Encounter with EMI

After the Project Rosetta, there was an assignment to work as a backfill of the Japanese business analyst in EMI Music in Japan. It was said to be a three-month assignment until EMI find the permanent staff to fill the role. As the role required fluent Japanese, I was ask to prove that my Japanese is good.

Well, how can you prove your native language skill?

The easiest way was to speak to the current Japanese BA in Japanese, and that is how the telephone interview was done. Now my long business trip was confirmed.

The company was very understanding and allowed to bring my daughter along to Tokyo. Leaving my husband behind in KL, I left for Tokyo in March 2006. Sakura was beautiful then.

The SAP project there was 6 months before the go-live, but the most of the development was ready and testing and data migration were taking place.

I even helped EMI to look for candidates for the permanent staff, but they could not find the qualified one.

So the assignment was extended another three months. Then coincidentally my husband was asked to come back to Japan though not in Tokyo but Osaka. Knowing my family was coming back to Japan by chance, I was offered to take that position permanently. The previous employer Diagonal did not have a Japan office so that I could not continue working for them. So Diagonal and EMI agreed to transfer me from one and the other. Now I worked for EMI Music HQ in London and stationed in Tokyo.

Since I loved music passionately, working for a music company was such a fortunate opportunity. Doing SAP for EMI seemed to me a perfect solution. However, this started my weekly trip between Tokyo and Kobe where my family settled for husband's new appointment. EMI allowed me to work from home twice a week and take a bullet train every week, so that I became a premium customer of Japan Railway ever since.

The project went live successfully in Sep 2006 and I took over the support and maintenance work. At the same time, I started to study BATIC (Bookkeeping and Accounting Test for International Communication) taking an opportunity working in Japan. I strongly felt that I needed to study accounting properly to excel in FI/CO. That was the beginning of a long journey.

Academy & Project Rosetta

So my new life as a consultant started unexpectedly.

Diagonal was kind enough to send me to the SAP Academy for the full-time FICO course for the five weeks, so that I started attending the class in Kuala Lumpur with three other pupils.

One was from Saudi Arabia, the other two were Malaysians but one was a Chinese and the other lady was an Indian. The lecturer was two Chinese men one for FI and the other for CO.

It was a small class but colorful. We straggled the new terminologies and concepts unique to SAP for the five weeks.

As I went home, 18 months old Sarah was ready to play with me, so that I woke up early to study before the class and studied after the class before I went home. Started having a dream of "Profit Centre" and "Internal Order" by the third week of the Academy. 9am to 5pm SAP classes every day was quite an interesting experience.

And there was the certification exam at the end of the five weeks. The on-line exam to SAP Germany, and the results can be seen immediately when you enter "exit" on the PC or the time was up. You have to mark 70% and more.

I have been through many exams before, but that was the one of the most intense exams ever. I had to pass it because my Academy was expensive and paid by the company, and it became possible because my immediate lady boss fought for me with the management. I could not let her down...I had to pass.

A few of the people left the exam room before the time was up as they thought they had enough. Those who were leaving the room knew of their own results because it came up on the screen when they entered "exit". I could not dare to finish early so that I was working on the questions until the last minutes.

Then it was the end of the exam...and,

the screen told me that I passed (Thank God!!).

I never felt that relieved than that. It was even comparable to the time I delivered Sarah.

The score was 72% and it was indeed close, but somehow, I became a certified consultant for FICO at that moment.

The project with an US furniture manufacturer/distributor in Puchong near Kuala Lumpur was confirmed and I was sent there right after the exhausting exam.

The project was for the Asia Pacific territories such as Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong, and Japan, so that I was expected to work closely with Japan users.

The name of the project was being discussed, and I proposed "Rosetta" for the Rosetta Stone which had the statements in the several languages that helped us to understand the ancient language as it was discovered by Napoleon. Our project with the various users from different countries needed that kind of wisdom to get through.

The next six months, I worked in Puchong with various users and learned about the project, data conversion, and some of FICO config in the real world. Having the tele-conference with the US and France where the headquarters and the IT hub, it could start at 20:00 or 7:00. But I sincerely enjoyed being in the project and doing the hands-on work at last.

