On November 6th, I spent a day at my parent’s workplace. This experience gave me a glimpse into the work-life of an entrepreneur in the wholesale sector.

Name of your host: Bryan Chong, Cathay Importers
Relationship to you: Father

The Interview

1. What is your host’s job title?
   My father’s job title is vice president. He is one of the two owners of a family business that imports home furnishing and decors from Asia to the Canadian market.


Figure 1. My father, uncle, grand-uncle and me.


2. What is your host’s job description?
   My father’s job is to assist the president to ensure the growth, stability, direction and daily operation of the small family business.
3. What are the duties and/or tasks your host performs at your job?
   My father’s duties include overseeing daily customer service activities, including phone calls, email messages and follow-ups concerning product delivery and quality issues. He is also responsible for the company’s procurement strategies such as evaluating suppliers, negotiating contracts, reviewing product quality, and monitoring inventory levels. Moreover, he often reviews sales reports and compare them to goals set out in short- and long-term plans. Lastly, he takes care of legal compliance issues such as obtaining permits, employee contacts, and paying taxes.


Figure 2. A business owner oversees the company’s daily operations, such as invoicing, responding to customers’ requests, and shipping out orders.


4. What qualifications does your host have for this job in the following areas?
   Training: My father learns to become an entrepreneur from his mentors and from trial-and-error. Although he does read professional journals from time to time, he invests more in joining clubs and networking with other business owners in order to gain experience not shared in books.

   Education: There are no business owner education requirements. For my father, he graduated from University of British Columbia with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Geography. To gain a better understanding of what owning a business entails, he also enrolled in different courses to learn the principles of management, business ethics, marketing, and business research.

   Experience: My father has been involved in the family business since he graduated from university 20 years ago.

   Skills and attributes (personal qualities): My father said that a small business owner must be open-minded, patient, ambitious, persistent, and self-motivated. To ensure the sustainability of the business, he or she must also be a strategist and planner. Other skills needed include bookkeeping, communication, interpersonal, and time management skills.
   

5. What are some of the things your host likes about the job?
   My father enjoys the freedom and flexibility that is not offered to an employee. He also loves the challenge of changes in the business world.
6. What are some of the things your host dislikes about the job?
   As an entrepreneur, my father must take on greater than normal financial risks. He also faces the struggle of having to wear so many different hats, from sales, marketing and operations to customer relations, payroll and accounts payable. He feels like he can never be away from the business and does not spend time with his friends and family as much as he would like to.
7. How does your host anticipate this job changing in the next 5 years or so?
   My father thinks that in the next 5 year, more entrepreneurs will embrace machine learning to better respond to customer requests. These kinds of tools can analyze all the data about a customer, such as previous purchases, types of transactions, and customer interactions, to make product suggestions based on his or her preferences and constraints.

My Reflections

1. Three reasons why I would like this job:
   • This job allows me to build my own rather than someone else’s dream. It gives me the power to control my own destiny.
   • This job exposes me to numerous opportunities to gain a thorough understanding of various business functions.
   • This job gives me a chance to have higher financial rewards. I benefit from my own hard work.
2. Three reasons why I would not like this job:
   • This job carries greater financial risks therefore higher stress.
   • With many more tasks to juggle, this job requires me to work regularly beyond standard office hours, which has a negative impact on work-life balance.
   • The job requires me to attend to tedious legal tasks such as obtaining permits, learning labor laws and safety regulations, and registering unemployment insurance for employees.
3. Is this job for me? Why or why not?
   I don’t think a career as an entrepreneur is suitable for me. Being a business owner means that there is a bewildering array of things to worry about. Not only do I need to survive among competition, I’m also responsible for the well-being of the employees. The time commitment and stress is usually high, definitely not easy for a highly anxious person like me. Lastly, I may have to perform some unpleasant tasks, such as firing people.
4. Explain the value of the TOKTW experience in relation to my ideas about my post-secondary plans
   Although I feel that a career as an entrepreneur isn’t right for me, the TOKTW event is still a valuable experience for me. Shadowing my father for a day provided more insight on how adults approach their small nuances during the day and how they collaborate (compared to us students) to get their tasks completed. It also reaffirmed my career goal as an engineer, which required me to enroll in a post-secondary degree program in the future.