things you can do when labor is cheap.

Network problems at home last night and this morning. Checked all the connections and did a hard reset of the modem and router. Still no luck. So a quick call to the telco to see if there was a network outage or a problem with our account. The rep said they'd check on the status for us and asked for a contact number. About 30 minutes later, I get a call from a serviceman who is on site at our apartment wondering which unit we're in.

It's a good thing that Angie was home to let him in. If she wasn't it would've been a wasted trip by their serviceman. He fiddled around with things and got my Windows machine to get to the network (I'd had no luck going direct with our OSX machine). Seems we've got a bum router (argh, just bought the thing about four months ago), but the network and modem are fine.

So China Telecom sent out an ostensibly technically qualified rep to check on our network to find out that there was a problem with our router. We both could've been out. It could've been a loose cable. Heck, what if I'd just had the thing unplugged or didn't know how to power on my computer. The call rep should've asked if we were home. She should've run through a few simple FAQ type checks to see if it was worth sending someone over. Instead she quickly dispatched someone.

These kinds of process inefficiencies are masked by the cheap labor that is so plentiful here in China (even in Shanghai), but they're extremely difficult to iron out of a large, mature organization. Refraining from just throwing people at problems is a new paradigm in management that is still not widely adopted here. But it's one that will need to take hold as Chinese companies try to compete with foreign entrants into this market and as they try to compete internationally.