Academy and Rosetta consumed most of my time in 2005 and early 2006. Sarah became two years old during Rosetta.

The Challenging New Job: 24/7

It is a woman's privilege to experience the pregnancy and motherhood. So I boldly went where no man has gone before.

I believe that you are controlled by the baby inside when you are pregnant because I could not help but eating so much ice cream like I never had in my life. I would not pretend that I was a small eater, but the appetite during the late quarter of pregnancy was something beyond my control. The baby turned out to love ice cream and had a very good appetite from the day-one.

We named our daughter Sarah. I was baptised in the year 2001 by the international church of Kuala Lumpur, St.Andrews Presbyterian Church. I was hoping she could have a name from the bible which does not sound awkward in Japanese. Also my husband and I wanted our daughter to be a truly global person when she grows up and wanted give her a name which is familiar to people in many countries and cultures.

In fact, we later found out that the name Sarah existed in the Muslim culture and other Asian countries like India and Thailand not only US and UK. I want Sarah to be a boarder less and open-minded adult one day.

I went to the hospital on 6 November 2003 as the doctor advised me to go for c-section since the baby was in the breech position and it was my first delivery. My husband took a day-off to be with me in the operation room.

The anesthetic was partial so that I would be fully aware when the baby was out. It felt funny that you are awake when your tummy is being opened. But the doctors in Pantai Hospital were excellent and everything went smoothly. My husband had to suffer from more scary scenes sitting next me where he could see exact spot where the baby came out!

Sarah was 3,800g and completely healthy. When I held her for the first time in my arms, I thought I came out as a baby myself...she looked very much like me. She even had the same dimple at the same spot on cheek. It was such a sacred moment and my husband and I were filled with joy and love.

But it was a beginning of many sleepless nights and challenges. She happened to be a baby who requires a lot of attention all the time, and I was committed to give her a full breast-feeding which means no supplement milk or water for the first 6 months and continue it until the baby is 2 years old.

During the mother's class provided by the hospital when I was 8 months pregnant, the doctors emphasised the importance of the breast-feeding and I was completely convinced with the scientific facts. So I decided to make it the first gift to the baby.

Really...it must be difficult for those have no kids to imagine, but it WAS a real challenge. If it is a full breast-feeding, you can't ask someone to feed the baby on behalf. Theoretically you could extract the mother's milk and feed the baby from the bottle, but Sarah REFUSED to be fed by the bottle.

I thought all the babies would love the bottles...don't they love it on TV and movies?

Each baby is unique and different. Sarah happens to be the baby who does not WANT to be fed by the bottle. Even if I was out for an hour or so from home, she never ever allowed anyone to feed her. No matter how hungry she was, she waited for me to come back to feed her from the real thing. She was stubborn little baby and determined what she wanted or not.

So, like every other mother on earth, (except for those who are fortunate to have much easier handling babies), I took this new assignment seriously and dedicate all my waking time. It really was 24/7 work. No weekends or public holidays, whether you are sick or not, 3am in the morning or 4pm, the baby needs you.

I was fortunate that I lived in Malaysia. I hired a part-time maid who helped my with the home chores and changing diapers. Only a couples of hours for twice a week, but it made a huge difference. I don't know how to go through that in Japan or elsewhere you can't find such assistance.

No matter how hard this new job was (with no salary), I felt there was no other work on earth which could be more rewarding. The happiness filled my heart as I looked at Sarah's face when she was sound asleep. I thanked God so many times for this precious gift and made a pledge that I would provide her everything she needs until she is fully grown up and ready to stand on her own. I would never let her suffer for not having enough fund for education.

With a handful of friends who became mothers around same time, I was happy being a full-time mother. Not working disturbed me a bit, but I DID have an important job to raise Sarah, so I had no nervous breakdown this time. In fact, I was really busy every day as much as I was working full-time especially the first year of Sarah's life.

The peaceful family life was interrupted when I received a phone call from a consulting company where one of my previous business contact joined and became a country manager. It was late 2004. I was asked if I could come back to work, this time as a SAP consultant. They were looking for a Japanese-speaking consultant but there was no such resource in Malaysia, and they promised to send me for the full training course to obtain the certification in Finance module. He remembered that I had CPIM and SAP implementation experience. No other Japanese person had either in Kuala Lumpur.

