After the inspection-that-yielded-no-insights, we all sat together around a conference table. This, I gradually came to understand, was the forum for announcing my impression of the factory and its wares, make polite noises, and initiate some sort of trial run. Of course, with no prototype and no specs, there could be no trial run. We all knew that. And yet, as if the routine had been indelibly carved into the factory rep’s head by the countless procession of prior would-be clients who knew the drill, we marched right into that conference room anyway. Factory after factory. (We stopped for coffee at - yep. Even in Ningbo...)
And if there was torture, these conference rooms were it. See me sitting with (poor!) Linda and a handful of factory people, as well as the ever-helpful Ms Fan, groping for something – anything! – halfway intelligent to say rather than sit in painful, prolonged silence. ‘How many garments do you produce in a year?’ I was more journalist than businessman. Sometimes the strain was too much, and I blithely turned things over to Linda while I made some show of jotting important-looking scribbles into my notebook.
And yet, for all that, not a moment was wasted. I learned a ton.
I have to start somewhere. Might as well be in the basement.
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