Oct 03 2007
Bloom + Voss
Ah, here it is, a venerable firm that built the most famous battleship Bismarck of the WWII, has been churning out yachts. What BV’s fortune has been for the past two decades? An active participant of the globalization or a ticket holder watching it unfold from the sideline? In term of the media coverage, I’d guess the second.
After my disappointment with Lufthansa, very quickly I found a secretary job with Bloom + Voss, managing it’s Far East regional office located in Wing On building. I had fun!
The second week on the job, we had small delegation from Hamburg, led by the second in line flanked by two senior engineers, trying to secure a large contract with Chinese shipyard that had an outpost in HK. My boss only casually mentioned the day before that I should sitting in on their strategic meetings (I kept my mouth shut, pretty smart, ha!) in our office and interpret at the meeting. What did I know about ship repair? Frankly, I didn’t know dry dock from dry clean, :). The following morning, we took a cab to the meeting. To put me at ease, my boss entertained us with a story: when he went on the first meeting with his previous secretary, she bulked at curb side, “Taking a taxi? Are you kidding me? I’ll call my driver … meet you at the company ..” Betty was used to whisk by his dad’s Benz - big corp’s skippers had chauffeurs, a kind of expense my boss was stingy about.
We arrived at the meeting promptly, as the Germans do, while the hosts weren’t even ready. An ah ma brought us teas. A good 15 or 20 minutes passed before our counterparts showed up for work. Not much of pleasantries had been exchanged, I found myself on the fire line facing one of the two engineers who talked like driving on the autobahn, fast and furious. I looked at my boss for help, and looked across the table for help, hoping one of the men in suit was translator .. then did I realized they didn’t have one! How did I survive the meeting was a myth to me till this day. All I remembered was that my hands and feet were excessively sweaty and my head was about to explode. Then I heard my boss was saying, “Irene, you’re taking us to dim sum right?” He wanted to amuse his countrymen the thousand-year old eier - 皮蛋. I had no idea where would we find a thousand-year old egg maker, nor did I know it’s from ducky,goosey or chicky. I felt like an 1,000 year old mummy! I didn’t know how to say no nor did I know slavery is illegal, 
worker does have right, right? Lord only in the US, :)). .. Btw, we got the contract.
When I joined, there was only 1 engineer and 1 receptionist. Soon we added 2 more local engineers whom my boss inisisted be fluent in Mandarin, which they were not: HK produces money managers not engineers; all those engineers were from China, like the one he had and most of those from China either didn’t have valid work permits or too timid to seek a job with the blue chip companies. We hired them .. on the condition that they’ll put in time to learn. My job function expanded to teach Mandarin - my boss included, on top of budgeting/bookkeeping, running the office, … In general, people work much harder in Asia (一脚踢 lol ..) than in the West and US.
Hamburg provided an adequate budget for us, but my boss would cut corner whenever he could. When we needed documents to be translated for the industrial fair in China, it’s me again. I really got the kick out of naming it, (sorry I was only in my 20s, :))) .. 舶隆佛斯 was it. When the expensively printed catalogs shipped back from West Germany, I was impressed. All the late nights, dictionary rummage, and most importantly the embarrassment of not knowing the language well, the ship builders lingo. .. seemed paid off. .. The funny fate of the catalogs during the fair in Shanghai, half were gone during the first day out of 5-day exhibition. In the morning the big wig from the head quarter was thrilled that he’d never seen so many enthusiastic crowds in an industrial fair. By mid afternoon, he grew curious, asked one of young man who looked like high schooler, why did he want our catalog? The kid replied, to wrap my books - paper quality was poor and we used colorful foreign catalog or calendars to wrap the book for longer usage. The big wig cried out loud, ‘it cost me 3 DM to print!’ :))
Soon my boss conspired with few other big corps to form GBA, German Business Association. He served as the first president. Naturally, I scout the office, interview the secretary, going to the court, and of course running into Hans (who served as the pres after my boss), the airline skipper. “So when are you coming to work for me?”