During my college time, I did a research on the effect of working mother on children. In early 1990, it was suggested that mother should spend more time with a child until he/she becomes 3 years old. So I intended to go back to work after Sarah became 3 years old, but I doubted if the similar opportunity could be available two years later.

My husband and I had a serious discussion. Sarah was only 13 months and my husband wanted me to be a full-time mother for a few more years.

But I felt strongly moved by this opportunity and I could not let it go.

So I went to the interview to the consulting firm called Diagonal Consulting (now changed the company name to Morse Consulting) located on the 63rd floor of the Twin Tower in Kuala Lumpur City Centre. It was a UK based firm and had several overseas branches. Immediately after the interview, I was offered a position and a confirmation letter. Everything went so quickly as if it was all planned along.

Now my husband and I agreed that I go back to work and send Sarah to nursery full time. I found a good local nursery with many foreign kids which also provided transportation from/to the nursery everyday. The new life as a working mother started in April 2005.

System Integrator: Bar Code Systems and ERP

So now I was married and moved in to a condominium in Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur.

It was the year 2000 when I could not stand staying home and my friend introduced me his friend's company called Data Collection Systems, which was a Japanese own system integrator specialising in bar code systems.

For a hotelier, it was a quite change. Fortunately I had many friends from NTT (Japan equivalent of AT&T) and I had personal interest in IT while I was in the hotel industry. Still there were a lot to learn.

It was the first time in my life I had Saturday and Sunday off and Christmas & New Year holiday. I have been working in the service industry since high school, so that I never really had proper Christmas or New Year holiday when the business is the most active.

The managing director was the only Japanese person in the company and he asked me to sell both bar code systems and ERP projects. The actual implementation would be done by the partner company called Magnus Consulting from Holland which had a branch office in Kuala Lumpur. As Magnus was a typical SAP house, I started to learn about SAP and worked with various consultants from Magnus.

Designing and selling bar code systems was quite fun too. I learned a lot about the manufacturing companies' operations: the clients were mostly the major Japanese manufacturers and logistics companies like Canon, Denso, Nippon Express, Shin-Etsu, etc. I travelled all over Malaysia to visit the clients.

I managed to close a SAP project with one of the major Japanese logistic company, and I experienced the full cycle of the implementation as a member of steering committee. And I realised that I want to do the project myself as a consultant.

One of my friends at Magnus suggested that I work on CPIM (Certified in Production and Inventory Management) from US if I wanted to pursue an ERP consultant career. There was a small business school in Kuala Lumpur offering a CPIM course on weekends and the exams could be taken locally. So I enrolled to the program and studied Supply Chain Management.

It took me two years to pass the four exams to obtain CPIM. I was happy for the result but not very happy at work. There were not much business or new project by the beginning of 2003 and the work became a routine and boring. Then I decided it was a good time to have a baby before I was too old.

Taking 6 months to conceive, I got pregnant and left the company in mid 2003. The new challenge awaited me: A baby and motherhood.

New Property, New Encounter

Concorde Hotel built a new hotel in Shah Alam, 25km west from Kuala Lumpur.

As the new General Manager for Shah Alam was the Resident Manager of Concorde Hotel Kuala Lumpur who interviewed me in the first place, I was asked to look after the both properties as Associate Director of Sales.

Shah Alam is a industrial suburb where there were many Japanese manufacturing companies operated. This new hotel with 380 rooms had to cultivate new clients with strong Japanese business base.

I moved my hotel room from Kuala Lumpur to this Shah Alam property and started work with those manufacturers.

One day, I had a food poisoning from tuna sandwich and stayed in the hospital for 2 days. When I was discharged, I was still weak and sick, but I dropped in the office to see how much work has been compiled in the past few days.

Then I received a phone call from Matsushita Electric (probably their bland "Panasonic" is more popular and they just changed the company name to Panasonic two days ago worldwide). They were my biggest target as they had a large number of engineers travel from Japan and each stayed for several months. They could be the biggest corporate account in Shah Alam.

