Petit à petit, Yuan fait son nid.

Lesson 25 Check and re-check and re-re-check

    Yesterday, Jose helped me to finalize a quotation PPT for a Canadian tea company. For a few pages document, he corrected it about fifteen times…

    He began to read it, being totally focused, and every time he could find a mistake he asked me to revise it accordingly. And then he required me to send it back to him to check again. But he kept finding some other mistake and he asked me to revise it and save it again to then send it back to him to check again, and again… Fifteen times!

     I was surprised that he could find so many “tiny” mistakes in the file which looked so perfect and well done in my own eyes.

     I played with my pen and said, “Jose, you are older than me but you have much sharper eyes, why? Because you are wearing glasses?”

     Jose answered calmly, “I am a professional.”

     I said, “Professional? I see you as a perfectionist.”

     “Ok, I am a professional and a perfectionist.” Jose said, not looking up and checking the PPT intensely. Again!

     Thanks God! After one hour, he finally announced, “Ok, we got there! There is no mistake now.”

     I was so released that I immediately sent the file to the Canadian guy and BCC’d a copy to Jose at the same time.

     A few days ago, I had forgotten to use capital letters in a previous email’s subject field which made Jose very angry. This time I checked twice before I sent it out.

     Jose promised me that he would not be harsh with me if he found any mistake again in the email but, fortunately, it was OK.

     After all, I know that Jose wants to help me and I thank him for that, even if sometimes he is dreadfully demanding. But, you know, I really thank him because he is doing much more than a simple proofreading for me; he is, in effect, teaching me how to become a better business woman; even a better woman... His rigorous attitude, his committed working manner impresses me a lot.

     “Check, and re-check, and re-re-check!” He is always like that, even with my English blogs which are not that important in my eyes. But every time he corrected them many times himself, until he was fully satisfied. He always says, “Yuan, I know you are writing those blogs for fun, but since you want to publish them, you need to be careful and responsible for your readers.”

     Now, because I endorse Jose’s perfectionism more and more I am checking thoroughly not only my English blogs, but also my Chinese ones. I am much more careful about the spelling mistakes which I would not notice before.

     Well, lesson after lesson, now we have reached Lesson 25 and there is no doubt in my mind that I have learnt a lot from Jose …and in many ways. But sometimes I am curious about what he could learn from me, because I believe the relationship should be a two-way street, right?

     So one day, I asked him, “Hey, Jose, it is obvious that I have learnt a lot from you, but what did you learn from me?”

     Jose thought very briefly and then said, “Patience.”

     “What?”

     “Yes.” Jose said, “Yuan, remember how many times I have to repeat the same things again and again until you can finally get it right?”

     Poof…