OK, here we go again, another problem with the office. While I was working I heard a dripping sound coming from the bathroom. I thought “oh no, not again”. When I checked it out I saw water dripping from the fan and the floor was wet. Great, another leak. I called my husband immediately to tell the landlord about that. A little bit later the door bell rang and the guy from upstairs was in front of my door. He apologized once again and said that he was using some water pressure machine to clean his bathroom. We found out that the water was dripping in from outside and the fan isn’t really water proof. We will need to fix that soon as the raining season will start in June.

Our landlord came by this morning to check out the problem in our bathroom. He left and came back with the construction worker and the owner of the office upstairs. Our landlord and the construction worker started discussing and arguing. I didn’t understand a word but it was obvious that he was angry with that guy. The owner of the upper office apologized to me many times (his English was quite good). They then started to fix the hole by pouring concrete into the hole from upstairs and painting white paint over it. That’s it. I hope that;s safe enough and the ceiling won’t come down again.

the fixed hole after the concrete was poured in

When I went to work this morning a “nice” drilling noise welcomed me at the entrance door. I thought, oh no, I have to stand this noise the whole day. After I entered the office the noise became louder and louder. When I reached my room the noise was almost unbearable. There was definitely a construction going on on the upper floor and it seems they are rebuilding the toilet as the noise came right from there. I went into our bathroom to check it out and the noise was extreme. I looked up and saw some water drops falling down! Ok, something was wrong here.

I tried to call my husband to ask what to do. As I don’t speak any Chinese I didn’t know how to talk to construction workers. Unfortunately, he didn’t pick up his phone so I tried to work for a while. Suddenly, I heard a very loud noise which sounded like falling rocks. I carefully went back to the bathroom and saw that the ceiling came down! Can you imagine that? These stupid construction workers drilled so long until a part of the ceiling broke down. Oh God! Now, I didn’t know what to do. I got my shoes and just wanted to go upstairs, as the door bell rang and one of the workers stand outside. He said something like “Solly, Solly” (= Sorry) and pointed to the ceiling. I showed him the way to the bathroom and he checked it out. After that he left me his phone number.

Finally, Alan picked up the phone and he called to that guy and asked what the hell he is doing. They said they will come tomorrow again and fix it. Oh God, this is really scary. I am afraid now that the rest of the ceiling will come down as well. Or worse, the ceiling in my office. As Asterix and Obelix said: “Help, the sky is falling!”

I am back online! YEAH! Yesterday the “internet man” came by and installed the broadband connection (4MB up- and download) but unfortunately it didn’t work after he was finished. He said something about “Port, building, broken” in his broken english. I wasn’t sure what he meant. So Alan called to Hutchison and asked why our internet doesn’t work. They said that they have to fix something at the building and I should try again the next day. So today, I went to office again and tried it out. Luckily it worked! Finally I can work properly again No more late answers for all my customers’ emails.

A good friend of Alan, Stephen, works in a recycling company and offered us to give us chairs for our office for free. They get each year office equipment from HSBC (big bank) as they need to use up their budget and invest in new office equipment every year. Therefore, they had some very nice, comfy, almost new chairs for us. Today, we called a van to pick us up and drive to Yuen Long which is near the Chinese border in the North. We got 5 really nice chairs and drove them back to our office.

Now Alan and our visitors don’t need to stand anymore but can sit in comfy chairs Thanks Stephen!

our nice new office chairs

Today we moved our home office and products to the new big office. It was unbelievable. There were 3 guys and me and we needed almost an hour to get the things just downstairs (although we could use a reasonable sized elevator)! I didn’t realize before how many things are actually related to my work in our home. Our apartment looks really empty now. One room is completly empty and the others look really strange now to me

Once the things were finally in the truck, the rest of the move was pretty quick. We drove around 15 mins to the new office, moved the car in front of the loading area (don’t forget that’s an industrial building where trucks can load and unload items easily ) and just moved everything directly into 2 big elevators. 10 floors up and we moved all the things into the office -> DONE!

Thanks to Alan, Ping and Mark for their help!

big office room

my “boss office”

some of our stock

Today, FINALLY, I got the keys for our office. I am so excited! It is really hard for me to wait for something when I really want it.

Now, there is still lots of work ahead of us. Tomorrow we are going to move the complete office (incl. our products) to there. We will get some help from Alan’s brother Mark and Alan’s best friend Ping who is experienced in moving because he helped us moving our apartment before.

