Leave me alone…please.

All of sudden, Yoon and SY (another colleague) called me up to a meeting.  So I did go, asking what’s the topic.  Yoon and SY looked at each other a bit awkwardly, and told me that they want to have a talk about this and that.  First, they brought up that I do not look like I am doing a good job on backing up EC program to HS.  “Well,” I said, “as you know it’s sort of the program’s break.  And the program will be on hiatus for next year, and then there will be a huge change. So there’s not much action going on and I can’t do a thing about it.”

Then they said it’s not about the job; it’s about my attitude, how I do not sound like I respect her.  Oh my god, here it goes again.  I guess it’s no use of talking how HS is getting on my nerves, including language.  Oh well, I’ll just shut up and play fake smiles just until February.  And well, they are correct on this one.  I do not like HS.

Moving on, they said they have heard the story about my leaving.  Thus they wanted to know what are my thoughts. Turns out, the supervisors told their version of story to Yoon and SY – that I only wanted to international jobs but nothing else, and I took it directly to the director without really talking with other supervisors.  You gotta be kidding me. Oh yeah, and Yoon again brought up that I have not been nice to the program participants, careless on here and there, and lacks passion (duh.  How can you be when you are in hell-like situation?).  Done is done, and there is no need to give all the details and such.  I just said,

I: It is pretty frustrating to hear that – I do not know which part of my story transformed into such lines.  All I said was running EC program and other programs together is overwhelming and asked for help. I do not intend to make my ex-manager look bad, but some of our partners said the communications and documentation transfer has become so much better ever since I took it over.

SY: Erm…we thought it should not be too much of problem for you, because you speak better English than ex-EC program manager. And she ran other programs with EC program.

Yoon: And it’s important for a new manager to experience with lot of different things.

Thanks…? You are partly responsible so shush up, bitc*.

I: Look, it’s not the matter of language skill.  There is simply too much things going on, and if you really want a single person to handle it, you really need to let her focus solely on that program.  All the foreign partners have shorter schedule yet multiple number of managers for that program.

Yoon: Oh…we did not know that, why didn’t you talk to us?  That’s what colleagues are for (riiiiiight…) But it’s still not nice to deal with director directly.

I: I’m not that dumb.  I talked with supervisors numerous times to do something with my workload because I just cannot concentrate on anything.  Nothing happened, and only then I talked to him.  I do not wish to cause a big rift in the office or faction in the office.  I do not know what the supervisor told you.  Maybe there has been a miscommunication or lack of sympathy, but that is not how I reacted.

At least they said it is nice to hear my part of story (good). They just vaguely wrapped the talk saying “yeah, we worked with some other companies too and that’s how it goes in Korea.” Partly true, largely wrong, in my opinion.  They also said that maybe I took it too much to myself instead of asking for a help.  Duh! As of Korean programs, they almost intervened too much, and as of EC program, they said they can’t really answer my questions.  And when I did ask for a help, my supervisors went “er…what’s wrong? We don’t get it.”

I really hate it when the bystanders, ignoring help calls when needed, then  all of sudden change/pretend that they are the greatest sympathizers of universe only when the accident has occurred.  If you couldn’t give me a help on time, just leave me alone.

And yes, I will play nice fake smiles for a month to HS.

Language and Attitude

To people who have some knowledge of Asian language, the term “honorifics/formal” and “non-honorifics/casual/informality” would sound familiar.  In Korean language, the former is called “존댓말 (Jon dat mahl)” and later is “반말 (Bahn mahl)”.  Basically, if you are talking with your elder, senior, have never met before, and/or someone of higher position, you speak in honorifics.  If you are talking someone who is very close with you, you speak in non-honorifics.  Generally.  Sometimes you hint non-honorifics to enhance friendliness.  The honorifics have different nouns, endings and verbs – and this usually drives people of Latin language as their first language absolutely crazy when learning Asian language.

My parents value the good manners a lot – I mean a lot.  Consequently I am somewhat neurotic when it comes to the correct time and usage of honorifics and non-honorifics in Korean.  Therefore, for me, it was uncomfortable when HS started to speak in 반말 to pretty much everyone in the office within a month she joined the office.  Sure she is older than everyone.  I do understand she wants to be friendly as much as she can, under the new circumstance with new people to work with.  Maybe I am just too sensitive on good manners and etiquettes.  But it’s almost like my natural instinct/subconsciousness- it’s just disturbing.  For those of you who are not familiar with Asian language structure, think it this way: a person you just don’t know that well starts to call you as “dude, what up, man” and such, wrapping his/her arm around your shoulder.  I’d rather have a person leave me alone, and speak to me in correct language.

