So, it is Thursday today…. And I’ve just woken up from a 1 hour, not so deep and more involuntarily nap. And I’m still at work.
I ..am….exhausted.
I don’t think there’s any other way to say that.
Why am I so exhausted?
Because I work in ‘logistics for e-commerce’ and these past few days has been the lead up to Black Friday, and then Cyber Monday, which of course started as an American Sale extravaganza, however because China is highly capitalistic now, and most of the boxes we ship goes to China, then we have to deal with this shit too.
It would be fantastic if you are the owner of a logistics firm, or have an e-commerce store, but not so much if you are helping to run such a business, and getting paid by salary not in terms of shares, or even by the hour.
Plus, if you’re working the entire time, you’re not able to take advantage of all of these sales yourself.
Bugger.
So the 26th of November, actually was my birthday, but how did I spend my birthday? By working a 14 hour day at the office / warehouse.
Awesome!
Not the greatest birthday I’ve had, if i’m being honest.
And then Monday the 28th, Tuesday the 29th, Wednesday the 30th, I also worked in the office and then helping out in the warehouse all until 12.30 midnight, the earliest being 11.47.
Crazy.
For this, we’ve put in overtime for. And will be paid by the hour, starting from 6.30. However…no one wants to work this amount.
Back in Australia when I used to work for Woolworths, (at their Distribution centre near the airport), Easter was the busiest period, you would sometimes work 10 hours a day and my longest was for 13 days straight. But minimum 8 hours a day, max 10. But I remember making just over 1,000 AUD after tax sometimes.
Here, in Europe? I doubt it’s going to be like that.
I honestly don’t know why Europe has this stereotype of being ‘the place to be’, it really isn’t.
It is now 5pm, and it’s dark outside. Not getting dark, it IS dark. That’s not fun.
So yep, just before I involuntarily fell asleep, meaning that I was going to go up to my office, after working in the warehouse helping the guys out…just to sit down and do some office work, but instead ended up falling asleep, with no intention of doing so.
My left shoulder and neck hurt, and I can’t turn my head to the left so well; my sternum really hurts, and I don’t know what’s going on with that, in fact I have to roll out of bed recently because I can’t sit up normally….and more than that….my mind has pretty much decided to switch itself off.
I actually just had a dream about arranging boxes, and dealing with damaged parcels.
How messed up is that.
Someone in the warehouse, the team leader I think, mentioned… ‘oh I hope the European Director’ remembers all the effort we put in at this time’
But saying it as if he expected a reward or something.
That makes me a little sad because I know that’s NOT how it works.
In reality, and I’m aware I know this because I’m a cynical and sceptical guy, but in reality the director level management and owners will send a message telling everyone ‘Good job!, let’s all hang in there together, I appreciate all your hard work’ this kind of thing.
And what does it mean for the workers. They put in the effort, and the directors and owners reap the rewards. And, it shouldn’t have to be said that they don’t remember it when something goes wrong later, you don’t get a ‘get out of jail free card’ for later. You just get a little pat on the back, and that’s it.
There’s something my dad told me when I was young, “Set up your own business, and you can take control of your own life”
I’ve always wanted to set up my own business and take control, I’m thinking after this year in Europe is done, that’s what I’m going to do. I was so close to doing it back in China, for moving to Chengdu (home of the Pandas) preparing all the research and then setting up my own business.
But there’s also another kind of business idea, and that’s selling e-commerce goods to China.
Working in this job has shown me the sheer extent of crap that Chinese people are willing to buy overseas.
No one needs this level of material goods, they just buy it regardless.
I met a girl once where her entire room was filled with boxes, and those boxes were filled with clothing. It was insane, how do you get to that stage?
For myself anyway, I’ve got 3 pairs of shoes – Business shoes, everyday comfy shoes, and squash shoes. Then I’ve got a bunch of tailored shirts, 3 V-neck cashmere jumpers, a couple of normal jumpers, 2 or maybe 3 suits, a bunch of socks and underwear and then all my electronic goods, computer phones, camera etc.
I guess I only have this amount of stuff because I have lived in a few countries and got used to living with only what I need. Plus, I will admit that I’m wanting to build an actual ‘home’ where it feels like somewhere nice to come back to…. But, even then, I can’t imagine accumulating this level of crap.
One thing I saw was a therapeutic blue morning light or something.
It was literally just a blue light with an on-off button. And it was advertised as ‘UV light free’ .
Yeah it’s not supposed to have any UV light, because it’s just a normal light. That should be an advertising point! It’s like advertising a bag of flour saying ‘UV light free’ it doesn’t mean anything, because it’s not supposed to have it in the first place.
And how much was this UV free blue morning rejuvenating light?, I hear you asking.
60 GBP.
60 pounds, for a light. That’s crazy.
So business idea no. 2 is to just sell shit to China, and take control of my own path.
In the USA they have a saying that selling 10,000 of anything is easy, it’s the 100,000, 200, 000 that is difficult.
Honestly I think when it comes to Chinese people buying stuff, those might be the basic figures, 100,000 is the easy part. Just because they seem to buy absolutely anything. Even if it makes zero logical sense or they have zero need for something like this, they will buy it.
Plus after selling 100,000 of something, you’ve already made it.
Ah…. I think my choices have become much easier now.
Time to find some shit to sell.
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