What should I do if he fires me? I still expect the company to help me apply for a Shanghai household registration.”

Mr. Zhang’s office has been moved to Shanghai with the Asia-Pacific headquarters, which is about 45 minutes’ drive from the factory. We calculated this time very accurately. Every time he goes out, his secretary quickly calls our general manager’s secretary. So before Mr. Zhang came, we had 45 minutes to sort out the housekeeping.

Speaking of which, this is due to Lao Lu. He brought President Zhang’s secretary Jessica into our badminton team, and often took advantage of him and taught others how to play. Over time, Jessica became our news tree. For this reason, Lao Lu was verbally praised several times by the factory general manager. Everyone has an untidy desk and lives casually. Who wants to be scolded by Mr. Zhang without any reason or face?

I kicked the chair and slid it to Lao Lu's table. Could it be that he was serious for a moment, frowning and staring at the computer writing something. I said: "Excuse me..."

"I'm busy, don't interrupt." Lao Lu quickly turned around and glanced at me, "Hey, are you wearing your coat inside out?"

I looked down and saw that the sweater I was wearing was indeed worn with the inside out. The conference call last night lasted until two o'clock. I got up late in the morning and took a taxi to work in a panic. It seems that I can no longer wear this kind of knitted pullover, and my suit will never be worn inside out.

I ran to the bathroom, tidied up quickly, and pushed the chair over. Lao Lu said: "So attentive? It's not normal. What can you ask me for?"

I said: "Help me invite Jessica to the factory. I have something to talk to her about."

Lao Lu asked: "What's the benefit? Things I've eaten before don't count."

The benefit is that I spent two hours sitting in front of Lao Lu's computer and wrote for him Year-end summary. He wrote less than half of it, and I changed a few sentences. I was so angry that I deleted them all - Lao Lu's English was too casual. He only understood it, so he couldn't even start to change it.

Finally, he sat on the table and dictated in Chinese. When he got to the point where he was proud, he took a sip of tea. I typed furiously on the keyboard to translate it into English for him. From time to time, I have to remind him, "Can you please keep your voice down when you drink tea? With a bang, the earth shakes and the sky shakes. It disturbs my train of thought."

Lao Lu patted his belly, very satisfied. Said, "I still need to write a work summary. If I don't write it, I don't know how capable I am. I don't know how much money Mr. Zhang gave me."

Jessica came to the factory and read the receipt. She was also shocked, "I made the reimbursement form for Mr. Zhang. There must have been too many things that day, so I just did it all together." She immediately took away all the erroneous documents and went back to redo them.

I thought this matter was over. A few days later, Lao Lu came back from his work report and came over mysteriously: "Mr. Zhang invites you."

Mr. Zhang's office is still the same. I suspect that he flew the entire set of office furniture directly from Singapore. . I went in and said hello: "Hello, Mr. Zhang, long time no see."

He said: "I was wondering if you have learned to be more diplomatic after two years, but it seems you haven't."

I was wondering what he was referring to secretly. He said it himself, "I left those documents on purpose to see if you have the guts to refuse."

"That's why." I said, "We can't let this wait. A small matter ruined your reputation."

Mr. Zhang nodded, "I have discussed with your boss that the factory in Saudi Arabia is short of a financial director. You can take over first."

Single women are not allowed to travel in Saudi Arabia, so I just need to call and attend the board of directors twice a year. The general manager of the Saudi factory felt that Mr. Zhang was just teasing them - asking a woman to be their financial director clearly meant that he didn't take us seriously. Do you think our Saudi factory’s sales are small? Our profit margin is No. 1 in Asia-Pacific!

In fact, this is also the reason why I was pushed away from the shelves.

Every factory has a financial director. The heads of the Asia-Pacific region are too busy, so they just grab a few top managers. The profits of the Saudi factory are indeed extremely high (there are too many rich people in the local area, and they don’t bargain when buying luxury car parts - people don’t want them even if they are cheaper.) So it’s okay not to go and inspect them in person. By being this director, I can save travel expenses, be able to do the work together, and save Mr. Zhang and the others from going out in person. It's almost the best of both worlds.

Videoconferencing was not yet popular at that time, so there was no need to cover my face to hold meetings with Saudi factories. I just had to do my homework in advance. I put forward the remaining issues in their internal process management as suggestions for improvement. Otherwise, their board of directors would celebrate the New Year together every time and spend the full moon together, which would be too easy to get through.

Lao Lu heard me introducing myself in the conference call and almost choked on my tea eggs. Later, he held me to verify for a long time and understood that this was a false position, and then he felt more balanced. He felt that he should also become a director. He went to Saudi Arabia so many times. He couldn't eat enough and every time he lost weight due to hunger. After returning to Shanghai, the first thing I did when I got off the plane was to drink soy milk.

Lao Lu’s team is well managed, and the factory logistics managers he recruits can basically stay there for three years. Stable personnel are better than anything else. Otherwise, you have to put all the big things aside and go through the recruitment process and look at resumes for interviews. It’s actually very annoying for a boss to go through this process.

I found that one of his characteristics in recruiting people is that a hundred flowers bloom, with people from all academic backgrounds and work experiences. Some department managers even have backgrounds in the fast-moving consumer goods industry. I really can't see how he picked out these elites, so I came to him specifically for advice.

Lao Lu was extremely proud of being asked where he was itching. He said that he had long been dissatisfied with the fact that the Finance Department had to accept Fudan University of Finance and Economics, while the Engineering Department only accepted Tsinghua Tongji (Lao Lu himself was from Tsinghua University). When selecting candidates, he pays more attention to work experience rather than academic background. During interviews, he has two basic principles: candidates must be "not flattering and not annoying."

