Cosmetics Unmasked

This is how I feel before I went off for my China holidays last month. I am using the picture above to illustrate my emotions at that point of time :) I can’t swim, so if you ask me to go for swimming or surfing…I will probably have a panic attack, my stress & anxiety level will shoot up to the maximum and I will chicken out from the whole situation. Swimming makes me nervous! The crashing waves. The sea spray. The unrelenting energy of the water smashing and sweeping through the rocks. The rhythmic tide of an ocean is so immeasurable and wet. It can be very terrifying out there. Terrified that I will drown of course. Terrified of breaking my head on the rocks. Terrified of being swept out to the sea and end up like Robinson Crusoe :)

But I am not going swimming or surfing this time around. I am actually going off for my well-deserve holiday break…I will be out from the office for a solid 8 days…leaving both William & Henry alone to look after our fort :) Yikes! I know that my 2 buyers are very capable and independent & they can work with minimum supervision, but I am only afraid what if Juan Carlos tries to make it hard for them. I know Stewart will be around to act as a protective shield but Stewart will also be very busy supervising on other matters as well. Juan Carlos gets very “Kan Cheong” very easily and changes his mind very frequently. I cannot blame Juan Carlos as well as he never did Bazaar before. He has always been a Textile guy. So, Juan Carlos can’t actually visualize the final outcome until he sees the whole picture – Merchandise + Layout – then Juan Carlos starts to make the necessary changes. And this is where the whole team suffers because we have to re-do everything again. Another bad habit of Juan Carlos is that he will go and visit our competitors or other retailers and he will then try to combine all of their concepts into 1. Juan Carlos is so different compare to Iron Butterfly and Snow Petrol because the latter would have sat the buyers down in the first place and decides which concept & direction to pursue. So, the bottom-line is, Juan Carlos makes things very kelam-kabut for everyone because things keep on changing non-stop :) And he is only steady & stable in condition when Stewart or I am around. If the both of us are not around, Juan Carlos will be in fright-mode and whatever we have briefed him earlier on, he will totally forgets about it and he doesn’t believe what the rest of the buyers have told him.

I know it’s silly of me…but a prayer was said. I actually prayed to assure myself that there will be no problems, troubles, annoyance & irritations affecting my suppliers, my store people, the top management and my fellow colleagues & to put a hand on both William & Henry. I know that they are big & brave but I don’t want them to feel de-motivated when Juan Carlos puts them down. Like they haven’t done anything at all. To handle Juan Carlos – is to manage his expectations, informing him what we can do and what we cannot do.