Good News, and tentative travel plans

Hi,

So I have some good news, which is that the shop actually seems to be sort of running. It's not making a lot of money, but they have a trickle of customers who apparently have not been scared off by mistakes that have been made. It seems somewhat consistent. So I guess I really over-estimated the impact our previous gaffs made.

Here is the long awaited photo of the sign, which is looking pretty snazzy. You may note the drawn in shock on the right hand side of the sign. This is to indicate that they can take suspensions apart and repair them. I don't know why we didn't include that when the sign was designed, because I asked a couple times what we wanted on it. At least it's being advertised now. Also of note in this picture is Route 5, the major road that goes to Phnom Penh, in the background. As you can see, we are fairly close, and therefore have a reasonable amount of traffic that goes by us when people turn off route 5 and go to the market.

Here is another picture of the sign, and on the left side of the picture you can see a customer's vehicle. This guy was in getting a new piston. In the next picture, you can see the parts taken off this vehicle on a mat by the feet of the guy without a shirt on, whose name is Mr. Sovann. On the right, behind the water barrel, is Mr. Lee Him. Standing on the left is Mr. Jiht. I surprised them while they were eating lunch to take the pictures, so in the first one they are looking a little confused, and in the second one Mr. Sovann is laughing out of embarrassment I think. Mr. Jiht actually looks sort of annoyed.


So yeah, the shop is kind of working out. I am taking this coming week off, and I left them some money to pay for any parts and stuff they need. Sai Ha and I came up with a very basic accounting system that I will check out when I get back, to try and figure out how well they are keeping track of money. I don't know when they will be earning enough money to pay the rent, buy parts, and have enough left over to get food, but at least we seem to be gaining momentum.

I think I will pay 6 or so months of rent up front before I leave to give them breathing room on starting to earn enough. Another big development was that they seemed to realize they needed more experience, and agreed that one of them (Mr. Sovann or Mr. Jiht) should apprentice at another shop in SLP. So we came to an agreement with a very successful shop nearby that will allow one of the guys to work there (for a fee) and therefore give that person a lot of good, guided experience. The other guy will work at the shop, doing whatever jobs they can, and then learn from the apprenticing guy when he is done, or after hours.

Let's see..... I guess the only other thing is that they briefly talked about moving the shop to a different, smaller town, because there was only one mechanic there and they thought they could get more customers. But I think the opportunity for the business to grow in SLP is quite good, and hopefully now that one of them will be apprenticing in town they will want to stick it out. This is another reason I will pay rent for several months after I leave, to keep them in SLP.

That's all the shop news. I think I'm sort of running out of things that I feel capable of doing at the shop. I don't want to put myself in the position one of my friends is in. She started a store that employs khmer women to design and make clothes and bags and stuff. It is incredible, and she is making enough money to support the shop and her staff, which is just fantastic. However, she is basically the head decision maker, and It could be difficult for the business to continue if she leaves, which puts her in a difficult position. I'm hoping to stay independent enough of the shop that when I leave it will basically be totally seamless. This can leave me feeling kind of awkward in the shop though, because I'm pretty ready to move on and they seem capable of taking care of stuff when I do.



So. My time in Cambodia is drawing to a close. I am starting to plan trips outside of PP and SLP, which is fantastic. During this week off I may go to Siem Reap to see Angkor Wat and Nate and Lyndsay (the fellows at global child). I may go to Bangkok for the weekend sometime soon. I'm trying to figure out if It's feasible to go the Malaysian Grand Prix (a formula one race) in early April, and I'm planning a trip to Vietnam and China in mid-late April. So things are looking up in terms of travel. In conclusion, I wanted to add these photos I took of the sunset. These were taken on the way into Phnom Penh. I rode my bike, which is a three speed beach/city bike and was totally inappropriate for the adventure. I'll try to post a picture of it, and its hilarious stickers. The trip was 54 km and took me about 4.25 hours. Slow, painful, and I really only did it out of foolish stubbornness, but it will be a good memory. And I quite like these pictures. Here they are.

So that's the scoop. Hope everyone's been well. Take Care.

Ned.

I don't know what to call this one. Just an update, I guess.

Hello everyone.

I'm in Phnom Penh with Sai Ha, picking up more parts and tools.

I broached the idea of having the mechanics go get more training from another shop, it didn't really go over that well. There was approximately zero enthusiasm for it. I'm not sure they totally understand what I am proposing, because they thought it would be just like the school they went to, which isn't what I am aiming for.

So I'll bring it up again in a few days, maybe go to another shop and try to explain it to the owners, in the hopes that they would understand and take my guys on. Basically I want to pay to have them employed at another shop, where they can learn from someone who knows more than I do.