Being active, open and social certainly helps a lot.  However, thanks to human nature, a “newbie” who runs around yelling “Me! Me! Look at here! Let’s do this!” and cuts off someone else’s words (especially in the middle of talking) is not favored.

There was a weekly meeting.  Since this year has been a hectic one, some managers started to talk about a nice meal out and/or visiting a coworker who is on maternity leave.  As the talk progress, HS’s voice got louder and louder (not to mention 반말) and she even snatched the schedule table, writing things on it as if she is the ultimate decision maker, pointing others as she talks.  I do not know what others thought, but to me it was just unbelievable.  Pretty much same thing happened during the lunchtime, too – she kept pointing at a menu and repeatedly said “I’m for this, I’m for this!”  I don’t think she was high on sugar or caffeine.  Yes, we hear you so you don’t have to say it for three times.

After lunch, I, HS and EH happen to walk together – which was fortunate, because I like EH.  HS started to complain how her Uniqlo wool sweaters got messed up after washing it twice.  If it were only HS and I, I would just smile and answer “oh, too bad,” unwilling to continue the conversation.  But I did not want to cause awkwardness when EH was present.  So I decided to keep the conversation light (=meaningless, nothing important) just so not to cause the awkward silence.

I: There are lot of different kinds of woolen, and Uniqlo has variety of wool products.  Like they have their other wools and Merino w- *intervened*

HS: It’s all same wool! Right? I used the woolen detergent too! All the time! More than twice!

Lady, I am not finished, and I was speaking fairly slowly.  And it is not nice to cut off someone else’s words.  I was annoyed, and if I were in a worse mood, or away from EH, I would have given her an evil look or smirk.  I almost had the words out from my throat: I am not finished, 人の話を終わりまで聞けよ、馬鹿者！Only because there were others around us, I gave her a nice advice on difference between wool categories and product information anyway.

Being friendly, active and cheerful is good.  Being young at heart – to some degree, immature – is a generally positive thing.  But there is a fine line – once you cross it, it annoys the heck out of others.  Language and using it well is such a sophisticated art.  Though a word means same thing, a small difference can cause a vastly different emotion and reaction.  Even if it has a positive meaning, using it in a wrong time can be a disaster.  Even if you did not mean such a thing, a slight misuse in language can build a Great Wall of prejudice in less than a minute.  Maybe that’s why the word in Japanese is called 言葉 (kotoba, literally meaning “leave of human sayings”) and ancient Japanese’ belief in 言霊 (kotodama, literally meaning “word spirit”).

Dec 18-20 Weekend sum-up

Dec 18 (Fri):  I really didn’t too much.  As usual, I did my 90 min Bikram yoga, showered and came back to home sweet home. Innisfree was having a “buy six get one free” campaign for facial mask sheets so I bought 6.  Mum saw it and took one once I came back home.  I said, “every time when I ask you if there is anything you want me to buy on way home, you said there’s nothing and now you take from me…” Mum accused me that I am being cheap over a mask sheet worth $1.30.  Maybe I am.

Dec 19 (Sat): Had a weekend work shift until 2 pm.  I really did not do much though – I just reviewed my job application and submitted it.  Talked with a good friend of mine.  We have a lot to catch up.  She said we should meet before the Christmas, but we will have to see.  Came back home, do nothing but watched two movies.  The 39 Steps (2008’s BBC remake version) and 24 Hour Party People.

The 39 Steps was fine – I know it has received massive amount of negative reviews, I liked it.  It felt like watching an old black-and-white classic adventure movie with fast paced plots.  And on the top of that, they got a good-looking man as a main character. Which is a big plus. Yup, like a critic wrote, this guy is a male-version Audrey Hepburn (I don’t know whether this is a good thing or bad thing).  Maybe I’ll check the Hitchcock version too.

24 Hour Party People is enjoyable for fans of late 70/s-80’s music, new wave, post-punk, synth pop, New Order/Joy Division or Manchester music scene.  If no, you might find this movie really, really strange and boring.  Fortunately I am the former and I enjoyed it.  But still, the ending was very random.

