#201 Collaboration, Work-Life Balance (12/04/2026)

This past week, I've been meeting and chatting with colleagues from A-Fontane. The collaboration between our two companies has already been made public, and everyone knows that we are working with them to use their Modal fabric for new bed linens. But today, I want to talk about a potential future project we might undertake together. This type of collaboration can sometimes be very sensitive and difficult to manage and execute. Consider this: even within one company, where everyone reports to the same boss and there's a shared understanding that a thriving company benefits all employees, internal conflicts or office politics are still common. If two different companies are involved, where interests are, to some extent, separate, how can they come together and collaborate successfully? It's not easy. Ultimately, it requires both parties to be the "same kind of people" (I'll elaborate on what kind later). If either party's decision-maker prioritizes profit above all else, the collaboration can only be temporary and not long-term, because eventually, someone will lose patience and arguments will erupt. It takes great magnanimity for a larger entity to be willing to collaborate with a smaller one. Only when both sides are genuinely committed to doing things well, aiming for the best outcome, can success be achieved. And if successful, I believe it can produce results that an independent company couldn't achieve on its own. I'm not specifically talking about our collaboration, but rather, I want to emphasize that if two companies in the same industry join forces, there's a strong chance they can achieve things that a single independent company cannot. For instance, there's a recent rumor that supermarket chains ParknShop and Wellcome might merge. If they approach this seriously (not just a merger for merger's sake), they have the potential to achieve excellent results.

Looking back, I am extremely passionate about my work, especially in the past few months after implementing systems/automations. Now that some tasks can finally be handed over to computers, freeing up my time, I find myself even more passionate about work (before, I sometimes disliked doing certain repetitive tasks). I constantly want to tweak and improve the company in various ways, and new opportunities like the one mentioned above excite me and make me look forward to future work. Nobody knows what the future holds, but let’s go. Let’s do this.