I write this article with the purpose of bringing you a little joy to reduce some of the troubles in life.
Also at this stretch of road in the company’s campus exactly 8 years ago, Mr. Alan Phan came down to celebrate my birthday. Early in the morning he and I went for a walk, he said, “Running a business successfully is about maintaining a balance between relationships in a complex extended family in which the customer is the father; shareholder is the mother; the bank is the mistress; the provider is a sibling; competitors are neighbors; employees are children and department officials are uncles”.
In this Covid-19 era, operating a business with many different product lines, supplying the domestic and export markets, is a hundred times more difficult than before the epidemic. Therefore, I “must always run to balance” the complex relationships that I face daily with realities:
Some foreign “adoptive fathers” who have just recovered from Covid-19 are still tired, so they are difficult and very strict. If delivery is not on time or of poor quality, he will return it and ask for compensation.
It’s not annoying enough that the “mistresses” keep talking about sending letters and texting on the phone asking for money. Why did you give the money so late this month, then make a book saying that you don’t want to date anymore and ask each other to increase the interest rate.
Obviously suffering, adding “foreigners’ brothers and sisters” has the habit of blaming. The semiconductor factory burned down last year, so the delivery of electronic components to us to produce inkjet printers was 27 weeks late. The company’s purchasing department complained, they increased the delivery time to 52 weeks and demanded that I pay before placing the order.
Neighbors do not have any contact, so there is no need to worry about competition. Moreover, my company’s products are unique, there is no domestic company to produce them, so foreign foster parents like them and sign long-term contracts. This is the source of revenue that helps my company survive in this Covid-19 time.
“Children”, a quarter of them are sent to their grandparents and the other quarters are with their grandmothers. I still have to send them a monthly allowance, and I have to pay social insurance and other allowances to keep them alive. In this Covid-19 era, sometimes the money collection is delayed, but late payment of social insurance will still incur a late payment interest penalty!
The remaining half of the children followed me into the company to perform three jobs on the spot. Thanks to this group of people who are smart, hardworking and very disciplined, they help a lot for my company to survive and wait for the day of the pandemic to surrender to live together. Therefore, it is necessary to take care of delicious food, clean clothes, a cool place to sleep, and absolutely no mosquitoes so that the children can rest assured to eat well, sleep well and dress well in order to fully focus on studying and studying. manufacture.
My “uncle” are many here and are the most difficult people in my complex extended family. On a happy day, he told me to “be proactive and flexibly apply the third option in place to maintain production”. On a sad day, my uncle told me to stop production and wait for the epidemic to end and then work again. My uncles are very simple people and their thoughts are also very simple. Operating the company is as simple as turning on and off the lights, if you want the company to operate the production, then turn on the switch, if you want the company to stop working, then push the switch down.
Life is enlightening, whether businesses operate or not, we all have to pay all kinds of taxes to the state. My little ones will not die from SARS-CoV-2 because they are young and have just been vaccinated. They may die because the company no longer wants to do three on the spot, have to stay in the hostel to live apart according to directive 16 and eat instant noodles for a long time. Maybe it’s time for me to learn to think simply, “it’s too hard to do it”.
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* The article shows the style and perspective of the author, an overseas Vietnamese businessman investing in Vietnam