We all work. Well most of us do.
Whatever you do in this world at the end of the day the aim is to have a certain amount of job satisfaction. Whether solving a problem on a car, an internet project or simply cutting your lawn at home. At the end you can stand back and look with satisfaction that you have acheived something.
For us it is the same. A client comes for a visit to our factories. The design process begins and examples are made. Decisions are made and production begins.
Quality control is always a huge factor with us with many an hour spent at the factory making sure things run to plan and that every item is the same high standard.
The day the truck arrives at the factory door for loading, last minute checks and labelling, then the container is filled to capacity with a feeling of suspence hoping that the full order actually loads, the doors are closed and the seal put in place.
That is not the end as such. Invoices are cut, documents completed and our customs agent goes to work. The suspence continues as the truck must meet the cut-off time for delivery to the docks.
When the email arrives from the controlling government bodies that the customs declaration has been issued then we can take a breath.
That is still not the end. We then have to wait up to four weeks for the container to reach our customer who will unload and get the goods onto the shopfloor. That is when I get the call that there has been no problems and I can actually beging to breath normally again.
My job satisfaction is seeing our products in the stores. On a recent visit to one of our clients, while I was in one of their stores, a salesperson sold 4 of our mattresses in front of me.
Then the satisfaction was complete and the months of working come to an end. That is, until the next order.
In the world of exporting sometimes things do not always go to plan but that is a story of another day.