I was at the lab working on something, and was unreachable by phone. There was this Malay auditor, who wanted to check some stuff I had in the lab. He first shot me an email that goes like this:
Michael
That ### Core LF solder, What is the quantity you kept at your work area
For example one roll, what is the weight and total kept for one year as below
6 roll x 1kg = 6 kg/year
Alright, the guy basically wanted to know, how much Lead Free solder wire do I have in my lab. It was a simple and straight question. I replied him with a very short sentence:
### Core LF solder on-hand qty = ½ kg
So the guy wanted to know how much solder do I have, and I told him ½ kg. Case closed… so I thought. About a couple hours later, the auditor popped up in my instant messenger, and asked me this…
Auditor : “for ### LF solder we need to know, what of the roll or in weight you plan to keep. As U mentioned, the remaining is half kg”
I don’t actually know what was he trying to ask there. I thought he probably wanted to know my consumption rate because I conveniently left out the ‘per year’ request in his email. I explained to him,
MichaelOoi : “The ½ kg is the weight for 1 roll and that’s the only 1 roll we have. This roll will be kept until it is eventually depleted (which is not likely to happen due to low consumption… )”
I thought that was all, but he came back to ask another question,
Auditor : “I need to record down how many rolls you want to keep for month or year”
I told him 1 roll, didn’t I?
MichaelOoi : “Plan to keep forever. Only that 1 roll.”
But the auditor still couldn’t get the message. More questions.
Auditor : “I mean what is your plan to store that solder at your area. how many rolls, may be 2 roll for one year like that”
That was when I had enough typing to explain this to him. It was like explaining to a wall. The communication barrier we had was hindering our productivity. So I picked up the phone, called the auditor and fucking explained everything to him verbally in one breath, with BeeEm.
Auditor, saya hanya ada SATU GULUNG solder sahaja. Dan saya ingin simpan itu solder sampai 100 tahun, kalau saya tak mati terdahulu. Ok?
He then replied a short ‘ok got it’ and we hung up.
*puke electrons*