[Resolved] Work in China: Not What I Bargained For

Rollsavager

I'll put the Cliff's Notes up front: I'm working full-time with a long commute, my local boss and HQ are giving me conflicting job responsibilities, and I'm being paid less than I was when I did the same work part-time from home. I need to figure out if I should suck it up and stick with it, try to get back to doing part-time, or give up and go back to the States.

The full story involves a lot of whining and you are totally allowed to tell me to man up. Anyway, here it is:

Last year I taught English in China and I had a sucky time for reasons I won't go into. My girlfriend opted to come back with the same program, and since I wanted to stay together (but not teach) I decided to try to find something else. I found some online part-time work with a company in my girlfriend's city. The pay wasn't bad and the boss made it sound like getting a work visa would be no problem, and that I was on track for a team leader position of sorts. A good opportunity for personal development, I thought, so I stuck with it.

Fast forward about a month, and I'm offered the full-time position. The pay is middle-class by Chinese standards but borderline poverty in the US. But again, I'm assured that my main responsibilities will be training, QA, team-building, getting the office running more smoothly, etc. Great! I could use all of that on my resume. Sign me up. Sounds like a good deal. Right?

I've now been full-time a little over a month, and people from HQ are chiding me about productivity. They want me doing the grunt work only. My local boss still wants me doing QA and odd jobs, but now I have a quota. The quota shouldn't be a huge deal; at home I could meet it in about four hours of solid work. A big part of the problem is that my work involves listening very carefully to a lot of audio files, and the office can get incredibly noisy. The part-timers aren't under the same pressure and can talk loudly at will, the office assistant is taking and making calls throughout the day, and any time a newcomer comes in it's a barrage of questions and answers while they do their training. The really loud, clicky keyboards and broken-down, uncomfortable chairs don't help either.

The full-time position pays monthly. Doing it part-time means you get paid by task. I've gotten quite good at this work. As I said, I could match my monthly salary from home in four hours a day. But I'm now saddled with a nine-hour workday and a two-and-a-half hour commute.

Final disclaimer: my girlfriend is going to law school starting in either the summer or the fall, and I have very little incentive to stay in China after that.

In my mind the best-case scenario would be making a graceful transition back to part-time work, since I could do it anywhere (even back in the States while I looked for something else or applied to grad school). I don't know how realistic that is, or how to tactfully suggest it to my boss. I could try to stick it out full-time for another few months, but I would definitely want to make some changes to the office (quieter keyboards, whispers only, better chairs). If I made a really horrendous gaffe while talking to my boss and lost the job entirely, I'd probably just go home.

What say you, H/A? Suck it up? Diplomacy? Not worth it? I'll take anything you've got.

Djeet

Don't know how things work in China, but if in the states I'd have a meet with local boss and a rep from HQ and discuss why you're in full timer vs part timer. From a perspective of task completion you aren't being asked to do wnything you couldn't do part time and if that is your role as a full timer you want to move to part time. If they gave you more responsibilty and authority you'd be willing to stay on full time. Problem is they may want the part time task completion and have another meatbag on the floor to do non-specific tasks onsite for 4-5 hours. Not a great position for you to be in.

Raern

I can't offer general advice too easily, but could a good pair of noise-cancelling headphones speed up your work in that environment?

ceres

I would see if you could stay full-time, but go back to working at home.

Rollsavager

I bring my own headphones to work and they're decent, but not noise-cancelling. The company just "upgraded" the headphones in the rest of the cubicles at 30RMB (<$5) a pair. They almost certainly won't cover a real quality headset, so it'll be out-of-pocket or bust. That said, I guess I'll look into it.

I'd like to talk to the boss about working from home again, but I worry about being branded a squeaky wheel/not a team player. Any tips on how to approach that conversation?

ceres

Um. I guess I have to ask if you really NEED this job. Maybe you can look for a different job? Or does it have to be this one for the visa?

I don't know anything about China, or if squeaky wheels get branded as terrorists or something. I mean, what's the difference if you're branded one if there's the possibility it will let you work from home?

Rollsavager

If I want to stay here while keeping everything above board, then yeah, this is basically it. It takes weeks to get the visa paperwork through proper channels, and a trip home on top of that. No company I've talked to has been willing to cover airfare, either, which is a bit of a sticking point. All of which is to say that I could look for work back in the States, but it wouldn't make sense to look for anything else here.

With respect to work culture at this office and China more generally, yeah, there are some idiosyncrasies. Employees are basically expected to accept their lot. Also, my boss seems to use "in-house time" as a productivity metric, and is very intent on having part-timers come into the office as much as possible. Goodness knows why she doesn't just look at task completion.

In spite of that, you're right, there's almost zero chance of any serious backlash for asking to work from home. Thanks for the suggestions! I'll give it a go sometime soon and post an update later.

finral

Knowing how China tends to work, seems to me you would be better off not going to this job for the rest of your time there, and making money tutoring till you are ready to go back to the US with your girlfriend. You'll probably make more money that way and have more free time.

