When I look back at my working life, there are a few people I remember as angels who appeared at the right time and helped shape the person I became.
Mr. C. S. Lai was one of them.
I first met Mr. Lai several times while I was working for Abbott Laboratories in Hong Kong. We happened to meet in different hospitals—in the New Territories, Kowloon and Hong Kong Island. Our conversations were usually brief.
I was then a hospital representative for Abbott, and my working bag was always very heavy.
A couple of times, Mr. Lai asked me to let him carry my bag so he could check how heavy it was. He was surprised.
Yes, it was heavy.
Inside were product samples such as Vidaylin syrup, Iberet liquid and Similac milk powder. They were not exactly lightweight products to carry around all day!
When I told him about my daily work, I probably had my usual sunshine smile on my face. I enjoyed my work and enjoyed meeting people.
I remember one particular meeting very clearly.
It was at Castle Peak Mental Hospital in the New Territories. Mr. Lai asked me whether I would be interested in joining Squibb as a hospital representative.
I was about 25 years old. I had already been with Abbott for more than seven years.
His offer was very attractive. The salary was more than double what I was earning, but money was not the only attraction. The new job would give me a different environment, new responsibilities and many challenges.
Eventually, I decided to take the opportunity.
That decision changed the direction of my working life.
Mr. Lai was a Hong Kong-registered pharmacist and was then Marketing Manager at Squibb. Every week, he asked me to accompany him when he visited hospitals, especially the hospital pharmacies.
He introduced me to the pharmacists.
Some of them had been his university classmates.
He even took me to Queen Mary Hospital, the major teaching hospital on Hong Kong Island, to meet the chief pharmacist.
Another day, he took me to the Government Supplies Department on Oil Street in North Point. There we met his good friend, Mr. Wong, who was the chief there.
I was a young man just starting my new career.
Mr. Lai opened doors for me.
But he did something even more important.
He gave me opportunities to learn.
Learning at Ciba-Geigy
After Squibb, my career continued with Ciba-Geigy Hong Kong Pharma.
At that time there were basically three product lines: Ciba, Geigy and, later, a new line called Zyma.
I worked with the Ciba line as a hospital representative.
Mr. Lai conducted monthly product training. He prepared the working plan for the group, and we had monthly meetings to review our activities.
I was selected to go to the Ciba-Geigy headquarters in Basle, Switzerland, for training. Later, I also went to Ciba-Geigy in Horsham, UK.
These were exciting experiences for a young man from Hong Kong.
Soon I was promoted to Product Manager for the Ciba line.
In that position, I helped Mr. Lai prepare the monthly action plans. As I gained more experience, I was gradually given opportunities to make presentations on some of our products.
At first, I presented to a small group of Ciba-line colleagues.
Then the audience became larger—the Ciba-Geigy pharmaceutical group.
Eventually, I was presenting to a corporate group involving people from different divisions.
It was a big challenge for me.
But perhaps the seed had been planted many years earlier.
The lesson from Shell House
When I was in Form 3 at La Salle College, our class went on a field trip to Shell's headquarters at Shell House on Queen's Road Central in Hong Kong.
In the meeting room, we met a gentleman in his early thirties.
He was tall, respectable and well dressed. He spoke English and was very polite and friendly, always with a smile.
He introduced himself, his company and its products.
He used transparencies and a projector.
I was fascinated.
His presentation was informative, attractive and smooth.
I remember thinking:
"I should learn that technique. With practice, perhaps I can do it too."
So I practised.
First I practised in Chinese.
Then I practised in English.
I repeated it again and again until I became confident enough to do presentations in front of my colleagues.
One colleague I especially admired was Peter Chua, a pharmacist who had graduated from Cambridge. He seemed to have all the knowledge in his head. He could explain things with words and drawings directly from his mind.
I respected him and asked him to help me.
Together, we prepared a training session.
We did a great job.
The senior management publicly praised the training as one of the best they had participated in. Later, they proposed that similar training should be conducted across all divisions.
That was another small lesson in my life:
Something I saw as a schoolboy could become a useful skill many years later.
Mr. Lai trusted me
Later, I was transferred to the logistics department when the logistics officer resigned.
This gave me another opportunity to learn.
I worked closely with Mr. Lai, his secretary, the sales team and the warehouse staff.
I learned many things hands-on:
translation
product requirement forecasting
invoicing
inventory control
office automation
product training
coordination with different departments
The scope of work was wide.
That made the job even more interesting and challenging.
Mr. Lai did not simply tell me what to do.
He allowed me to do things and learn from the experience.
He had confidence in me.
For a young man, that confidence from a senior manager meant a lot.
A small world
There was another interesting memory.
One day Mr. Lai had just returned from a business trip to the Ciba-Geigy headquarters in Basle.
He mentioned that he had met a young student there whom he described as very smart, capable and helpful.
The young man was Mr. B. Cummins.
Years later, Mr. Cummins came to Hong Kong and became the Head of Finance and Accounts at Ciba-Geigy.
Small world indeed.
At the time, neither Mr. Lai nor I could have known how that young student he met in Basle would later become part of my own working story.
Remembering Mr. Lai
Mr. Lai eventually retired at the age of 60.
He had a son and a daughter.
His son became a doctor and his daughter became a lawyer.
He passed away while I was already living in Canada.
I missed him.
Looking back now, I realize that Mr. Lai gave me much more than a job opportunity.
He gave me a chance at a different chapter of my life.
He introduced me to people.
He took me into hospitals and important meetings.
He trained me.
He challenged me.
He trusted me.
Most importantly, he gave me the confidence to keep learning and to take on responsibilities that were bigger than what I had done before.
I was a young man of about 25 when he asked me that question at Castle Peak Mental Hospital:
"Would you be interested in joining Squibb?"
I said yes.
That simple "yes" became one of the turning points in my life.
Now, many decades later, I can look back and say:
Thank you, Mr. Lai.
You were one of the angels who helped shape my life.
I did not forget you.
And I never will.
No comments:
Post a Comment