Today was my first day of work at Roche Diagnostics Shanghai Limited. Yes, I have finally gotten my lazy self back to the grindstone. I am helping Roche start up a PMO within the Shanghai business area. I came upon this opportunity through a friend's husband (xiexie Mike!) and was lucky enough to be qualified for it. I have known for a few months that I really needed to get back to work. Not that I was not having fun with my friends, but I came pretty quickly to the realization that I was not ready to give up my career permanently and so I felt I needed to take any good opportunities seriously. Ideally I would have gone part-time, but that didn't work out this time.
My office is in Puxi on HuaiHai Lu. That is pretty far from Pudong. This morning Tom had to fly to India so I am lucky enough to have the driver available these first few days. So this morning, I dropped Natalie at the gate to catch her bus and headed on the long ride to work. Right before we crossed the Nangpu bridge, a car slightly brushed our van. Man, was Zhong Biao pissed! He told me later that the other driver was newly licensed and didn't know anything about how to drive. So of course after the van was hit, he put the van in the park right there in the middle of the bridge entrance and started arguing with the other driver. Too funny! In the U.S. you would exchange insurance, take a picture and be on your way. These two guys argued about how much the other guy needed to pay. Zhong Biao wanted 800 RMB. But he ended up settling for 600 RMB. It was just so funny to watch the exchange. We had one and a half of the two lanes blocked for at least 15 minutes before they pulled to a median. It took a total of about 20 minutes to resolve since the Police showed up. Which meant that I was 5 minutes late to my first day of work! Ta da. How to really impress your new company on the first day of work: be late! But it turned out to be no big deal as HR was still making some final tweaks to my final contract terms. Of course I feel bad now about the car and feel like I need to pay the 200 difference. Though later this evening when I looked at the mark, I could barely even see a scratch!!! Such is life here in Shanghai...
When I got home, the house was totally clean, the Ayi cooked my dinner, and then picked up all the dishes. Needless to say, that made transitioning back to work WAY easier than it would have been in the states. I did have to spend most of last week working with the Ayi to transition cooking responsibilities! Of course in reality she is probably a better cook them me, so I really have no worries there. In fact, Tom is excited about eating Chinese more nights during the week. Natalie usually dictates our meal content, but I have decided that she too must learn to adapt her palate. And Natalie behaved well for the Ayi which I guess I expected though 5 year-olds are very good at MANIPULATION. Just ask her grandparents...
Well, I am pretty tired, so I guess I better get this posted and up to bed. More to come....
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