Hi Mama,
Sorry I didn't write last night - I was having internet issues for quite some time and gave up at 10:30 and went to bed.
Wow - what a day today. We left at 10:15 this morning to go visit two facilities located 15 miles away. FIFTEEN MILES. It took just over 2 hours to get to the first place, and we spent 45 minutes there. About 45 minutes. It was not incredible. Then, it took an hour and 15 minutes to go 3 miles to the next location. I thought I was going to die - it was totally miserable. We then walked through their facility for about 40 minutes then I sat in a really hot room wtih everyone (7 people) while they negotiated a contract - entirely in Portuguese. I didn't udnerstand and accidentally kept yawning. I couldn't keep my eyes open! Anyway, I was truly praying in my heart that the traffic back wouldn't be bad and it was a miracle - only an hour and fiften minutes for those 15 miles! Can you imagine if it took an hour and fifteen minutes to get to Fashion Place? That is about the equivalent! My goodness. We were supposed to stop at a third facility and I said it wasn't worth my time - takes way too long. They will come to us tomorrow. :)
So, what am I doing in Brazil? I am looking to implement some new methods of operations to decrease costs. The goal is to have made great progress in 90 days. Well, at this point we have only about 70 days left. So I am here learning as much as I possibly can about operations, issues, challenges, and areas of potential. We are making a list of priorities and then we will execute against the list to see the benefits. It is a difficult job because nobody here will commit to anything: I can get the to agree completely with my proposal one day then the next day when we look at it in writing (my writing!) they say no way. It is very discouraging. But, I will keep working hard.
It's about 7:00 PM now. I am back to the office to work on emails - missed 131 in the hours I was gone, so am trying to catch up. I worked hard this morning to get my Inbox down and now it's filled up again. Anyway, am hopeful that I will get to a better place before I go home. If not, I will just work at home.
My stomach has been having a dickens of a time since arriving here - I've been totally miserable. This morning I barely ate anything for breakfast and that seemed to help. I also ate just my American food last night for dinner (Tuna sandwich, applesauce and pringles). I'll probably do the same again tonight and hope it stays steady. Everyone here takes 60-90 minutes every day for lunch and then stays at the office very late because of it - I would far rather work straight through lunch and leave earlier, but I'm not making the rules here. :) It's hard to change a culture, and that's okay.
Two more days. The airport is the same place as the warehouses we visited today and Friday's traffic is supposed to be worst so...I think I'll be leaving like 5 hours early on Friday. That gives me 2 hours for traffic and 2 hours for Customs - I have coworkers that have taken 3-4 hours for each before, so I hope I won't have any issues. I really, really hope....
Can't wait to be home.
Rachel
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