Posts from — July 2008

Hi,

Regarding the pollution it hasn’t been nearly as bad as I thought it would be. It is just constantly hazy over here…These folks have no idea what a blue sky looks like – SERIOULSY…a clear day here is when you can actually see something about 1/2 mile away. But in terms of sore throats etc – we are all good.

What also has helped is the government has restrictions on cars..that only even number license plates can be on even days to keep the roads somewhat clear. Cabs, Busses and deliver vehicles are exempt from this. What some clever people have done is buy a cheap second car that the plate is on the opposite day or they hire a cab driver for the day to take them where they want to go. [Read more →]

Today Coke bought in the local staff that they have hired to work the various departments that they need assistance. This totals 130 people that they hired, trained and have to outfit and pay.

Coke started 1 year ago hiring folks primarily college students; interviewing them and then doing 4 training classes throughout the past 8 months that lead up to their final training today.

It was funny because Adidas (the official clothing of the Olympics)is the brand of clothing that is the staff uniform. Since Chinese tend to be on the shorter side and the Adidas pants we received were very long…well, this resulted in Coke having to hire a tailor to come in and hem up everyone’s pants. Yours truly included. [Read more →]

July 30 – Today we took a taxi out to the OHC – Olympic Hospitality Center. This is where all the corporate sponsors are going to be. The Chinese like to keep everyone guessing by constantly changing the routes to get to this area. They told Wan – the gal who I am working for that starting tomorrow we are to have our Hospo area staffed at the OHC. This isn’t happening as we were just told and aren’t prepared for it..so we are going to start on Aug 1 having it staffed from 2:00 pm – 8:00 pm per their request.

Today when we got into the cab one of our guys was eating a granola bar. The taxi cab driver – female freaked out because if she is randomly stopped and her taxi is dirty she will be fined and they will impound her car until after the games. She told us she spends her free time making sure her cab is spotless. We had her wait for us at the OHC for about 3 hours and her total fee was 300 RMB which is the equivelent to $50 USD which also included our ride back and forth. [Read more →]