You Push Until They No Longer Can Give

It is amusing to continue writing despite not being able to view what I write on the main page. Apparently I must have offended the Chinese government in some shape or form...maybe with the mushroom on Mr. mop story.

After working at where I do for the past 1 1/2 weeks, I have quickly observed the way of the workforce under a Chinese setting with a semi-western minded boss who has overstayed her time in the country. I say overstayed because it only seems that everyday day there has been reference to her dislike of the people and culture, especially their "disloyalty" to the company. As someone who tries to look at all aspects of her situation, yes, Chinese people (or well Beijingers) have been said to be quite lazy. The overall organization of the country tends to be lacking, especially in the area of office management. The country does not know it's left hand from its right, nor where the left foot is going while the right foot isn't moving. Then again, it's also a rising country, and with its size and population, I'm sure that has to be part of the reason. Heck our own US DMV system is still quite ponderous, as is Canada's socialist system in emergency healthcare, so who are we to criticize?

There are days when I personally feel frustrated with its system. Example: waiting to get crammed into one of the 3 elevators that take me up to the 19th floor of where I work...and spending 15minutes to finally get to my turn- which is longer than the commute to the buildin from where I live. Honestly that's quite a safety hazard; with the people pressing both the up and down button on the elevator wait when only needing to go down, and the narrow staircase, I hope one day I will not need to swan dive out of the office window as the quickest way out of the burning building.

Ah yes, back to the story of my boss. To vent out her frustration she has blatantly displayed all the wrongs of a Chinese person's way of thinking to her employees. These employees, as most of them only nodd or claim to understand, further frustrate her due to their lack of aid or skill. By having such a stressed out personality who constantly shows her disaffection to the country and its people, how can there be cross cultural communication within the office? Of course thre would be a strong resentment and goals to escape such a high stress environment for most of these poor employees. As for I, it felt like this is the lifestyle I should be suffering only if I ever decided to go to law school and end up working at a law firm. I show a large sense of impartiality to the situation during the entire multiple sessions she has spoken to me about it all. I understand where she is coming from; she used to be well paid, worked with a bunch of knowledgable colleagues, and has that drive to improve. However, she is also a workaholic due to the lack of family life, driving this energy into her employees to also do overtime without pay.

The only reason why I bring up this blog rant now is because the past week I have worked beyond my hours for now particular reason, and as tomorrow I ask for a few hours off and have that possibility of being taken out of my RMB 30/hr pay (note, it ends up being less than minimum wage in the US), the total number of hours I work, in terms of extended time, is meaningless even when taking a bit off in order run a personal errand may highly potentially be taken out of the pay. Point: there is only subtraction in the pay, never an addition nor a way to balance out the numbers.

All I want is an equal pay, balanced numbers which I feel I earn my keep. However, now I see a larger undertsanding in what the Chinese workers are facing against. Everything they do is seen as negative, and never a positive environment. If it were me (and I am basically there), I would be another disgruntled Chinese worker who just works without passion. Perhaps I'm not the right person to give this critique, as I tend to give harsh criticisms to my friend's papers to the point he took his laptop away from me, but for every negative criticism, there should be a positive one in return. Or heck, I'd be quite depressed working there and have no motivation to strive harder.