I’m back from my trip to Kuala Lumpur. It was a business trip so I really didn’t get a chance to see much to see much except the airport and hotel. It was in any case a nice break from the regular office grind and the weather was certainly nice. Being very near the equator meant that it was basically summer everyday and I only had to wear short sleeves outside even at night. Being a tropical climate meant that there was plenty of green everywhere, which was nice to see compared to the gray of a Tokyo winter. My impression of Malaysia and specifically Kuala Lumpur was that it was definitely nicer (cleaner) than other developing countries like Thailand or China. The people were all very nice and it is easy for a foreigner to get around in town because many people including the taxi drivers speak English. I would definitely consider going back to Malaysia on a holiday.
While I didn’t have much time to take any pictures I did get a view of the city from my hotel room. You can just make out the top of the Petronas Twin Towers from behind the large building on the right side of the picture with an angled roof line. And you can see the blue roof of a mosque in the foreground, a reminder that this is an Islamic country.
Back in Tokyo it is snowing this morning. Hard to believe I was sitting poolside having dinner outside a couple of days ago.
I’ve enjoying the weekend after a long work week. It’s approaching year end for the American company I work for and since I work in the finance and accounting field this means we are hitting our “crunch” period. I’ve had a couple of issues come up in the past days and weeks that have had to be dealt with necessitating working some very late hours. Last night I left the office around 1:30am. That’s also partly because as a large multinational we work with people in just about every time zone. When its late night here in Japan its early morning in the US and afternoon in Europe so this is about the only time to be able to get everyone on a teleconference. When I worked in Europe it was much better as we were basically in between the US and Japan timezone wise. Now, being in Japan, we are opposite of the US and more often than not that means we have to stay up late to talk to everyone. Working in a large multinational environment is usually very interesting and challenging but sometimes it I think it would be nice just to be working for a small company where the boss sits down the hall and you can just drop by, talk an issue through and make a decision without having to talk to anyone else.
One nice thing about my new office in Tokyo is that I have a pretty good view of the city. I can see a little bit of the Tokyo Tower and to the right (outside this picture) is Tokyo Midtown. Plus I even get a little greenery in the middle. Not bad for an office in Tokyo.
As usual the China Law Blog is right on the mark. It is nothing revolutionary but just basic common sense (to me now…after being here a year).
The best way to get into legal trouble in China is to listen to your Chinese staff or Chinese business partners on legal matters.
This is not to say that there are not a lot of very professional, dedicated and ethical people here (though I would say a definition of “ethical” is based on cultural norms and therefore is different depending on where one grew up or was educated). There are.
Just be damn sure when you have questions or concerns about the gray areas of Chinese laws that you defer to a real specialist who you are sure doesn’t have any potential conflicts of interest. And even then I would say that any gray areas should be treated with a lot of caution. Foreign invested enterprises in particular should error on the side of being safe instead of thinking that gray means you should be able to escape from trouble when the authorities come calling. You might be. If you’re wrong well…you’ll probably find out real quick that you have few friends here or even back home in headquarters.
Let yourself slip off the high road in search of faster sales growth or more profits and you might spend a lot of your time here digging yourself out of a never ending mess.
As probably everyone knows by now, Google is famous for giving its employees free gourmet food. According to a recent Fortune article:
At Google it always comes back to the food. Google runs 11 free gourmet cafeterias at its Mountain View, Calif., headquarters, and offers all its employees free gourmet meals.
In addition to its cafés, Google has snack rooms which contain various cereals, candy, nuts, yogurt, carrots, fresh fruit and other snacks, and dozens of different drinks including soda and make-your-own cappuccino.
At the Tokyo headquarters of my current employer we used to have also have a company cafeteria. While not free it was heavily subsidized and many employees used it each day. In order to save cost the company closed it some years ago. It was located in the windowless basement of the building and the food was nothing special so the closing was not all that unexpected as the number of users was slowly declining.
On the other I think what Google does is absolutely right on. (The picture to the left is from one of their campus restaurants.) I think other perks like dry cleaning, oil changes, car washes, concierge service, etc. are debatable. But food is something everyone needs at some point and, done right like at Google, can provide a place for employees to interact with each other in a casual and relaxed environment fostering communication. It also can help to keep them on the job longer when required and make the times when O/T might be required a little more enjoyable.
My father worked for GM. I can recall when I was growing up having lunch with him at the company cafeteria from time to time. It wasn’t free, but was probably heavily subsidized. I think this was also a benefit that employees like my father probably appreciated. Being able to share their work environment with their family.
Eating is a basic part of everyone’s daily schedule and when a company can see past just the basic cost of it and decide to use it as a tool for making employees time at work a little more enjoyable and a hopefully a little more effective, it can be turned into an asset of the company like it is at Google.
You can find more pictures of the available at Google here.