Not being flattery means that the attitude is neither humble nor arrogant. Then this person will have correct views and adhere to principles in the future work. Not annoying means that this person has some hobbies and interesting conversation; if this person is serious, dull and boring, everyone in the office will be bored.

I secretly felt guilty, wondering if I belonged to the "annoying" category. Lao Lu comforted me, "You may seem annoying at first glance, but after a while we found out that you are not so annoying at all. There is no need to blame it on yourself."

Sophie, the logistics manager newly recruited by Lao Lu, is definitely not flattering. The first thing a new official does when he takes office is that Sophie checks the precious metal inventory every day and visits all customers within a month. She doesn't care whether it's her business or not. When she returned from a business trip to Chongqing, she boarded the plane carrying a 5-kilogram defective product in her hand. When I returned to the factory, I forced the quality manager to conduct a comprehensive inspection of the finished product.

Lao Lu unceremoniously took half of the credit. His latest conclusion was that "Desperate Sanniang" is more ruthless than "Desperate Saburo". The ones close by were Sophie and me, and the ones far away were his boss.

His boss is an American woman who has been the vice president of global logistics for many years. The last time she came to Shanghai for a business trip, her car hit the pier of the Yangpu Bridge. All the airbags deployed, and the Mercedes-Benz was immediately scrapped. She left the driver to deal with the scene and took a taxi to the company. After the meeting, she talked about the car accident in an understatement, so she was five minutes late.

Lao Lu sighed with emotion: "She escaped from a car accident. She seems to be fine. I would have to sift through chaff for a day. Do you think she is a human being?"

Our company is similar. There are indeed too many non-human beings. A department manager suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and fainted during a meeting. He was only 35 years old.

Of course I can’t compare to Boss Lu’s heroic spirit. I just do my job silently. However, before I knew it, I had more and more things to do, and my business trips took longer and longer. Logically speaking, I can just follow the procedures to conduct the audit and produce the report, but I have done all the work of the financial director before. Every time a financial director in the Asia-Pacific region resigned and no new one was hired, I would become the interim financial director to fill the vacancy.

After returning from a business trip, I still have a lot of missed work to make up for. At that time, I worked about eighty hours a week.

I haven't been to Lao Lu's badminton activities for a long time. I sit in front of my desk and work all day long.

One day at noon, Lao Lu invited me to have lunch. After I stood up, I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my back. I couldn't move while I stood there. When I moved, I felt a sharp pain in my waist. Lao Lu asked the front desk to call a car for me to go to the hospital. The general manager of the factory heard about it and let me use his car. Lao Lu said: "Shall I carry you into the car?"

I gritted my teeth and said, "Go over there and find a chair to push me."

The doctor on duty at Dongfang Hospital for a while He said it was a lumbar sprain, and then later said it was a lumbar muscle strain. The strange thing is, they put me on a hard bed in the emergency room and wrapped a big towel around my waist, and I immediately stopped feeling pain. (A few years later, I learned that this is called lumbar spondylosis and nerve compression, which can be cured with a minor surgery.)

I blamed Lao Lu: "Why didn't you bring my laptop? I still have a laptop at night." What about the quotation meeting?"

Lao Lu said with a look of disbelief, "Are you crazy? Are you going to give me a laptop? Are you going to be in a wheelchair?" ?”

At that time, I didn’t understand whether Lao Lu’s words were good advice or whether he was asking the driver to go back and get my computer. For the next few days, I followed the doctor's orders and lay flat on my bed, with my laptop in front of me, and all the urgent tasks were taken care of.

After returning to the company, I found that there was a change in Lao Lu. He would occasionally wear a crisply pressed white shirt to work and disappear during his lunch break. Also missing was his custom-made suit draped over the back of the chair. The newly dressed Lao Lu actually had a somewhat elite temperament, which made me very uncomfortable. I asked sideways: "Where can we go on a date?"

Lao Lu didn't take the bait at all, "I'll tell you later."

The only thing that is indispensable in life is change, and everyone is accustomed to change. . There are several department managers who have resigned and returned to state-owned enterprises, just wanting to return to their normal 9-to-5 life, and there are also a few who have gone abroad. There is a farewell dinner every weekend in the company.

One day Lao Lu came over, with a rare seriousness on his face. "What, I'm resigning and I'll be leaving in a month. Don't tell anyone else yet."

Lao Lu went out to start a company by himself. His business card was printed very low-key, with the title "Consultant." I asked him: "Do you think Mr. Zhang's salary increase is too small? Or are you afraid of competing with the desperate three ladies?"

Lao Lu said: "Change your way of life. What if you stay here for the rest of your life? What about me?" My position has come to an end, and it’s almost like going out for a look. According to the current method, I will have to use a wheelchair when I retire, just like you did that day. Who can push me to achieve my goals? Financial freedom, and then take a cruise around the world. Hey, I heard that there is a 24-hour buffet on the cruise ship!" Later, Lao Lu visited us once when he came back to the company and was welcomed by the crowd. When General Manager Bill saw him, he punched him in the chest, put his arm around his shoulders and asked, "Are you tired? I'm just asking you, are you tired? If you want to come back, I'll leave a place for you."

Old Lu said helplessly: "I just came out of the tiger's den and into the wolf's den. It's not easy to work alone! I was driving a forklift this morning, and I have to go to the customs later to be my grandson. However, a good horse never turns back. , I’ll talk about it after a while. I’ll keep my place, don’t give it to anyone else!”

I think someone as smart and sophisticated as Lao Lu shouldn’t need anyone to give him a place.