Mid July, 2012
Okay.
So....I’ve got about a month before i head off to Jakarta for a 3 and a half week gig at a garment factory. I’m not thinking about it too much. Its been a year since I was last in some Asian country and the thing is, i haven’t yet defined myself too much outside of this work i do overseas so....that's a little disheartening. Maybe i’ll always just be known as this person that works overseas...but I don’t want that to be me.
This is what I do overseas: I work in the garment industry. I go over seas and visit factories. My job title fluctuates -usually Quality control inspection, some times doing some factory inspection and sourcing and sometimes I am called a development consultant. This time I would say I am a development consultant. I will be visiting a factory that has added a building specifically for the company I represent. They are working on samples for a moto pant and some moto jerseys. I have spent 10 years of my past working with a team of designers, developers and manufacturers on moto pants and jerseys . Its not something I would have ever guessed myself to be an expert on but..I am. Life is like that. One day you realize you have spent years and years kinda doing one thing. Well, you know, its a pair of pants for gods sake. I cant really say that with too much pride, after all, how complex can a pair of pants be? its not rocket science, brain surgery, ....microbiology or French. .....Micro-biology,French-on my bucket list.
As a Quality Control Inspector. I go to factories when they have just finished or are in the process of just finishing an order and I take a look and make sure they have done it right. Usually a lot of the order is already boxed up ready for shipping. so i point to random boxes , open them up and check out the product. Carefully. I measure it , I check the sewing, I check the color, I check the print quality, I look for skipped stitching, check the label information, that the buttons are the right size, that transfer labels aren’t peeling off etc. etc. I may look at 50 to 100 of the same garment, repetitively measuring, pulling zippers, snapping snaps. It's hella boring. It's tedious. It's sweaty and hot. Sometimes I am on the production floor, surrounded by QC staff silently and patiently watching my every move, Sometimes i am shown to a room with a pile of boxes and garments already pulled and I am left to my job. When i finish inspection I let them know if its a pass or a fail. Its almost always a pass, sometimes though I will discover that the size labels are all peeling off or the zippers don’t lock, the inseam is 1” too long ... etc.
When I find something wrong, I feel great. I feel like my job has meaning and I’m an uncanny detective. I don’t like the idea that I get excited over faulty sewing or bad print jobs...but I do. I suppose you could imagine a birder sighting a rare bird. The pleasure and reward centers of my brain light up. When i first started this job I had a certain amount of shyness and embarrassment to point out things that seemed so insignificant. I would apologize. “I’m sorry, but i have to tell you that you need to clip your threads”. I don’t have that feeling any more. I simply say, “Too many loose threads. Clip them”. I am trained to see flaws in clothing and announce them. Think twice before you ask me what I think of your new dress you just got at Ross.
I definitely have ambiguous feelings about this trip. This is not my work. My work is me being a designer for my own label- Jeaja. Its small right now and I’m afraid I’m still in the apology stage with it. (horrible to say that.) This overseas work is me working for another company. The company is a big name. Its recognizable to many people throughout the world. There is usually instant recognition when i bring the name up . Even if you have never heard of them, the logo is everywhere
and like so many things, once its brought to your attention, you suddenly start seeing it everywhere. I once saw it tattooed on a young aussie teenager's back. . I will never understand this and I would cry myself to sleep for a week if my son did that. I’d be horrified. I would say the word “horrible” a lot ...and if you ask my son he will tell you that i already use that word a lot. He likes to imitate me saying it. He makes me sound like the Church lady when i say it.
I'm not a church lady. Although I become one when i am on a plane. And this is the other reason why I’m not thinking about this job so much. I don’t like to fly. There is always the subject of my mortality that's being questioned when i am on a plane. I sorta feel like the seat of an airplane is my church. The seat back in front of me is an altar i stare at while i say many prayers. I always start flights off with a prayer. Before the plane ascends I acknowledge God in my life. I thank him/her for the life i have lived. I hold each member of my family in my minds eye, envision them smiling or laughing and i ask God to bring each of us on the flight safely to our destination. when we land successfully, I say a prayer of gratitude... I start out like this anyway. Sometimes there are 3 take-offs in a day and by the time I get to the third one, Its more like, Thanks for my life God, but I really don’t want to die, I’m sure none of the other people on this plane do either...can ya just please get us there safely, thanks.”
Anyway, I’m not going to dwell on this. I’ll just say, I don’t want to die on a plane. That would be horrible.
I’ll be on several flights likely on this up coming trip. SFO to Jakarta...probably a stop in Kuala Lumpur or Singapore. This is my first time to Jakarta. I know nothing about the place except that it is in a high majority Muslim country and looking at the photos , i expect the area i will be in would be described as an industrial pit. Incredible traffic and smog.
I have also been told that there may be some hops out to some other countries to check on production- the Philippines and India.
Phillippines + September = Monsoons x global warming. Horrible.
But I have never been there either.
I’ll probably be going to Manilla- industrial pit.