Dec 20 (Sun): Woke up at 1:30 ish.  I had a brunch meeting but due to the lack of participants, it was cancelled.  Met Kevin to get my hookah coal tray and screen at Seolleung station.  Then I went to my aunt’s house by subway.  I started to read Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945.  To my knowledge, I ordered a paperback used book on Amazon.  For some reason, the seller sent me a big-ass heavy hardcover edition, originally used for some library in US.  It’s good that I got something more than I paid in terms of value, but it is impossible to carry it in my bag and read on my commute.

As I get off to transfer subway line,   a Korean man about 50-60 years old talked to me in English: “Er, philo? Greek? Latin?” I always get confused whenever this happen.  Is he one of those random annoying scary people found at subway stations? Do I have to speak in English or Korean? Did he mistake me as an Asian American/Canadian/British who speaks no Korean?  South Korea is not the country of best diversity, and many elders just do not get it when Asian-looking person does not speak Asian language.  Some of them even get emotional when Asian-American/Canadian/British speaks in English.  So I made a safe bet – answering in Korean.

“No, it’s written in English.” “Oh, I see.”  Since he and I were all on our way to transfer, he kept following me and asking this and that in slightly broken English.  Oh, I get it: maybe he wants to practice English.  So I started to mix my answer in English and Korean.  He said he had been living in France and Belgium for about 10 years; he came back to South Korea around 2002.  As you might already know, South Koreans have this English fever; so he, too, decided to give it a go, especially because having a French base is a good advantage for learning English.  He seemed like a studious guy, regularly checking BBC news, Le Monde and Figaro: he also had some knowledge of Greek and Latin, and he continuously asked “how’s my English?”

We eventually started talking about my workplace.  He said he knows a professor at the university’s theology school.  Turns out, that professor is a husband of a program director/business professor whom I work with. The conversation was not continued because I had to get off.  But wow, what a small world.

My aunt’s house is not actually a “house.”  It is a building located a bit away from the main street of one of Seoul’s downtown areas.   The building is originally built for offices, but my aunt’s family decided to change the top floor as their living space.  The only drawback is…it’s freezing cold in winter.  The construction worker did not think it as the living space, so the heating system is designed for office building, where you don’t sit on the floor.  My mom and I decided it’s not the best idea to visit them on winter – don’t get us wrong, we love them a lot and their cute shi tzu.

My aunt’s husband is from Kyoungsang Do, a southern state of Korea, nearby the ocean.  So I had a chance to eat a piece of grilled shark meat.  Disappointingly, it was not the funky new taste.  It was just like a big piece of white fish with salt.  But still an experience.

So overall, not a bad weekend, I reckon.

Group Idiocy is scary. Very.

HS came back from this executive education conference at Texas (for more information, refer to here), and she had to make a presentation as a business trip reporting.  She looked a bit lost, so I offered her to take a look at my last presentation as a reference.  Later on I casually checked, asking “so how’s the presentation going?”  She answered, “boy, you wrote a lot for the last year! Doing everything in Korean is so hard…”  Thus she ended up doing the entire PT in English.

Hello, more than half of the staffs here, who are the audience of this PT, don’t understand English as well as you and I.

Faaaallllllling!

HS had a presentation yesterday.  She knows that I’ve been to the same event and also ran a presentation.  Therefore if there is any overlapping topic table, I would skip that part for my presentation if I were her.  For some reason, she put the same thing – “newcomer’s workshop” –  boring crap out of director and deputy director.  The topics, too – to be fair, this year’s conference topics did not look very interesting.  HS attended all the really basic, theoretical ones, such as “keys of marketing.”  When I attended the conference last year, I intentionally attended all the tables that is related to international partnership and program operation, because (I thought) that is my main role.  I am not saying I did so much better job than she did – all I am saying is she could have done better job, and make it more interesting.

No wonder why the director asked “Is attending this annual conference helpful, in a long-term?”

Make it even better, the director wanted to have the list of participants – duh, and in addition, maybe you needed to ask that before the conference? – and HS responded, “what is that? Ohhhh, that.” I couldn’t help but facepalming. To both of them. Then the director turned his radar to me.

Director: what do you think of the topics? You’ve been to the conference last year.  In your opinion, what’s the difference?

I: *shrug* well.

Director: and about the air and everything?

I: Well, I don’t know how to answer that because I WAS NOT THERE THIS YEAR.