We checked out the available wireless network connections immediately but unfortunately no unsecure network. That means I still have to work at home the next week until the “internet guy” will come on 7.4.08.

there are 3 keys only for the entrance door (for security reasons)
plus 1 key for the mail box (the other 2 are for my home)

We got a call last night that the landlord cannot finish the renovation until this evening. Therefore we have to postpone the handing over of the keys till Saturday because tomorrow is my husband’s 30th birthday! Damn, I am really not good in being patient especially when I am so looking forward to something. That also means that we have to delay our move from Saturday to Sunday. I hope we can finish everything in one day. There are sooo many things to move. I will need a holiday after this weekend.

And just to make the situation (and my patience) worse we tried to sign up for a business internet connection with Hutchison and they told us they won’t be able to come before 15.4.!!! Are they crazy? How can I work without internet for 2 whole weeks? They are nuts! So my husband kept pushing them and finally they agreed to come on 7.4.08. So that means I have to figure out how to work without internet in the office and use the computer at home instead. My last hope is that I can get some free access to a wireless internet connection from a neighbouring company for that week. A customer from Australia also made an appointment to see our showroom on the same day so I hope these guys set up my internet before I welcome my first official visitors to our showroom.

As I mentioned before, I started my own business after finishing my studies in Hong Kong in 2005. Of course, at the beginning I didn’t register my company because I was just doing lots of research to find out what I could sell. I also didn’t earn any money yet, just putting in my own money. In 2007 my business started growing significantly, especially because we started doing wholesale business as well. Therefore, I decided that it is really urgent now to register my own company here. My German friend Philipp recommended an accountant to me who is taking care of such things for a good price. I sent him an email, filled out the paper he sent me (one single page!) and he prepared the documents for registration for me. He sent me the documents by courier, my business partner and me signed everything and sent it back. A few days later I got a call that our company is registered and I should pick up the original documents at his office! Now tell me, isn’t that the easiest and fastest way to open a company? I am really impressed! I even got a set with 2 different company chops, a “pressing thingy” to make a seal (no idea how to call that), a statutory book (man, that looks professional ) and a really cool box with our company name’s on it.

Until now we had an home-office and we also stored all our products in our home aka “warehouse” . But we do get more and more requests from wholesale customers asking if we have a showroom in Hong Kong as they are visiting Hong Kong and want to see our products. I always had to deny and offered them instead to visit them in their hotel and bring a huge (and heavy) suitcase full with samples with us. Additional, our stock is getting bigger and bigger and we run out of space. Hong Kong apartments are already sooo small and not really suitable for fitting in a business with stock.

Therefore, in January ‘08 we started looking for an office with warehouse space so we can set up a showroom, our office and have enough space for storing all our products. We had quite a lot of requirements including:

- 1000-1200 sqf
- reasonable price (what is reasonable in Hong Kong?!?)
- close to the MTR (subway)
- quiet (no machines/factories on the upper/lower floors)
- must have its own toilet (I can’t imagine using the public toilet in these industrial buildings)
- at least 3-4 rooms (”boss”-office, showroom, warehouse, etc.)
- renovated (walls painted, clean floor)

Based on these requirements it was really hard to find a suitable place, but good news everyone:

WE FOUND IT!!!

It is 1,200 sqf big, has 3 rooms (2 “boss”-offices, 1 big room) plus 1 storage room plus a big corridor plus a toilet, reasonably priced, very close to my home (~15 mins by bus plus 5 mins walking) and very close to MTR (~5 mins walking). The offices around it are trading companies, so they are usually not really noisy. The landlord also agreed on painting the walls, cleaning the carpet and the air-conditioners. Furthermore, there is a new big Yoga-studio within 5 mins walking distance Great for working out after work. We met the landlord last Sunday 23.3.08, and we will get the keys this Thursday! That’s quick! So in other words: JUST PERFECT!

We will convert the corridor into a showroom, Alan and I get each one of the “boss”-offices and our future employees will work in the big room. I found a part-time employee (Alan’s brother) already who will start working next week as well.

I will post some photos of our great new office as soon as possible. In the meantime, here is a picture from Google Earth in a bird’s eye view…

picture of our office including surrounding area (shopping mall, yoga studio, bus stop and MTR station)

Anyone, who is visiting Hong Kong and interested in our products is welcome to visit us. Please call for an appointment. Here is the address:

modeS Group Limited
Room E, 10/F
On Fook Industrial Building
41-45 Kwai Fung Street
Kwai Fong
Hong Kong

phone: (+852) 901 869 82

Directions: Here is a map where you can see how to get to our office: