I took a cab to work the first day and regretted it. A $6 fare and 45 minute ride left me wondering if a motorbike wouldn’t be better. Well, it is. (Assuming I don’t end up injured or dead!) For $2.50, I can get to work in 15 minutes riding the back of a motorbike. I’m trying to find a room to rent near work, but haven’t landed one yet. A French guy at work is going to be gone for all of December and is asking his gf if I can sublease the place from them.
I’m not sure how long I’d like to stay in south Vietnam (the sticky heat, scary traffic, being so conspicuous everywhere I go), but the two guys who run the place are both from California, have worked at some great agencies and really know what they’re doing. (So nothing like the HK guys.) Here they are:
My art director partner has been sick for the past 2 days, so I’ve been working alone on the one assignment I have. Here’s what that looks like:
The office is an open workspace, which I don’t like. But all the agencies I’ve seen in Asia have been that way, so I’ll just have to deal with it for as long as I work out here.
There’s a guy who sounds like an animated woodland creature when he talks; I’ve got to figure out a way to record him.
I sit in a broken chair that when I return to my desk, is often gone. I’m not sure how to interpret this. I’d like to have a non-broken chair that stays at my desk, but maybe that’s asking too much. Could the communism of the Vietnamese government have seeped into the perception of office furniture; so it’s not “my” chair, but rather “everyone’s chair”?
At least there are these couch-areas I can sneak off to for “brainstorming” or taking pictures of myself. Here are a few from my first two days of work.
**UPDATE**
The greatest thing happened this morning. Some Vietnamese chick had her mouth stuffed full of her breakfast and started talking really loudly (in Vietnamese) to someone. From across the room, the Singaporean manager yelled, “Don’t talk with your mouth full! Finish your food before you talk!” She basically ignored him, but he’s my new hero.
O hi, Asia! 