First Day of Work

I've figured out why the meat over here bothers me. It's because it doesn't take much imagination to figure out what part of the animal your meal is coming from. Whether its a funny bone, or some well-placed fat, or some feathers, or a beak, or horns, there are always some clues to help you grasp the fact that you're eating another flesh-and-blood animal.

Today was our first day of work. We caught a shuttle bus to the office outside of our hotel at 7:10 this morning which took us to the headquarters, which is located about 25 km away. We met our advisor and he explained a little about the company and its position in the Chinese market. He also asked us what we were interested in doing. There is a huge factory, 400,000 square feet, where they produce the water heaters all the way from basic sheet metal. We finished our tour by peeking into all the offices. At the call center, employees receive 4000 calls and make 5000 calls daily. He also showed us the engineering division where Diego and I will be helping out.

We still didn't have cell phones, and when one of our hosts asked us if we needed help with anything, we brought this up. She left for ten minutes and returned with two cell phones for us to use during our stay here. We were also given company laptops on which to do all our important work. The company is treating us very well. We get free lunch there every day also, which means we will have two meals provided every weekday here in Nanjing.

During the afternoon, Diego and I joined our respective engineering divisions. Neither of us had much to do this afternoon though. I think we'll need to be very proactive in finding work if we want to be useful to the company.

This blog's not very funny, I can tell. I'm sorry. I'm tired. Of China. No, not really. But China's tough. Got me on the ropes. I'm excited about the possibility of travel though. Our boss asked if we might want to take a little time off to travel. If it's possible, I would love to go to Tibet. I love big mountains, and I've read a lot about the area. It could be a little expensive, but I might not have another chance. So maybe I'll take a couple/few/eight weeks off and go to Tibet. More on this later.