My Olympics
Arriving in Beijing on July 18 with my favorite train, chatting with colleagues about what we would have expected in the months to follow. Spent endless weeks of training at an international school, where all the District Manager and Chef will have memorized the battle plan. Perfect on paper at the macro level, from the outset lacked some details, but it goes on. Order of battle: Follow the menu, follow the plan. The plan I have eight people to watch. A gymkhana task matrix, a good challenge.
The powerful capabilities of a million dollar budget allowed me to share the hotel room with a snorer professional, with great stress from lack of sleep for the whole week. Meanwhile, the first challenges ahead: trucks blocked the entrance by security who does not want to take responsibility, responsible for arriving in China at the last minute, providers who do not find the goods or do not have clear details like "what are 100 or 1,000 cakes a day? ".
It begins. From the I and a colleague to come for an apartment ... with a room. The picture shows the cathartic moment of the coin toss: who would sleep on the army cot in the living room? I win. A week later my colleague moved from friends.
The first 10 days were formative: calls at all hours of day or night, openings, chat, discussion, staff coming from Shanghai, coffee. So much coffee. After two days I understand the irony of things: each place serves meals to people who are often heavily on one nationality (for example, boxing to Canadians, Brazilians beach volleyball, ...). This has meant working even harder to deliver in each of them the right offer. Quickly. Over five days in an Olympics in the end make the difference between a service "perfect" and a "decent".
All of a sudden the watchword is no longer follow the plan, you have imagination, change, adapt. In China this means risking great because the staff needs time and patience otherwise it gets confused. A big job for more than 100% because in Chinese all the chefs assigned to me (other staff will not speak) do not speak like a Comma in English.
Meanwhile, the office, the boss of bosses every day is a victim one day purchasing, human resources one day before those who do not follow the plans, after those who can not change. Every iota of pressure received from the upper floors of the customer is transferred under par, with disappointing choice of modes, times, and understanding of the realities on the ground. I stop here for the sake of synthesis and because details are inside the company, but personally I was extremely disappointed by the project management, especially on the treatment staff. Do not miss the urge to point it out, and see what this will mean.
Another thing that will remain of this Olympic experience is definitely the fact of living it from insider. With your pass to enter all the structures, the pleasure of seeing in the Internet zone of a game and sit in the press box, where spectators can not enter and run across to the Olympic lane when other cars are stopped by the traffic of Beijing understand how many people and how many stories there are behind an Olympics to be able to run the machine. A lot really.
Professionally, having seen our staff stand at the Olympics in Shanghai, the hundred things to disentangle without pausing (one day "free", but stuck on the phone, in a month and a half), the pressure to achieve results and the results obtained in every respect, the thanks of many managers and customers, this will certainly among those work experiences that teach you a lot, and to be proud of.
Now I go to work, write why it is so late ...
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