The Good and the Less Good - A Sort-of Blog

[PeterRS]

Life is not really the bowl of cherries some portray it to be - at least not always in my case. True, I've had many great times, been to so many fabulous parts of our world, got to know some really interesting people and generally been wonderfully lucky to be lured to Asia when still in my 20s. Here I have worked for major multi-national companies as well as starting up and running two tiny ones of my own. To have worked in a field that I love has been another huge benefit. As my sister always tells me, I have been a very lucky bastard!

Yet being blessed with so much does not mean everyday life has not been without a large number of problems, difficult situations, even hardships. I had no idea what I was letting myself in for when I first landed in Hong Kong. I was excited, thrilled even, the more so to get away from living in the UK. What I had not realised was that the company I was working for was basically overseen by political appointees and civil servants - usually interfering ones. I would often sit in at meetings and almost want to explode at the nonsense that was being discussed. Yet I had somehow to learn to keep a smile on my face, politely answer even the most inane questions and generally find ways to push forward with my agenda. I had naturally discussed that with the Chairman in advance, but he was not very good at siding with me if he felt the wind blowing in the opposite direction.

Near the end of my first year I had all but decided to give up and return to the UK. But then something clicked. I started to realise that everyone I was interacting with was playing a game - including me. The political animals believed they had to act in a certain way, because that's what they did for most of their professional lives. I acted in my way because I knew much more about running the business than they and could not understand why they could not understand that! Once my brain had processed that, life quickly became far easier. I played their game, eventually becoming more than just quite good at it. After having annual extensions to my contract, suddenly I was offered a 4-year deal with guaranteed quite generous annual increases. 

But that was a Hong Kong based company. Working in senior positions for multi-nationals was somewhat different. Although the only foreigner working in the Tokyo office and with my own staff, I still had to get what I wanted to achieve approved by no less than six senior executives in other parts of the world. Six! Japan obviously, Hong Kong, Sydney, London and two in New York. Often that ran perfectly smoothly. At other times it was a near nightmare. I soon learned that being on the geographical fringe of a multi-national could result in endless delays for urgent issues, being the political nice guy again when one of the six needed his ego massaged before he'd agree - and so on. Sometimes I would leave the office in the evening intensely frustrated. But Tokyo is a great place to unwind, great nightlife and with good friends to moan with over drinks. By the next mornings I would be bright and relatively cheery again.

When I was headhunted to run another multi-national back in Hong Kong, I  was excited, but very soon realised there was little difference. I was still just a cog (albeit quite a large one) but in an even larger wheel. This time I was no longer prepared to pander to their egos. I quit. My contract had a parachute built into it – massively far from golden, not even bronze – but enough to keep me going for a time and help me set up another company.

The cherries when you run your own business can also be few and far between. Legislation, contracts, taxes, negotiations taking months before collapsing, “oh, can you please help me with this, but I can’t afford your fee!”, and a galaxy of other issues were never far away. But I was enjoying myself and my relative freedom. I could take time off to indulge my passion for travel – and as @vinapu so elegantly puts it adding to my stamp collection with extra-long week-ends in Bangkok. What I had learned from the difficult times had in fact by now made life so much simpler. Soon the cherry bowl was becoming quite full. I was happy!