India....Delhi likely. Noida. Been there. Several times. India is just plain intense. I like India for the reason of cows having free reign and how that changes a society. Its like, there’s a cow in the middle of the road...just laying there...because it is actually sleeping. Cars are driving around it and its sleeping. There are flies every where because there is cow poop every where. We drive around the cow sleeping on the road and she gives us as much attention to a big ol car as she does a fly. There are as many people as there are flies and we are all equal to a cow.
I could go on and on about India. Maybe i will go there on this trip and i will go on and on about it then. In the meantime you can read my earlier entries about India where I do go on and on.
This trip is different though. This is a new factory and I am being asked to stay for three weeks while the first production is being developed to ensure that it is done properly. So...this will be different. Usually I am at a factory anywhere from 2 hours to 2 days. But that's it. I have lunch and/or dinner and then I’m back to my hotel, typing up a report and scheduling the next factory to visit. The relationships I make are generally superficial. There is a certain distance kept when your there to point out your hosts mistakes. I am there for such a brief amount of time. I don’t know any other language than English, so our conversations are reliant on their mastery of my language. Some of the directors are older Korean men who seem to have some seriously ingrained ideas on how to talk with a woman that I don't agree with. Most are men and women that work 14 hours a day and have children back home in another country and see them at most once a month. There‘s not a lot of common ground. But with a little timing and prying I can get in and we can sit and share some real stories with one another and become people talking about our joys and sorrows and dreams. Personally, that is my goal on these trips.
Late July, 2012
I’m still waiting for specific dates as to when to leave. It looks to be late August to mid September. 2 to 3 weeks in Jakarta. It is not production- that will come in January or February which will be my next trip. This trip will be about this:
- finish redevelopment of the current (MX13) pant and jersey (Size Runs & Confirmation Sample) then set up production line.
work on perfecting the development 180/HC for next years line (MX14). Patterns, grading, Construction details, TPR's.
A lot of development goes into producing a garment. And for an article of clothing that is as complex as a moto pant, even more time must be allotted. Just looking at the above paragraphs makes my eyes glaze a bit. Its the grind you know. Details details details. Its what its all about. Every successful trade is built upon attention to details. There have been times where i have felt like it was more than too much. Sometimes it would get to me when I worked in the office. At one fit session I looked at the production VP and said,
"What are we doing??....what are we doing? We are spending vast swaths of our lives deciding if the button hole should be 1/8” higher or if the belt loops should be 1/2” or 5/8”. Who cares?!! Who cares! What are we doing?.. This is a ridiculous way to spend our lives!"
The VP- Jill, looked up from her clip board at me and snapped, “Stop it Paula. Your scaring people. Take some breaths.”
I slumped back with a limp measuring tape dangling from my hand. “What am I doing here?" I said bleakly.
"You want some chocolate? Brittany? Where’s Brittany?, Oh there you are, Brittany, Go get Paula some chocolate. I think I have some Reese’s cups in my drawer."
“No....not Reeses “, says my small pitiful voice,”...I want a Baby Ruth bar.”
And so I was pacified. I think I lasted another year in the pattern making and fit room, Then Jill switched me to development.
I sorta dreaded development because I knew it required steady focus. It was all about ticking off a million details every day. The best part of that job though was getting packages addressed to me. Lots of them. I liked seeing my name on boxes. These boxes were addressed to me. me. and they had come across the ocean like that. And here they were piled up like it was Christmas. I liked opening them up. and seeing what the factory had come up with. And then that part ended. Christmas was over and all I got was a bunch of half finished moto jerseys that i had to measure and lab dips.
August 5th.
ok...no India. That sucks. All the PO’s (purchase orders) are too small.
August 21st 2012.
Maybe Vietnam. and it looks like no Hawaii. I was going to stop by Hawaii on my way back to see my sister. But it is uncertain as to whether she will still be there. My sister is my travel icon. She told her family it was time to live in Hawaii and she took her two kids and left. No job promise, no housing promise, no health insurance promise, just a “gut” feeling it was the place to be.
Lets talk about the gut. ....how did we end up with that word for intuition? It may have to do with the Vagus nerve which is one of the 11 cranial nerves but the only one that travels all the way down to the stomach.
My sister is a professional intuit. ...psychic. ...but she told me this week that she’s about ready to give up on this gut's feeling. She has been out there for 5 weeks now and has used up all the house sitting, has the kids in school but...still no rentals have revealed themselves to her and she can’t set up work without a place to live. You know,its not an exact science- psychic gut stuff, there are false alarms, so she’s giving it one more week. I have my doubts so...I don’t think Hawaii is going to happen. I’m reluctant to say i have my doubts cuz...i don’t want to put that out in the universe. .....that's another sketchy area...the universe...but also i do want her to come back. i want her to be close to me....but maybe i do want to live in Hawaii...so the universe may have to figure this out for me...because me - I’m just a blob full of feelings and disparate thoughts making rash decisions.
