The second week at Conserve HRP

The second week at Conserve HRP

21 June 2011 

After 2 weeks trying to design the shop, finally I will be arranging the products SOON. I thought arranging the products on the shelves will be an easy job, I told myself, it’s ONLY arranging products. Just put them in the shelves, that’s it.

However, there are lots of things that need to be noted down during this process. We must record how much stock left in the boxes when we remove the products to the shelves. I’ve also realized that despite the planning that I have had, there are a lot of changes that I must make because first, I’m not familiar with the size of the real products, and second, quantity matters! It’s not a display room anymore, but it’ll be a SHOP, meaning that we will display not only one item of one type of product, but we will show more items and all colors that we have.

Anyway, I feel excited!! :) hehehe.. I Will take some pictures once the shop is done :)

In this second week, I also had a new project: choosing color of artificial leather according to the color of the design. This is soooo fun! It started when Mdm Anita asked me to choose the color from the existing sample of artifical leather according to the color of the design. Because a lot of colors are not available, she told me to go to the factory opposite Conserve and to another factory, accompanied by one of the employees, to get other samples of artificial leather. 

The first factor was just opposite our company. Me and Shukhla, another employee, entered a room and he explained in Hindi that we were looking for some colors. So I just told the gentlemen there, “I need this brown,” or “No, brighter than this,” or “No, darker than this,” or “Yes, this one but without texture, please,” then those gentlemen asked other people to bring different kind of brown, or grey, or yellow that they had. They were even willing to make special sample according to the color that we want, but we’re going to make the bag from wasted artificial leather, so there’s no point we get the color that we want from special sample because there’ll not be the wasted version of that color.

Two days ago I went with Shukhla to another factory. It was 1.5-hour journey by MOTORBIKE!! The factory is located in Mayapuri, another industrial estate like Bahadurgarh and this time I already made appointment with the vice production manager of the factory. Entering the factory, I felt like I entered the man’s world, because it’s just the guys everywhere in the factory. The experience in this factory is more fun because they had special room for samples so I just needed to pick the colors that I wanted. The vice production manager was also very friendly. He even joked, “For each sample, you must pay Rs 100,” and I took him seriously and innocently asked him, “If I get smaller sample, only this size (make a little square with my hand), do I need to pay?” He asked for our company business card but I didn’t bring any (moral of the story: bring a business card!!!) 

Coming back from the factory, I finalized the choice of colors with Mdm Anita, made a table of swatch (the small cut of leather), what style of bag it is for, amount needed, and cost. I still need to make one more trip to the market to choose the real leather.  

The journey from the factory back to my office reminded me of my dad because I used to accompany my dad to factories, or to buy raw materials in Glodok, Jakarta version of Chinatown which sells EVERYTHING that you need, particularly electricity. But I didn’t enjoy the experience in the factories when I was small because I always felt bored, it used to be very hot, and I was just ‘daddy’s little girl’. The only thing that made me happy was everyone knows that I am Adam’s daughter, because I look like my dad and when I walk with my mom, most of the people do not believe that I am her daughter.

During the 1.5-hour-journey back to my office, I just felt happy because I’ve realized that this-factory-thingy is in my blood. My dad started working in Jakarta as a purchasing guy, just like Shukhla. So my thought flew to 25-27 years ago when my dad might be like Shukhla, riding motorbike (or taking bus??) from one factory to another factory then go to my mom to settle the receipts because my mom was working as the cashier in the same company. 

Now I’ve also realized that choosing color of the leather is not easy because there are different textures, different shade of the same family of color, and so on and so forth. It’s just hard to find the exact color with the print out of the design and it can be harder to match the two different colors (some bags need two or three colors), but it’s FUN!! Oh moreover, my vocabulary of color is very limited. I don’t usually use ‘beige’, ‘magenta’, ‘peach’, etc, so I just point and point and say “darker”, “lighter”, “more orange”, “more brownish”, “more black” hahahaha.