Last week, I went to our most important customer in the east of China. The major purpose of this trip was to demonstrate the functions and safety of our automatic machines (built by an Italian company).
During this trip, it'd been confirmed that I will need to go again next Monday, in order to finalize this project with our customer. Their HQ is in France, and their technical managers - who can make final decisions - are coming on 16th. They will verify our machines on site.
Meanwhile, one of the connectors for pneumatic cylinders needs to be replaced, because the original one was damaged during transportation in land. This component is not common in Chinese market, and probably will take some time to find.
My colleague and boss confirmed that they would buy a flight ticket for me, and buy a new connector for replacement. However, this morning I sent messages to them to double check these 2 important points, and they told me "no" for both.
Considering that I will be on the way tomorrow, I went out to search for a connector in local market for half a day, but none has been found suitable. Next, I spent another half day searching on the web and finally got one, which will be sent directly to the customer.
I'm really angry about my colleague and boss, but of course, I didn't kick their asses.
Usually, when I run into a "deep shit", which makes me unhappy, I will take a piece of paper to write causes and solutions down, and more importantly, write down the possible results. Then I will realize, even this is a "deep shit", it will work out okay sooner or later, not really something that worths my time.
This is my story and my special "fire extinguisher" for the fire of my anger. Can you share yours with us?
