Who's busy?

[andyfest]

I use the words "sales force" loosely. They used to be hungry and there was several slimes working out of our division. Now there is one active slime working out of our location and the rest work out of the head office about 200 miles from here. I don't have a good feeling about the future of our location, but I hope it holds out for another 7 or 8 years when my OAS kicks in. A lottery win would do the trick too...

[Ear]

[frailer]

Peaks and troughs here. We depend on show-biz work; 'glossy'/high-end, but pretty short run, given size of market here. 
We're in-house, so cushioned a bit, although I don't look more than a year ahead, at most. The whole thing could be 're-purposed' in several directions, some of it digital, no doubt. I don't know what the bigger business plan is.
I'm old, but try and stay healthy. I need to work for a few years yet.

At risk of changing topic, one of our local service techs is say mid-50s. He's paranoid about retiring and his brain going to sleep. Am talking a real fear here. My biggest fear is enough to live on; that'll keep my brain busy.
I think of that New Yorker cartoon greeting card.... mouse on wheel... "This was only ever meant to be a vacation job..."

[Farabomb]

Retirement?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

[Possum]

Retirement? Sales force? What are these strange terms?

[Made in Taiwan]

Still need to keep working here for another 15-18 years, then our house should be paid and my wife's income should be high enough to support our living costs so I can retire    
Oh wait, in that case I can just go and find a job that might pay less, but is less harmful than this one.   

[frailer]

Still need to keep working here for another 15-18 years, then our house should be paid and my wife's income should be high enough to support our living costs so I can retire   
Oh wait, in that case I can just go and find a job that might pay less, but is less harmful than this one. 

Curious, MiT, (and you're not obliged under Forum Rules to answer any of it...), But you're in Taipei, right? Are you married to Taiwanese lady?
Main reason I ask is, if you ever go up into the central mountains, I'd love to see some pics...
Of course, I could be making the whole thing up; in which case I'll use it as a plot-start for the book I'll write when I retire. (thought I'd use the word 'retire' as it gets a good reaction here).

... easy to see I'm in a trough. Shedload of proofs out; awaiting OKs.

[Made in Taiwan]

You're right, I live in Taipei and I'm married to a Taiwanese lady. Being married to a Taiwanese citizen makes many things easier. For example, I have almost the same rights as Taiwanese citizens have, except for voting, and unlike many expats around here, I can choose my employer freely and I could change the job any time if I wanted to.

Been living here for more than 5 years now, but never made it to the central mountains so far. That is because it is pretty inconvenient to get there. You would need to go by train to Taichung first and then transfer to a bus which takes you to the mountains. The bus trip takes several hours and if you've ever been sitting in a Taiwanese bus that's driven up and down the mountains by a Taiwanese bus driver, well, let me say, you'll need several days of vacation afterwards to recover again.

But it's one of our top wanna-go destinations in the future anyway. A few months ago, I became proud owner of a car again, so this target is getting closer now. Just need to find the time to go there. If one day I'll make it there, I'll send you some pics. So far I could only show you pictures of the famous Taroko gorge on the East side of Taiwan, been there several times and I'd love to go there again, too. But looking at a photo, the feeling is different anyway. If you're standing there in reality and see the mountains towering several hundred meters high right next to you, no picture ever can capture that feeling.   

(Talking about changing jobs... This last sentence actually qualifies me to work in the tourism industry, doesn't it?)

[frailer]

Cheers. Interesting. Yep, some Gorge pics would suffice in the meantime.    :smiley:

Oh, and one more thing (channeling Columbo here...), you're obviously up to speed in CJK script, and also whatever dialect they speak in Taiwan?
Nosey bugger, aren't I?   

[Made in Taiwan]

Just wanted to write: "We're slow today in the morning, so we can chat for a while", when Commander Douchebag came in. Printing and finishing his stuff usually keeps us busy for a bunch of hours each day. This time luckily was an easy job, look at the file, add some bleed, send to the printer, cut the paper, print, cut to final size, put in the envelope, write down the prize and done.

In Taiwan three languages are spoken: Mandarin (Chinese), Taiwanese and Hakka, last one is mainly spoken by indigenous people. Taiwanese is the local language and used through all generations, but the main language is still Mandarin. I can somehow understand Mandarin, I can also write and type it (although using the computer is somewhat easier than handwriting). Taiwan uses traditional Chinese characters, which have more strokes than the simplified characters, that they use in Mainland China, for example, which makes it even harder to remember, how to write them. My Chinese might not be the best, but until now I somehow always managed to get my jobs done.

No gorge pics yet by the way, I'm at work and my harddrive is at home. Sorry for the delay.

[DCurry]

I'll bet those pics are gorge-ous.

[born2print]

Waka-waka-waka!

[DCurry]

I'm here all week. Try the veal!

[Grimace]

so busy here that I'm putting stickers on promotional books. They didn't start that way, they were done wrong at the bindery, only half the pages were put in (repeating pattern). So now they are promo stuff, or says the sticker. Only about 10,000 more to go.
Yeah, I wish we were busy...

[born2print]

That's a sticky situation!