Anyway, despite the troubles getting that idea across, and my fear about the shop not getting customers because of the piston debacle, all is not lost. Apparently the shop's reputation is not as damaged as I feared in my semi-panicked state. Today another person is coming to get their piston replaced, so we'll see how that goes. There were other customers coming in over the weekend as well, one to get an oil change and one wanted to get his suspension fixed.

I'll update soon, and try to get a picture of the sign up as well.

Take Care.

Ned.

Semi-Bad News Bears, but with some Light at the end of the Tunnel

So last week, when the shop opened, was probably the most stressful time of my life.

Unfortunately, it wasn't the kind of stressful that is good because so much good stuff is happening, more like stressful because I'm concerned that the fledgling reputation of the shop has been severely damaged.

I'll try to explain the situation.

First, I was under the impression that the guys who went to school had learned enough to be able to fix moto's on their own, well. This was sort of foolish, becuase no one who gets out of any school is going to immediately know what they are doing in a job. It takes a fair amount of practical experience to really know what you are doing.

Secondly, I thought that if we got customers, everything would work out. I was so focused on that it prevented me from thinking about the fact that we weren't totally ready for customers. This may just be my extreme lack of experience in running a business coming to the fore. I don't really know how to do this, I just do what feels correct. Sometimes it's wrong, and having some promotions to bring in customers was probably overzealous.

So this is what happened. I said we were going to give the first 10 customers five dollars of free work. Once word got out about this, too many people wanted in. We didn't work slowly enough, taking time to really focus on doing a good job. We just tried to get through customers, which I guess is a natural enough reaction to having many people want work done very suddenly.

Once we went through those 10 people, I said anyone who got over 4 dollars of work done would get a free oil change. At this point I was still trying to get customers in so we could get some experience, and didn't realize that we were probably doing damage to ourselves by not doing a good enough job. I've really only come to that conclusion after having 3 or so days to think about it.

Things came to a head when one old customer who I recognized from my trips to TC came in, wanting a new piston put in. I had been working from 8 AM until that point, which was about 1:00PM, and needed to go to lunch. The customer wanted his bike done by 4 PM, which I didn't think was going to happen. Before I left for lunch, I told the guys that we should wait until the next day, because 2 hours was not enough. They said it was fine, It would take half an hour. I did not push it.

Unsurprisingly, this turned into a huge debacle. I will spare everyone the technical details, but the bike would not run well when we finished putting it back together at about 6 PM, and the old man was pissed. He had to keep leaving and coming back because the engine would die, and eventually decided to leave the moto at the shop over night and get it fixed at a different shop the next day.

I was totally crushed. I couldn't really handle what was happening, because I felt like I had predicted it, but had been unable to head it off. The feeling was akin to being locked in a car that was driving itself off a cliff, with no way to stop it. Just utter, stark, dread. I have since resolved to be more forceful in my avoidance of disasters I see coming. Actually I learned the lesson pretty quickly. Like while we were trying to fix the piston, another customer came up to us wanting some broken bolts removed from his forks. We didn't have the tools, and I said we couldn't do it. One of the guys called his teacher for advice, but it didn't lead anywhere, and I pretty much sent the customer on his way with my apologies. So hopefully as I learn things like this will be avoided more easily.

Anyway, back to the story. The next day, I got to the shop, and the customer had already taken his bike to a different shop. He called Lee Him, our shop manager, to tell him to have our mechanics go to this other shop to see what they did wrong. The other mechanic was willing to teach them how to avoid the mistakes they had made.

They wouldn't go, which was extremely upsetting. There is definitely an ego thing at play here, where they were sure that the problem was X, and not their fault. They were wrong, but I don't think they wanted to admit it. In Asia, losing 'face' is a big deal. Anyway, that afternoon no customers were coming in so I left and did all my laundry for about 3 hours.

The next day, I told Sai Ha he and I were at least going to go to the other shop to find out what went wrong. At this point, the TC guys decided it would be okay to go, and the other mechanic told them what was wrong, which I didn't totally understand because the explanation was in Khmer, and Sai Ha doesn't really know how to translate technical stuff very well. So I'm not totally sure how helpful it was to go after the fact, but hopefully the TC guys learned something.

All in all, It was an extremely difficult week. When 3 hours of doing laundry by hand seems like a vacation, the rest of life is no party.

After thinking about it for the weekend, I have come up with a few ways to try and salvage the situation.

The principle factor in being unable to run the shop now is the lack of experience all of us have. I know what to do to some extent, and would be comfortable doing some repairs on my own bike, but at a MUCH slower pace, too slow to be practical for business. Also, I don't know how to teach through the language barrier effectively, and how I do things is different from what is done here. Doing things differently, while sometimes a very good thing in the U.S., is not practical here, or at least is not within my time frame.

