Dear All,
Could you please proof-read for my below essay?
Many thanks in advance!
BRgds
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Question: Describe a time in your career when you were frustrated or disappointed. What did you learn from that experience? (500 word maximum)
ring ring ring brrrrring....brrrrring...
It rang again, angrily, impatiently ...
Resisting the temptation to mute the sounds, I picked up the phone and spoke with my most gentle voice" Good morning, Nhien speaking..."
It was the fifth call asking for the shipments of our 20000 tons of wheat contracts from Ukraine to Vietnam. The previous night, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin announced Russia's ban on grain exports to protect its national food security. The remained largest wheat exporter of Black Sea region, Ukraine, didn't copy its neighbor, but unofficially it ordered its customs department not to let any grain shipment through. In a very short time, the world wheat price shot up nearly 100 usd/mt.
The total claim we would face, if unable to deliver this 20000 tons, could mount up to 2 millions USD. My personal and company's reliability were challenged by buyers in our every conversation, as there had been Ukraine contracts defaulted by others. Many suppliers whom I trusted refused to answer phone calls or bluntly replied they wouldn't honor their contractual commitments. That feeling of loosing faith was devastating, until I realized that I had been focusing too much on my problem: shipping the cargo out of Ukraine. Trying to put myself in others' shoes, I started looking at the difficulty from differently perspectives.
Internally, I held meetings with my team to sketch the whole picture of the situation, and provided guidelines on how to tackle different clients in specific circumstances. This preparation helped our people confident in explaining this out-of-control incident to clients, and consequently relieved the pressures from frantic complaints, threatens and false accusations of aggressive buyers.
Instead of answering the question "When will the shipment be made?" raised by all buyers, I started working with them on practical solutions for their production plans in different scenarios. Out of expectation, we found the possibility to substitute Indian corn (with similar nutrition content and same price) for Ukraine wheat. For factories which could not adapt their production formulas to corn, I convinced them to postpone the shipments and join us in sending protests against Ukraine government's unlawful export blockage to WTO and GAFTA.
Under intensive pressures from international community, two months later Ukraine finally freed its export. Nevertheless, no one wanted to deliver at such a high price difference then. Despite my great disappointment, I kept the conversations with my suppliers warm, offering them a way to keep their names clean and wash out their contracts legally with compensations. It was a hard battle, but we managed to get a settlement of nearly 400000 USD, which fortunately was enough to pass onto the buyers who could not switch from wheat to corn and successfully closed a challenging chapter.
The experience with this Ukraine case provides me with a great lesson about coping with adversity. I realized that we human are often self-centered, and tend to see our loss bigger than that of others. That is why at the beginning I only felt myself trapped, disappointed and frustrated. However, when not taking thing personally, I was able to fight against stress and see through others' concerns. That was the very first step for me to put myself in others' shoes, solved their problems, and helped me out of mine.
The remained largest wheat exporter--- do you mean the last remaining?
I would take out the part about realizing that humans are naturally self-centered. Your essay expounds a more positive view of humanity- while we are self centered, we can also be accommodating. And this cooperation and accommodation is what spurs progress.
I do love what you did in the beginning, onomatopoeia is always a plus!