Director: Hmmm……I think what was talked about this year was pretty much basic.  Somewhat redundant.  What about last year? Did we get anything good last year?

I was thinking…I gave you my last year’s PT file and you should have taken a look at it at least.

From the conference, HS took some pictures of the facility.  She also took several pictures with other school’s managers, one on one, just like you take picture with your friends at friendship forever casual dinner table.  Being friendly is not bad, but a. they are not your BFF, and b. you are there for business purpose.  I wouldn’t be surprised if they thought her as some country chicken who is over excited to fly all the way to the great US of A.

And today, I overheard Yoon and HS talking to each other.

HS: I did not know 홍콩과기대 (香港科技大学) is HKUST (Hong Kong University of Science & Technology).

Yoon: Yeah, me neither.  And I didn’t know it was that good of a school!

Hearing this, I am sure they do not keep track of any news, nor knowing that a top engineering school is partnering with HKUST. HKUST is one of the top five Asian business schools, including executive education.  Please let’s not forget HS and Yoon are the program managers of South Korea’s top business school…well, after all, HS could not figure out Tsinghua University is 청화대학 (清华大学) in Korean anyway.  And now I am so sure they don’t read newspaper.  Now they are working on some kind of thing with HKUST.  It is actually Yoon’s job, but I see HS getting called every 3 minutes because Yoon doesn’t speak good English.

There was a very interesting documentary on Discovery Channel.  They had about 10 men and women of relatively same age and background.  Then the participants had to wear a number card on their forehead, without knowing what is their own number – but they get to see others’ numbers.  The participants were asked to pair up as male-female group of two.  Surprisingly, they each ended up someone with similar number.

A Korean proverb goes: people of same kind gather together all the time.  Several of my friends with more office working experience used to tell me how the organization, its members, management and decision-making really changed their original personality – almost to scary level, ultimately causing them to switch the workplace.  Now I really understand everything said above, and I know I do not want to be infected by this group idiocy.

Now I am on my way of becoming the facepalm master

Jesus said love thy neighbor.  Buddha said have mercy to all livings.  Mums around the world say be friend to everyone.  Beatles said all you need is love. Allah said everyone is brothers and sisters, all equal in front of him.  However, for some bizzare force of nature, we always have someone who does not click with you, no matter how hard you try.  You just do not like the person, with no particular reason.

HS, a Canadian-Korean newcomer of our office, and also the second oldest person, is that person to me.  Let me share the stories.

1) Out of friendliness, she once asked: “boy, how many bags and purses do you have?”  To be honest, it can look like I have a lot of bags since my mom is a bit of fashionista and we share our items. However, hearing her question, I was thinking…why do you care?

2) Another time, I felt like she was trying to teach me about international shipping (maybe I was just not in the best mood), making me think “you know I lived abroad for 9 straight years, no?”

2) Someone assigned her to write a formal e-mail in English, bearing director’s name.  If a document bears one’s name, I think that person at least try to write the draft.  Doesn’t happen here, not surprised.  HS asked me if there is any sample letters in the office, because she is not used to writing such a letter.  I said: “try google.” “Huh? You can find that stuff on google?” What can I say…

3) HS said, “how do you say 홍보 in English?”

I: Well, can you tell me the context?

HS: Er, not needed, I just want the English word for 홍보.

I: There are lot of words, and I don’t know which word to use unless you give me the context.

HS: No I just want the direct translation.

I: (sigh) then I guess the only word I can give is “promotional.”

HS: (expression of enlightment, mixed with vacancy) Oohhh.

4) Yesterday was a chaotic day.  I, EH and HS were trying to re-arrange the snack table and we were saying how our snack maker makes really good cookies.  I said, “well, let’s eat them after all events are over, if there is any left.” Even before I finish talking, HS quickly approached the snacks, saying “I’m having one now!”  I seriously thought she is on narcotics or smoked too much weed.

5) Director: so how does CEIBS deal with this matter?

HS: What’s CEIBS?

