A few days after starting I managed to haul down my team member from the other room -Steven Liao was in charge of technical marketing (in other words he was Chief Technology officer).
“Do you know the name of the girl in marketing in Taoyuan? What are her main responsibilities?” I asked.
“I am not sure! I haven’t met her,” he answered trying to sell his best dummy to get past me.
“Do you think we should have a department meeting some time?” I said. “I know it is a little bit of a grand term for the three of us.”
“I am a little busy at the moment.”
“I thought we should get together to discuss department strategy.”
“Aren’t you reporting to William? He will tell you want he wants you to do.”
“Ok,” I said. “So could you feel me in on your marketing strategy up to now? Presumably there are some files I could look through…”
‘Have a look on Claire’s (the girl I replaced) computer.” At which point he cleverly pointed in the direction of the computer skipped past me the other way and was gone.
Oh well, I shrugged, I shouldn’t ask for training when I said I had experience and could already do it.
I didn’t entirely blame him either as technical marketing (or chief technology officer) he actually no doubt had a full plate of work with real things to do. The last thing he needed was to try and do any marketing.
I had also bothered to talk to Josh because starting this position so I could work out a strategy. Josh said I should offer my services and try and move quickly to a department that had things to do like sales or business development. I went back to my desk and found the number for the director of sales. I wasn’t looking forward to this: remember Pierre’s obsession with not being pigeon-holed as an English teacher? ...Well none of us liked it in truth, and now I was going to swallow my pride and live up to my stereotype.
“Hi,” I said speaking English – no point in going half way with the white man stereotype I guessed. “My name is Dan Chapman. I am the new marketing manager.”
“Yes,” he interrupted. “I heard we have a new foreigner in the company. Welcome, welcome.”
“Thank you,” I said. “No doubt I will put on a song and dance routine when I have settled in a little better.”
“What?” he replied.
“Sorry,” I said before swallowing my pride. “So…maybe, you have some power points you want me to look over…Check the English…Add a foreign marketing spin…I don’t know if that is helpful to you?”
“Yes, of course,” he replied. “I don’t like doing power points…You know we Taiwanese are all engineers – and I wish my English was better...”
I thought you were supposed to be sales, I said to myself. “Great,” I said. “So my email is...”
Once I had put down the phone I called business development and had the same conversation…
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