Negotiations

So a nice early Wednesday morning…got up....took my time getting ready….it seemed to be going pretty well. Then I went down and got in the car with Mr. Gee. We headed out to pick up Fran (The new AMP). Mr. Gee went through the Dances With Wolves game with me. I said I understood. We get to Fran’s crib and lone and behold the Goodyear Store Manager is standing with Fran. He needs a ride too. That’s fine, so everyone piles into Mr. Gee’s car and we head out.
Once we were on the road for about 15 minutes, Mr. Gee starts talking…non stop…it goes on for like 20 minutes. Fran keeps agreeing, Steven (GY guy) starts agreeing. Everyone knows what is going on but me. Once it was quite, then Fran started talking, then Steven, then a rebuttal from Mr. Gee. Finally I was able to ask Fran, “What’s the deal?”
Fran says, “Ah! You understand!?”
I look at him completely confused now, “No…I don’t understand, what’s the deal?”
“Yes! Problems with deal!”
I slow Fran down, and explain that I have no idea what is going on.
Fran explains that Mr. Gee made a mistake in his calculations on the rate of the ride. He says he isn’t making any money. It’s actually funny that Mr. Gee said this, because I was thinking the same thing yesterday. He drives us an hour each way, and it’s a toll road. So I thought his margins were a little slim.
Fran is absolutely pissed about this predicament. A whole new round of talks starts up. I let it go for about 10 minutes…mostly because there is nothing else to do, and I like trying to see if I can figure out who is winning. It seems to me that Mr. Gee is winning (I expect that from my lady killer driver).
Finally I stop the conversation and ask Fran, “What happens if I say I will only pay the 300RMB? No more.”
“Then, Mr. Gee no drive you anymore.”
“OK, well, how much more does Mr. Gee want?”
“He want 50RMB (7 Dollars), I think that too much!”
“Fran, tell him it’s OK, I’ll pay it.”
Fran was not happy with me the rest of the ride. I tried to keep it light for Fran, but he was PISSED!
We finally got to the plant, calmed Fran down, and made the walk across the bleak waste land. (I took a picture of this stretch…just to prove that I’m not exaggerating.)
The day went pretty well, we got a lot of stuff done. We had to go back to Dalian early for a meeting, but all in all, a good day.
Once work was done, we went to the Peking Duck place in Dalian. It is under the same ownership as the one in Beijing that everyone loves (Including any American that goes there!), but it’s not as good…it’s very good, but Beijing is the best!
I went there with two Rockwell people…one of them was STEEL! He came up to Dalian for some work with Goodyear. I drank a bunch of beer, they drank some….we had the duck! Delicious! We also had Duck hearts…which are awesome! I guarantee if you didn’t know what they were, you’d eat them like they were going out of style! Absolutely delicious! (They are cooked). One nice thing about a return trip is the people you became friends with. Now you don’t have that discovery period. You are already comfortable; it’s just a good meal with good friends. It’s cool to be able to have that half way around the world.