For those of you who live away from Asia and/or working in profession that is not related to business schools, CEIBS is the China-Europe International Business School, boasting a very nice currifulum, faculty and everything.  It has been on the newspaper serveral times (at least in Korea).  Please remember that HS is working at one of the best biz school exec education center as a program manager…

6) HS will be managing the EC program.  Due to the EC requirement, I told her to introduce her to our foreign partners, with her CV attached.  On her e-mail, she said: “I’ll be assisting her with EC program…sort of.”  No wonder why our French partner replied, “okay, can you please clear your role?”  In addition, I did not tell my foreign coworkers abroad about my leaving – I wanted to tell them around January or February.  She told everyone before I did, and I had to deal with frantic e-mails from Europe, asking “OMG! Why are you leaving!? When?”

Now I truly understand the meaning, definition, application and concept of facepalm…

Choosing who/when to be nice isn’t nice

Dec 16 was crazy day – we had two program graduation ceremonies, and then afterward the entire business school was to attend year-end party at our building…which is pretty ridiculous.  Shouldn’t the year-end party be fun and enjoyable for everyone?  Shouldn’t everyone be able to participate and plan together? Yet the lazy-ass business school office put all the preparation work to our side.  So we worked, all the others just came in, do nothing but enjoying.  During the preparation, this Yoon, the annoying lady whom I talked about before, made me to do another posting here (if you have no idea, please refer to here).

For the planing, we had EH handling all the decoration matters.  She ordered and planned pretty much everything, and we contributed several ideas. The dress code for the party was red, meaning you have to wear at least one item that is red.  We decided to have some red, Santa/Rudolf/Christmas-themed items prepared, because there is always someone who doesn’t keep the dress code.  On the day of setting up, a big pile of red and green, Christmas-themed corsage arrived.  I thought it was very pretty – nice for the party!  While EH and I were trying to figure out how to set them, Yoon came and asked: “what’s this?” EH answered she ordered Christmas-themed corsage for the party attendees who does not have any red items.  Hearing EH’s answer, Yoon started to rant again (sigh).

“Why did you order corsage?  People can where corsage anytime, at other parties.  This is Christmas themed year-end party, you should have ordered more santa hats and red bow ties, not corsage.”

EH, listening to Yoon without saying anything, did not look too happy.  I was baffled by Yoon’s ranting.  If she is that unhappy about what was delivered for the party, why did she make EH to do all decorations and item planning? She could have done the planning on her own!  Moreover, as far as I know, EH told everyone about her orders and general plannings.  Even worse, Yoon did not use any of the corsage – what a waste of money.  It’s pretty to look at.  It costed a handful of money for ordering all corsage.  Wouldn’t it be better to make the best use of them?  I seriously wanted to talk back, but it would be no use, and picking on a fight in the middle of preparation chaos is not a good idea: all I could do was saying “I think corsage are fine, they are very pretty” to EH, after Yoon went away.  If you designated some roles or responsibilities to someone, let her handle it; let that person be the boss, not you.

Then this morning, Yoon hit it again.

I had a phone call from one of our old client, H firm, regarding their old executive education program’s government tuition reimbursement.  I used to keep the table for each program’s government reimbursement, but since it is almost the end of year and no reimbursement inquiry for 6 months, I threw that away.  I asked H firm’s staff to hold on a minute, and asked out: “anybody knows where I can check the government reimbursement?”  Out of blue, Yoon said she can answer the phone.  So I did, and she handled the matter.  Then she just lashed out again.

“Didn’t you manage the H program? How can you not know the monetary amount for that one?”

“Well, I had the reimbursement table, but since no one inquired about it for 6 months, I scrapped it away. (And after all, I did not start the program – I took it over in the middle when another manager need to go away for the maternity leave, as**ole.)“

“Didn’t you know you can check it directly on the Ministry of Labor website?” – I tell you, she did not sound nice.

” NO, I DID NOT. because no one told me and that was my original question – ‘where can I find it’”

Maybe she sensed that I was ready to punch her – she was silence for 3-5 seconds.  Then she went really fast, saying where I can search the information.   Why, thank you very much.  How kind of you, but I don’t think I’ll use it.

What really annoys me is that Yoon have never done any nosy, annoying thing to HS – a new manager in our office but 2nd or 3rd oldest in our office.  Probably Yoon is not messing with her because HS is older.  I feel that Yoon is typical person who acts weak in front of “strong” and acts strong in front of weak.  You can’t be always nice to everyone; sometimes you have to be mean, depending on the situation.  However, when starting with somebody, being nice and treat him/her courteously is the right way.  If you just choose to be mean to people who seems to be weaker/lower than you are and vice versa in a very obvious way, that’s the worst.  Even if you secretly think in such a way, you do not show it.

