First Time?

It's about time that I get my say in things. I can't leave everything to the wife.

Although it's only been about 4 months total, this has been an unreal experience. When I was in school I studied international business. We talked over different scenarios to help us to understand different cultures. We did case studies to help us understand different business situations. We did thousands of little things to prepare us for life in the "business world". And now here I am.

I'm an American working in Brazil for a Singapore based company. My boss is a former business owner from Singapore. His boss is the VP of the company- who apparently has dedicated everything to this company. She travels 95% of her life. My boss is in Brazil for a "business trip" that lasts 90 days at a time, with two weeks home.

The primary business language in our office is Portuguese. I have to be completely bi-lingual though- as my boss doesn't speak the local language. English is spoken only when necessary. The cultural differences between the Singaporean and Brazilians is unreal. Americans are somewhere in the middle- which often leaves me right in that spot. I try to translate the Brazilian "we'll get it done whenever" to the Singaporan "DO IT NOW" and vice versa. This is a truely global experience.

Case in point: I arrived this morning expecting a PO that was promised me by my brazilian counterpart at our customer yesterday. In fact he told me the 4 times I called him yesterday that he was working on it right then and i'd have it FOR SURE in a half hour, 2 hrs, before 6 and before tomorrow morning. The PO wasn't in my inbox this morning. What I did have waiting for me first thing this morning was a phone call with Singapore and China about some equipment damaged in transit to Brazil. 45mins of my working our details with China for replacements. 1/2 the phonecall was in Chinese, half english.

I wanted International Business. Now I have it. All this time my poor wife sits bored out of her skull in a hotel- waiting for the realtor to get around to finishing up the rental contract for our house. She'll get to it sometime. Yesterday when I called she told me she was working on it. I'm beginning to believe that doesn't really mean what I think it means in Brazil...