Вярнуцца вакол 1998, the company I worked for at the time received some funding to create a new e-commerce product. We had the full gamut of business requirements to meet. It had to be fast, лёгка для канчатковых карыстальнікаў, якія крычаць, шматмоўныя, і г.д.. Sad to say, Я, верагодна, не было, як амбіцыйнага комплексу работ для выканання, паколькі гэтыя гарачыя дні.
This effort pre-dated Microsoft.NET. Plain vanilla ASP was still somewhat new (або меры, вельмі незнаёмыя мая кампанія). "Brick and mortar" companies were doomed. Асуджаны! This is to say that it was pioneering work. Ці не адронны коллайдер наватарскую працу, але для нас у нашым маленькім свеце, была наватарская праца.
We were crazy busy. We were doing mini POC’s almost every day, высветліць, як захаваць дзяржава ў сваёй сутнасці без грамадзянства сярэдняга, высвятляючы, шматмоўная пытанні, row-level security. We even had create a vocabulary to define basic terms (Я палічыў за лепшае дзяржаўных пастаянныя, але па некаторых прычынах, the awkward "statefull" выйгралі дзень).
Як мы былі вар'яцка вынаходзіць гэтага прадукта, the marketing and sales people were out there trying to sell it. Somehow, they managed to sell it to our nightmare scenario. Even though we were designing and implementing an enterprise solution, we really didn’t expect the first customer to use every last feature we built into the product day zero. This customer needed multi-language, a radically different user interface from the "standard" system but with the same business logic. Multi-language was especially hard in this case, таму што мы заўсёды сканцэнтраваны на іспанскі або французскі, але ў гэтым выпадку, гэта была кітайская (якая з'яўляецца двухбайтовой набор знакаў і патрабуе спецыяльнай апрацоўкі дадзенай тэхналогіі мы выкарыстоўвалі).
Fast forward a few months and I’m on a Northwest airlines flight to Beijing. I’ve been so busy preparing for this trip that I have almost no idea what it’s like to go there. I had read a book once about how an American had been in China for several years and had learned the language. One day he was walking the city and asked some people for directions. The conversation went something this:
- Амерыканскі: "Could you tell me how to get to [XX] вуліца?"
- Кітайскі: "Sorry, we don’t speak English".
- Амерыканскі: "Oh, добра я кажу Мандарын." і ён спытаўся ў іх зноў на кітайскім, але больш выразна (як мог).
- Кітайскі: Вельмі ветліва, "Sorry, we don’t speak English".
The conversation went on like that for bit and the American gave up in frustration. As he was leaving them he overheard one man speaking to the other, "I could have sworn he was asking for directions to [XX] street."
I had picked up a few bits and pieces of other China-related quasi-information and "helpful advice":
- A Korean co-worked told me that the I needed to be careful of the Chinese because "they would try to get me drunk and take advantage of you" in the sense of pressuring me into bad business decisions.
- We were not allowed to drive cars (there was some confusion as to whether this was a custom, a legal requirement or just the client’s rule).
- There were special rules for going through customs.
- We were not allowed to use American money for anything.
- You’re not supposed to leave tips. It’s insulting if you do.
І, нарэшце,, I had relatively fresh memories the Tiananmen massacre. When I was at college, I remember seeing real-time Usenet postings as the world looked on in horror.
In short, I was very nervous. I wasn’t just normal-nervous in the sense that I was delivering a solution that was orders of magnitude more complicated than anything I had ever done before. I was also worried about accidentally breaking a rule that could get me in trouble.
I’m on this 14 hour flight and though it was business class, 14 hours is a damned long time. There are only so many ways to entertain yourself by reading, watching movies or playing with the magnetized cutlery. Even a really good book is hard to read for several hours straight.
У канчатковым рахунку, Я пачаў чытаць пакавальнага матэрыялу на частку праграмнага забеспячэння, я быў ручной правядзення са мной да кліента, Netscape’s web server. I’m reading the hardware/software requirements, маркетынгу тлумачэнняў, гледзячы на прыгожую карцінку і раптам, I zero in on the giant "NOT FOR EXPORT" папярэджанне, нешта пра 128 bit encryption. I stuffed the box back into my carry bag, папярэджанне асабовым бокам уніз (як быццам гэта дапамагло б) і стараўся трымаць бачання Паўночны экспрэс out of my head.
Азіраючыся на гэта цяпер, Я павінен быў быць ўсхваляваны, калі наогул, Калі я з'ехаў з ЗША, not when I was entering China 🙂 Nothing untoward happened and I still consider that to be the best and most memorable business trip I’ve had the pleasure of making.
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