No offense, but thanks to Yoon, now I have developed a (temporary) prejudice against 2nd eldest child out of three and of Jeollado origin.

You are the accountant, not me.

Let’s take a look at the dictionary definition of the word “accountant.”

ac·coun·tant   (ə-koun’tənt)
n.  One that keeps, audits, and inspects the financial records of individuals or business concerns and prepares financial and tax reports.

Basically, accountants are the ones who take care of all financial/numerical matters.  Operational managers, according to Wikipedia, are people with “responsibility of ensuring that business operations are efficient in terms of using as little resource as needed, and effective in terms of meeting customer requirements.” Apparently, I am an operational manager.  Yet, on this project – involving European Commission and several partners from Italy, UK and France – I am writing all the invoices, making inquiries of the payment due dates and tracking what money is for what part. Then why the hell am I doing all financial matters?  Because, our accountant cannot speak effing English.  If I am doing all the invoices, tracking, and financial inquiries, then there’s a problem.  If all other programs’ finances are managed by her and EC program is exception, then for sure there is a problem.

I had an issue with the accountant today.

Today, long-waited funding from our client, European Comission, has finally arrived.  There has been a lot of trouble over this funding.  First, they called off some sudden stock taking meeting, asking us to send representatives.  And EC failed to set a separate funding for trip reimbursement.  Second, since our clients and partners are Europeans, almost all offices and departments shut down all activities so they can go on their 3-months summer vacation.  This caused an incredible delay and troubles on all the communications, including funding.  Because there was no pre-set trip reimbursement funding, there were lots of rule-bendings, making-up documents and fly-under-the-radar involved.  I was in the middle of that, not our accountant.  Finally, the money from EC was wired.  Obviously they sent everything as a whole, instead of dividing them nicely so we can track the money easily.

The accountant demanded me to pin-point the objects of each amount.  It would have been much easier if I handed her all the invoices beforehand, but this time it was impossible: there were so many adjustments going on in a short amount of time, bending the rules, making up the documents and stealth-flying.  Some I could answer right away, but some I had to ask our partners.  Then the accountant said, “you need to be more responsible for the funding of this program.  You are the operational manager.”  I almost got flipped.  Excuse me? Well, guess who’s writing all that invoices and making funding inquiries! And you expect me to track all of the fundings while dealing with hyperdemanding Europeans?

I: Well, here’s the thing.  It is not a one-time ready-to-go document sending.  Sometimes one invoice has to be adjusted five times, not to mention all the communication involved and delays.  So to me, it is quiet difficult to remember every single details

Accountant: I don’t need an excuse (for sure I would have screamed if I were in a terrible mood).  Don’t you think you need to have better knowledge of funding details because you are the manager? The other manager who worked before you did not have this kind of problem, she always handed the invoice on time,

I: No, I am not making an excuse.  I am trying to figure out a solution, because a. there are just too many details and adjustment to remember while managing the program, and b. as an accountant, you are having troubles of funding tracking because I don’t remember all details.  So why don’t I just share the whatever information sent by our French accountant?  I’ll forward it to you.

Accountant: Er, no need, because I don’t speak English…

I: (imaginary facepalm) okay, no, you don’t have to worry – you just have to know the invoice number, object, and monetary amount.

Accountant: Uh, no, my point is that I keep reminding you about the money and you just need to be more responsible and…

I did not know what to do except eye-rolling.  Our French partner has two people involved in this project.  One is accountant and the other one is operational manager.  When it comes to money, I contact their accountant, not another one.  Our UK partner also has two people, one being the academic coordinator and another one being operational manager.  Our Italian partner has only one manager, but they are involved only with 10% of the entire project.

As of us, Koreans, we do have an accountant with 9 years of experience.  In other Korean domestic projects, when someone asks for invoices, receipts and such, everyone let the accountant handle the matter.  For the EC program, I do all of what is originally our accountant’s job – in other words, she’s just sitting there.  And she tells me that I need to be more responsible?  If she really wants to say that to me, she either needs to learn English so I don’t have to do all the funding communication while I don’t really understand what’s going on in the world of finance (and also can focus on operations), or at least tries to immerse herself on this project’s communication rather than leaving everything to me, or hire another accountant who can speak English and concentrate on this kind of English-involving project.

But for sure I know that will not happen, and I’m leaving.