So our biggest problem is lack of experience.

Our greatest assets are availability of funds and about 11 weeks.

I think to solve the problem I am going to try and pay to apprentice the guys at a shop in TC, so that they get hands on experience that includes good oversight and teaching from someone who speaks Khmer and knows how to run a business. If this sounds like throwing money at a situation that I don't otherwise know how to solve, it isn't that far removed. But it's the best idea I have come up with, and it has a chance to work.

I may alternate the guys every day or couple of days so that one of them is in the shop in case we get the odd customer looking for an easy repair, while the other one can learn the harder stuff at an established shop.



So that's the status of things. The shop opened, which was exciting, but we were totally under prepared and now I'm trying to salvage things and move the project onward.



I would like to express how nutso this project has been. I can't decide If it should make me laugh or cry. It feels like warfare, long periods of not much going on punctuated by short bouts of overwhelming intensity. Without a doubt, it has been the greatest challenge of my relatively short life. I have heard so many stories of people being here for a long, long time, and failing to make business or NGO type things work out that I don't really feel so badly about what I've gotten done. As I said to one friend, I have exceeded my own expectations, and really whatever happens from here on out is bonus points.

That being said, I really want to leave a functioning shop when I depart.

I'll keep everyone updated. Thanks for your comments and good wishes, they mean a great deal.

Take Care.

Ned.

Second Post of the Day.

2 posts in a day! This is a record.

Here are some pictures of the shop. This first one is the two guys who went to vocational school. This probably seems like an impressive picture, but this was one of the more frustrating repair sessions.



This second picture shows the new workbench, the shelves, and some of the parts we have. Also of note is that large blue barrel on the left. It's many gallons, and has kept the water turning off from being a crisis, which is good.

Quick Update

Hello!

So things are moving along. I have some pictures I want to post but they remain on my camera, and will have to wait until another time.

Some cool stuff is happening though, so I thought I should write about it.

A. We've had customers at the shop. This is really both a blessing and a curse. The former because technically, it means I have fulfilled my goal of starting a shop. This is a great, semi-magical/astonishing feeling. The latter because for some of the customers, we have been less than ideal mechanics.

Several of the repairs have gone quite smoothly, which is fantastic, but a couple have been semi-disastrous. They took a long time, we left out a part on one guys moto, etc.

The guys from school aren't as well prepared as I had hoped, so it's going to be an interesting 3 months until I depart, trying to get them squared away for the future.

Fortunately, they seem to work pretty hard, which is critical. Hopefully as we all get more experience, they will work more smoothly and consistently, and we won't destroy our fledgling reputation.

Also under this group of "A" should be that we bought some more shelves and have a very minimal and basic inventory of parts, which is cool. These will be some of the pictures I throw on a later post.

B. We finally named the shop and a sign is being made. We are "The International Moto Shop."

Leb Ke suggested the friendship moto shop, but this seemed like we should all be wearing tie die t-shirts and flowy cotton yoga pants, and being really groovy. I decided against that because yoga pants aggravate me.

Sai Ha suggested the forever moto shop, which I was hesitant to approve, it sounded like a sequel to Highlander or something else involving immortal people.

I couldn't think of anything besides the Tramoung Chrum moto shop, but the guys from TC shot that down because they were afraid if they did a bad job it would reflect poorly on the whole village. So that was out. This was sort of unfortunate because i had always assumed we would name it that, and It was annoying that this reasoning was so pessimistic. I tried fairly persistently to use that name to encourage doing a good job, so as to ensure the name of TC would not be slighted, but they weren't having it.

Finally, the sign maker suggested international, and we all agreed it seemed excellent. So we went with it.

C. My bicycle got stolen about 30 minutes ago. Broad daylight. Pretty lame. Generously and somewhat oddly, the thief declined to take the rubber bungee cord in the bikes basket, and placed it on the ground before riding off. I was sort of baffled by this. It would be like stealing a car, but leaving all the contents inside the car on the ground where you stole it. Anyway, my naive optimism about the impossibility of my bike being stolen is gone.

D. I have three months left! I am alternately very pleased about this, and confused about what to do before I go. I'll be traveling with my sister for a few weeks in April, which makes me feel like I shouldn't travel now. But I don't want to be annoyed with myself for missing opportunities. Also, returning to the US is going to be bizarre.

Traffic laws, what? Hot Water? etc.

Also connected to this is the search for a job. So I'll go ahead and capitalize on my audience. If you know anyone who works at an engineering firm, please ask them if they need an entry level engineer with lots of odd skills. I would be most appreciative! Thank you kindly.

OK.

That's the story. Hope everyone's well.

Ned.