I doubt that your company would bother revoking your visa, but as a side note, you don't have to come back to the US to get a new Visa, you just have to leave China. For a lot of expats, this tends to mean quick trip to Korea or some other nearby country.

cpugeek13

I'm curious, what company are you working at in china? What city is it in? Is it a chinese company or an overseas branch of a foreign company? If its a chinese company than, congratulations, you are being treated just like a chinese person. I'm getting my masters at a chinese university and I deal with the same kind of things (though, at least you're getting paid). If you can't stand the work culture, than the best thing to do is to find another job, either in china or abroad.

I wouldn't bug your supervisor to much about getting new headphones or working from home though. I'd be afraid that he'd think you're asking for preferential treatment, which Chinese and other East Asians frown upon. No offense to the handsome gents and lovely ladies of this forum, but I think if you need advice, you should really ask a Chinese person what they would do in this situation. Chinese culture can be really hard for westerners to comprehend, myself included.

finral

This is harsh and totally unfair, but western workers are very rarely treated like chinese workers, and tend to have much more ability to push back against chinese style management.

cpugeek13

finral wrote: »

This is harsh and totally unfair, but western workers are very rarely treated like chinese workers, and tend to have much more ability to push back against chinese style management.

I'd say this is mostly true, but it depends on the company, and more importantly the management. Foreign teachers certainly get good treatment, not sure about full time company workers though.

zekebeau

@finral, how long has it been since you worked in China? The ability to get a visa outside your home country has been recently curtailed, and most embassies will want a proof of residence if you are not a native of the country where you are applying. (this is work visas only, you can still get business and tourist in any country real easy).

Otherwise, Roll, finral has a good point about the ease with which you can find english tutoring work and the unlikeliness of them revoking your visa. Not legal, but at worst you will be caught, fined 2,000-5,000RMB, and told to leave China in 5 days.

Negotiation is always open, don't get too intimidated by it. It is actually common tactic to say "You give me more money, I'll take more responsiblity" rather than the western "I'll take responsibility and prove I deserve more money." I suggest starting with how you want to improve your work product and help the company, and how much working from home will benefit the employer. Point out how you are doing the work of both a part time and your job as well.

This should lead to the question "How can we make your productivity better at the office?" Then you can bring up changes to the quota of work, the environment, even the number of days in office and days at home. If all else fails find your contract and be 100% clear on the duties you accepted. You have 0 obligation to do anything not in the contract and can say you will need additinal compensation to do what isn't in the contract. Your hands are tied, you must follow the contract. This may cause tention and the boss may put some greif your way, but they certainly wouldn't fire you.

They keep you in the office because [especially in certain cities] having a white face on the payroll shows the company is better than others, and they want to show you off. Getting more work at home is possible, but I would bet it is easier to request more compensation for the out of contract work than to get more working at home privilage.

Bonus info: I'm actually working in a law firm in Shenzhen right now that helps on a lot of immigration issues, and legally you can change your work visa to another employer without trouble or travel. You need a letter of recommendation from the previous employer, so don't say "Take this job and shove it" but you can make a pretty graceful transistion if you find an employer who can meet your needs better.

finral

Been about 2 years, so my info isn't super up to date. With how quickly things change in China, and how much they seem to like cracking down on things, its certainly possible things have changed. Also, I never had to do super sneaky things to keep my visa up to date

As an aside, I lived in Shenzhen for a year, and loved it there, how you liking it?

Rollsavager

finral wrote: »

As an aside, I lived in Shenzhen for a year, and loved it there, how you liking it?

Haha, yeah, I came to Shenzhen last year with CTLC and decided to come back to be with my girlfriend. It's...okay. The access to Hong Kong is nice, but I've found it super difficult to do anything but teach here. Which is too bad, because I had a pretty poor teaching experience. I'd really like to avoid teaching or tutoring to the extent possible.

Like I said, I'll try talking to my boss before the end of the week. I appreciate the advice and will try to keep my approach focused on contractual duties and how to best serve the company. Expect an update soon!

finral

Heh, that sounds like a familiar experience. I also went to Shenzhen with CTLC. My teaching experience with CTLC was middling, I would say I was basically a show monkey. The year of teaching in Shenzhen enabled me to get a teaching job in Beijing for a much much better teaching experience.

Thanatos

Given my lack of knowledge of the work culture in China, I can't really help, but @Loren Michael might be able to.

Loren Michael

Sounds like a shit deal to me unless you're courting some serious prospects. I'd abandon that ship and get something with way fewer hours and network your way from there to a better job. Best jobs in China (read: not teaching) are typically found from outside of China though.

My current situation is teaching English composition and proper citation methods at a university. I work about 10-12 hours a week, it pays about $1500 a month and they give me a visa. The real money (from my living-in-China perspective) comes from my tutoring jobs on the side which pay $45-75/hr.

Rollsavager

Update:

I talked to my boss about doing the work part-time and it all worked out quite amicably. As of now I'm officially done in the office and free to do my own thing. I'm returning to the States pretty soon; the trip was supposed to be one step in processing the work visa, but the company didn't follow through on schedule. In any event, the part-time online work will be nice to have until I can find something better to tide me over while I study up and apply to grad school.

This thread can be closed now. Thanks again for everyone's advice, I'll do my best to keep an eye on the forum and pay it forward where I can.

Cheers!