The lady asked me to come to office today, so I grabbed the chance although I was still sick and on medical leave. It was a never-to-miss business opportunity.

As I arrived their massive office, the Chinese lady who was arranging a hotel for their visitors explained their requirements and negotiated on the price. I promised to come back to her the next day, and she said she wanted to introduce her boss to me.

I was bloody sick but happy to meet her boss. His name was Yasushi and quite a young looking manager in mid-thirties. I thanked him for the opportunity and said that the hotel could start a good relationship with Matsushita Electric.

The General Manager of Concorde Shah Alam was happy to have an opportunity to move all the long-term guests from the other hotel, and agreed with the requests from the client and published the special rate for them. I invited the client's general manager and managing director to the dinner in our hotel and had a long talk to start a good and mutual relationship.

The flow of guests started to come in to the new and quiet hotel.

I greeted many guest upon check-in, and made sure they were happy staying with us. The Japanese guest service officers were hired to attend them on day-to-day basis.

I worked with Yasushi and his bosses closely and received many phone calls from him. It was so natural and business-like, it took me a long time to realise he had personal interest in me. I did not like to get involved with clients personally, but when things happen, they do if you like it or not.

Yasushi happens to be my husband now, but until we got married in 2000, there was a long way to go. The first thing we did after we engaged was to inform the managing director of Matsushita Electic who congratulated us happily. If he was a typical, old-fashioned man, we would have had a very difficult time. But fortunately he was open-minded gentleman who was understanding and supportive to us. He went back to Japan soon after we disclosed our marriage plan and could not attend our wedding.

I left the hotel industry at the end of 1999 as I thought my working life in the hotel could easily destroy the new marriage life. I worked too long hours and weekends and public holidays. Even if I moved out from the hotel, it is not easy to change the working style and people's expectation.

The first couple of months I left the hotel, I tried to do nothing. I sort of trying to see if I could be a full-time housewife.

Then I realised I couldn't. I rather had a nervous break-down and started having funny physical problems like body rushes and non-stop coughing.

I wasn't fit to be a housewife. It was so very obvious.

The nervous break-down was not only due to not working, but also the toughest decision I just had to make. I was going out with a different Japanese man for the past three years who did not seem to want to marry me but changed his mind to marry me after I met Yasushi. I cared for him deeply so it was a very painful decision not to marry him. The final decision was made when I thought he would not have asked me to marry him if Yasushi never came between us. I did not want to use Yasushi to change his mind and throw him away after he did. Though I loved the other guy, it just did not seem the right decision. Letting him go was a tremendous stress as well, but I recovered from all the funny physical symptoms after I went back to work, so "not working" must have been the biggest stress at that time.

Yasushi and I cerebrated the new year of 2000 at our friend's condo in the centre of Kuala Lumpur. The new millennium was around the corner.

1997: The Tragic Year

Besides my full-time sales manager work, I was also doing the translating work using a few hours before bed. One of the Malaysian newspaper had a web and wanted their top news to be translated in a few languages, and Japanese was one of them.

Of course I couldn't do it every night, so that I did this secret part-time job with another Japanese lady who was a full-time translator.

One night, I received the news article from the newspaper company by fax for the following morning top news.

It said Princess Diana died in the car crush.

I could not believe it as the news did not appear on TV or newspaper yet (of course it was going to be the following morning top news). I was hoping it was some kind of mistake, but it was true.

I also remember that I translated the currency crush news.

All Asian currencies crushed in July 1997, which put me in despair as all my life saving was in Malaysian Ringgit.

The Malaysian currency had been consistent with US dollars at 2.5 for all these years, but it fell up to 4.3 in 1997.

Besides sending money to my mother, I was saving from the translation work hoping to save enough to go back to the university in US one day. It was only two more years to finish off BA, and I intended to continue in the graduate school with scholarship.

But my savings worth 40% less now, and I did not know how long more it would take to save at least USD20,000 to apply the visa.

Following the currency market, the stock markets in Asia were hit by serious recessions. The hotel business was harshly hit as people cancelled the business trip and less Asians travelled for sightseeing that year and 1998.

