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.