AND ANOTHER DAY OLDER .......

I started full-time work again this week. Man, what a shock to the system this has been. Up at the crack of dawn (well, 7AM anyway). Off to the place of work at 8 AM. Incarceration until 5.30PM. Home, exhausted and bed by 10PM. This is seriously different to what I have been used to for the last two years.
On Monday morning I arrived to find that the temporary person who was filling in my position for the last month was doing her last day there and was going to 'induct' me on that one day.
There was a mountain of paperwork to be actioned relating to the hundred or so activities that were all deemed to be urgent.

For some reason, the three export container orders that they had to process, and had been sitting on for three months, all had to be done the week I started. Murphy was well and truly in action as: the paperwork to date was wrong; the labels printed in Chinese script were incorrect; the same labels were also supplied in the wrong quantity; the production people put the wrong labels on wrong bottles; once corrected they put the wrong bottles in the wrong cases; they then packed one lot of Chinese order into the container for an order for a different region of China; the customs people supplied the wrong information; the export documents were subsequently wrong and all had to be re-done (twice); no-one had been able to decipher what the Russian customs people wanted by way of labelling and export documentation. All this and small wineshops in New Zealand were asking where their orders of 3 cases of wine were. Sales staff were wanting product information, pricing and samples. External providers were wanting to re-do the website. Publication companies were asking where advertising copy was etc.etc. And, all this was directed at me who had just bloody started!

Russian customs vary the rules to suit the amount of revenue they can screw out of you


And I've mentioned before of my dislike of Customs people:

Here:  http://grumpyoldmanreturnsnz.blogspot.com/2010/11/uncustomary-behaviour.html

And here:  http://grumpyoldmanreturnsnz.blogspot.com/2010/11/welcome-to-america.html

New Zealand agencies triplicate documentation requirements seemingly to keep themselves in employment

And they all demand urgent action on processing all this stuff just so they can pile it somewhere never to look at again

While arranging one shipment I noticed that the shipping company had a name that I recognised. With luck the shipment will go off overseas like this:

and not like this:

As this company operates operated the Rena.

All in all it has been a hectic week and I am exhausted. I have been a glorified shipping clerk and had no time to do any 'marketing'. We left Auckland at 5PM last night and got up here shortly after 7 to enjoy a relaxing weekend before heading back Sunday night to do battle once again.
Bugger!