No matter how many offices I visited every day, my clients could do nothing as people back in Japan had no reason to fly to Kuala Lumpur when the business deals were not there.

The sales department is the first one to be blamed for not filling up the hotel with customers. We all worked hard, but simply the business was not there.

The market situation did not recover much in 1998. It had to wait for the year 1999 to see the customers back in the hotels.

Several hotels approached me and offered senior positions, but I knew I would not be able to bring in the result in that market condition, so I kept turning down the job offers.

I simply stayed there and endured the pain of recession doing everything possible.

It was bitter, but meaningful lesson. The general manager was keeping his head up and tried everything. I admired his will power and optimistic behavior. No matter how he was worried and scared in reality, he never showed that to his staff. Instead, he came out of many interesting ideas to keep the business going.

The sad, busy years had passed slowly. It seemed to me the year 1997 and 1998 would last forever, but fortunately, they didn't.

New Life In Concorde

There was another 4-star hotel right in front of Shangri-la Hotel.

It was called Concorde Hotel (not the same group as the Concord in France) which was owned by a Singapore public listed company.

An experienced female Japanese sales manager was running the business there, but she wanted to leave the hotel industry and join one of the Japanese corporate company in KL. So I received the first offer from another company if I wanted to take over her position.

The offer was attractive. In Shangri-la, I was earning not so much different from a local sales executive would earn, but Concorde offered to treat me as an expatriate. So the net income was nearly double, the tax was paid by the hotel, and most of all they offered the accommodation in the hotel with full meals and room service facilities.

Since I was not happy continuing the relationship with the boyfriend at that time, it looked such a promising new life moving out from the shared apartment with him.

So I accepted the offer and broke up with the boyfriend from the US. I met both the Japanese Director of Sales and the resident manager Mr Lau, and the both looked very understanding bosses. Now I was not a sales executive, but became a sales manager.

After finishing a major event for Fuji Xerox, I moved to Concorde Hotel, both the office and private room. I sent the letter to all the clients that now I work for Concorde Hotel. Everything looked perfect.

But, there was a new challenge of life waiting for me there.

The immediate boss was not the ones I met before. It was a mid-aged Chinese lady who was the Director of Sales & Marketing, and she was not happy to have a 24-year-old Japanese sales manager from Shangri-la Hotel, the 5 star in front of her.

Even until today, she has been the most difficult boss and least logical. For example, there was a meeting briefing at 8:45am and I came in to the office before 8:30am, but she was not happy. According to her, since I live in the hotel itself, I should come in much earlier than anyone else.

Her favorite phrase was "Yukiko, I am so disappointed." And that was used for most of the staff in the sales department very often. She was constantly disappointed and very hard to please her no matter what we did.

In one case, there was an in-house Japanese young female guest who was approached by a waiter in the hotel's coffee shop, and she checked out as she was scared when the waiter came to her room one night.

The lady boss said, "Yukiko, that is your fault." I could not believe my ears. What did I do?

She said, "Because you did not greet her and meet her upon check-in and give her your business card to contact for any inconvenience, she checked out without telling us what happened. We could have done something to make up with her if you did your job."

She was like that to almost everyone in the office, and many staff left the hotel because of her. I was resented from time to time, but I learned to live with it after a while because the sales team was quite united and we had buddies to complain about her if you can't stand.

Also, the bosses above her were excellent. Both the resident manager and the general manager, Mr Lee from Singapore, were aware of what was happening and always encouraged and supported me.

When the lady boss was reluctant to confirm my employment after the probation, it was Mr Lee who did so. He was very sharp and talkative man with a lot of charms, and very Singaporean.

In Concorde Hotel, there were less VIPs since it was not the 5 star hotel. But we had many guests from Japanese manufacturing companies like Hitachi, Matsushita, and Toshiba as well as many long term guests.

1996 was such a glorious year for my career as a sales manager. The total sales under my accounts was almost RM6Million, and Mr Lee referred me to others saying, "You know, she is my 6 Million woman from the Japanese sector." My business trips to all over Malaysia and Singapore did pay off that year.