Really I am a bit anxious.....or is it India driving me nuts again?
We applied for a booth at a Trade Show coming up in mid February [ohh yes less than a month from now]
we applied in November, response should have come in December....well still waiting- apparently so many paid the fees to join the Indian Handicrafts Export Organization [hefty fees for India] and applied to show [ why else would they have paid money to join?] and there is a not enough space. For the last few weeks many and various emails have come through, if you don't answer now you will be excluded type things and still not enough space so tomorrow there is to be a lottery.
Please God, Gods, your lucky rabbit's foot that it will then be final AND we get a slot.
We could really do with the opportunity to drum up some more business. We have Stitching Ladies poised with needles, we have a good workshop set up to finish things off and slowly we are growing, but I feel a big pressure from the women we have to give more work and many others asking. Some rather insitantly.
Someone recently commented, how we always look happy, especially when we take pictures with the women. We usually are....we do want a good experience for them and us, I don't speak a lot of Hindi so tend to mime a bit to get a message across, which makes people laugh and for photgraphs I usually do something a bit goofy to get a giggle up or else everyone is poker faced.
I hark back to one quote often, in the mission statement side of things....we try to deal with all the kindest possible way, this is true but not every interaction is wonderful and easy.
I remeber a line from a song you got to be cruel to be kind....sometimes this is true. I don't think cruel is quite the right word but you do have to be stict and draw boundaries.
We have this woman who has stitched for us for many years now G...she comes from a far away village and turns up irregularly....she has the whingest voice you can imagine....really grates on my nerves.
It does not work for us if we don't know when work will arrive, how do we fill orders?
We have had this discussion with her a number of times and then off she goes and disappears again, will not pick up the phone if we ring to remend her to be timely.....
She arrived the other day on her very LAST WARNING to be timely....a month and a half late and started whinging and whining, one more chance. Enough- there are people who want work and who are punctual- we showed where we had written in the book last warning...blah, blah, blah.
I realised she is quite a bully and thought to hassle us into yet another chance AND she had no intention of changing her ways.
In trying to be kind and not give into the irration her voice brings out we let her think she could tell us anything and we would go along with her.
It was not easy to get rid of her, I thought we might have to call help and get her thrown off the property.
She might say we are cruel...I think we are being kind to the good workers and ourselves and making space for more. It did make us realise we need to have more of a clear training routine and be much quicker to nip it in the bud if workers think they can get away with not being timely.
I was really shattered for the rest of the day by her carry on....we don't need to be treated that way.
So please cross fingers, beseach all you hold dear, wish us good thoughts- tomorrow is the lottery- we hope to get a booth at the trade fair- Oh Ganesha, remover of obsticles please look with favour upon us :)
We applied for a booth at a Trade Show coming up in mid February [ohh yes less than a month from now]
we applied in November, response should have come in December....well still waiting- apparently so many paid the fees to join the Indian Handicrafts Export Organization [hefty fees for India] and applied to show [ why else would they have paid money to join?] and there is a not enough space. For the last few weeks many and various emails have come through, if you don't answer now you will be excluded type things and still not enough space so tomorrow there is to be a lottery.
Please God, Gods, your lucky rabbit's foot that it will then be final AND we get a slot.
We could really do with the opportunity to drum up some more business. We have Stitching Ladies poised with needles, we have a good workshop set up to finish things off and slowly we are growing, but I feel a big pressure from the women we have to give more work and many others asking. Some rather insitantly.
Someone recently commented, how we always look happy, especially when we take pictures with the women. We usually are....we do want a good experience for them and us, I don't speak a lot of Hindi so tend to mime a bit to get a message across, which makes people laugh and for photgraphs I usually do something a bit goofy to get a giggle up or else everyone is poker faced.
I hark back to one quote often, in the mission statement side of things....we try to deal with all the kindest possible way, this is true but not every interaction is wonderful and easy.
I remeber a line from a song you got to be cruel to be kind....sometimes this is true. I don't think cruel is quite the right word but you do have to be stict and draw boundaries.
We have this woman who has stitched for us for many years now G...she comes from a far away village and turns up irregularly....she has the whingest voice you can imagine....really grates on my nerves.
It does not work for us if we don't know when work will arrive, how do we fill orders?
We have had this discussion with her a number of times and then off she goes and disappears again, will not pick up the phone if we ring to remend her to be timely.....
She arrived the other day on her very LAST WARNING to be timely....a month and a half late and started whinging and whining, one more chance. Enough- there are people who want work and who are punctual- we showed where we had written in the book last warning...blah, blah, blah.
I realised she is quite a bully and thought to hassle us into yet another chance AND she had no intention of changing her ways.
In trying to be kind and not give into the irration her voice brings out we let her think she could tell us anything and we would go along with her.
It was not easy to get rid of her, I thought we might have to call help and get her thrown off the property.
She might say we are cruel...I think we are being kind to the good workers and ourselves and making space for more. It did make us realise we need to have more of a clear training routine and be much quicker to nip it in the bud if workers think they can get away with not being timely.
I was really shattered for the rest of the day by her carry on....we don't need to be treated that way.
So please cross fingers, beseach all you hold dear, wish us good thoughts- tomorrow is the lottery- we hope to get a booth at the trade fair- Oh Ganesha, remover of obsticles please look with favour upon us :)
No comments:
Post a Comment