Petit à petit, Yuan fait son nid.

Mr.Muller,

I would be very surprised if you were surprised after you will finish reading this email. 

What happened yesterday was really not nice. It was not fun at all running out that way for 30 minutes; all of that being for nothing. Granted, it was a small thing only, but I know that you know how small things can be the best way to show a much bigger picture. 

Even if I already organized everything for you, Kiki insisted that I should go to fetch you and I ran out immediately because I was afraid that you would stand on the street and shout “What the fuck is Miss Guo doing? Why is she not here?” 

Another thing, if you had a smallest consideration for me you could just pick up your cell phone and call me,”Hey, Miss Guo, I am coming, somebody will lead me to the office, no need for you to go out.” But no, you even didn’t think about that, it was me calling you, and you told me, “Ahhh, I am in the office now. Come back. Bye bye.” 

It was not fun at all. It reminded me of other small things. The day I was bitten by Zino, Kiki called you from the office while you were in Shanghai. What was your first reaction? You asked, “Wow, what happened? How is Zino?” Your dog bite me, but your first thoughts were about your dog, not the person being bitten. 

That incident happened on a Friday then, during the whole weekend until today – I mean now! – I did not hear a single “Sorry” for that. You never showed a smallest interest to ask me, “Miss Guo, how is your hand? Is it painful?” No, nothing. I know that I am not as beautiful as Zino; I am not as smart as Zino, but can I remind you, Sir, that I am a human being?

Ok, I admit that sometimes I can be a little bit slow in the office, and I told you why. Most Chinese people are afraid of losing face; not me. In fact, I told you in the very beginning, “Sir, I am sorry that I could not understand you.”

For instance, I could not understand the simple word “three” when you said “we meet at three O’clock in Guo Mao.” yesterday. And you kept saying, “Miss Guo, your English is not good enough, you need to practice to understand your clients, understand me!”. 

Sir, my English is quite Ok, I can understand my clients; I can understand the two shareholders, but I can not understand you. Could you, please, help me a little bit to understand you? I mean maybe you could speak a little bit slower; nicely; or even with a smile and with a little bit of patience with me? It would help me a lot, really. But no, you shouted to me, “Good morning!” in a very scorching tone. Because your reaction was like that, of course it made me more nervous and then I became slower. 

That is also the reason why I dislike calling you. If I can not understand you while I am standing in front you, face to face, how can I get what you mean over the phone? Will you get mad? Certainly. So the relationship between you and I is getting more tense, which is not what I want to see.

Yesterday, I told you, “Sir, everybody is afraid of you.” There is a subdued atmosphere in the office, it is not a good sign, and I became myself depressed and more depressed day after day. Last time, I shouted back to you and I am sorry for that, but I needed an outlet for all that pent-up anger. 

Mr.Muller, you really need to watch yourself. Your hot temper hurts the people around you a lot; your family, your employees. Maybe the employees are not that important to you, we are nothing more than the people whom you pay working for you.

That attitude is why on that BBQ day I told you that my boyfriend was waiting for me in the subway station to help me carry the cake I ordered. I thought maybe you could be nice a little bit enough to invite him joining us at the BBQ, because it was more like a casual team building or family gathering. But what did you say? You said, “I believe your boyfriend love you so much that he can wait for you in the subway station.” That was what you said, word for word. So, my boyfriend had to wait for me, until 10:20 pm, for almost 5 hours! And we arrived home around 1:00am!

Sir, it is not the right way to treat people; without a smallest consideration. At least, it is not my way. You kept saying that we are a family, but no, I never felt that. 

As for my job, I really worked hard and tried my best. As you said, I have the willingness to work hard. And it was nice to hear that you kept saying, “You really did a good job. Miss Guo, thank you!” numerous times. Even yesterday, you said it again, and I appreciated it a lot. I didn’t bring big sales number to you yet but it is coming. I got the Costa, Papa John’s, Annies’ Restaurant and the Zoo Coffee Chain. Each of them can bring you a lot of money later, if we do it well. And if we can adjust some items, like delivery standards, we can get more clients also.

But it was not reassuring when we had the meeting with the shareholders and you said to Kiki, in front of everybody, “Costa is your baby, take care of it.” It was a shock to me. I visited a Costa coffee shop, I talked with the manager, he told me the company’s number and address. I visited the office, I found the contact person, Eric Xu, who is in charge of the products cooperation and I tried to make an appointment with him twice, and then finally we had the meeting with Costa. How come after all of that, it was Kiki’s baby?!

During the whole meeting with Costa, I was a person only taking minutes. Kiki kept asking me to do this, to do that, “Guo, write this down, write that down, make notes.” Now, I even need to send my sales reports to her also. She began to check all the work I have done, “Call Costa to get further information. Did you go to the Greek Restaurant? What about Sunbird? Did you visit them again? “

I am a sales manager, I didn’t know I had a sales director before.

Sir, again, here I have nothing against Kiki, because she did what you told her to do. So her behavior with me is a reflexion of your attitude towards me. You know, a significant cause of mismanagement is the granting of authority without exacting responsibility. Who is sales manager? 

Another thing is the lack of trust. You don’t trust me. That is why you stood behind me and suddenly just wanted to check what I was doing on my computer. That is why you asked Liya to open my handbag to examine the contents when you believed that somebody was stealing papers in the office. And I was the first one to be examined. But in fact, nobody stole anything. The accountant girl simply misplaced the papers then she forgot. But why was she that nervous? Because she was afraid of you.

So you know, Sir, everything is going in a circle.  

Again, dealing with people needs patience; doing business needs patience too. Starting your own business is your dream. So once you made your decision, please, stick to it. No need to keep complaining to everybody that you don’t have time for your family, you don’t have time for yourself, you invest a lot of money. It is the nature of doing your own business. Life is not a bed of roses, not for anybody.

Ok. Enough is enough. I got up at 5:am writing this email to you and now I want to finish it. Sir, the 25th of this month will be my last day in your company. I will come to the office giving back everything including the cell phone/charger/catalogue, etc. to Liya. 

I wish you have a nice coming holiday with your family and a good business in the future.