integrity...get some!

Of late, in dealing with my company and work life here, I've been thinking a lot about how I personally deal with the hurdles that are thrown my way.

1. Being flexible: Try as I might, I cannot get used to this "fly by the seat of our [the boss's] pants" functioning of my company, and many Chinese companies. For example, I just received word about my Qing Ming Festival holiday schedule, which includes 3 days off (yay! says my coworker), one of which I have to "make-up" on Saturday because that's how it goes here. Great, I have 3 days off work (after a six-day workweek) but it really just screws everything up.

It's not like I can use these 4 days to travel anywhere because traveling in China during national holidays is like slowly pulling your nails out. There are too many people going too many places! Plus, I didn't have enough preparation time to make anything happen anyway. Saturday is also my big tutoring day so now I have to reschedule all the REAL moneymaking work I do just because this damn country can't figure out how to take a holiday without actually making more stress than any holiday is worth. I'm trying to be flexible, you see, but I get really worked up about these things. That said, I think I'll just do some short trips around Shanghai and enjoy relaxing...but I'm still pissed.

2. Having integrity: I consider my strong moral center and upstanding character one of my defining traits. We all have our flaws (me too *sigh*) but I think in general I can be relied upon to make the right choices for the right reasons. Recently, I was called late at night to substitute the next day for a teacher who was "sick". I put that in quotations for several reasons: one, the night before is pretty early to know that you "just can't make it in" the next day. Two, when I texted said teacher's roommate about directions to the school I was supposed to go to, I never received an answer and normally she gets back to me within fifteen minutes on her smartphone. Three, I later found an uploaded photo on said roommate's Facebook of said teacher with the caption "hooky and eggs hooray" which I can only interpret to mean hooky from work. So maybe it seems catty, but I'm pretty irritated about it because I would absolutely never do something like that. Really, I wouldn't.

At our company, they pride themselves on always having a substitute available. It is partially a Chinese culture thing about adhering to a contract and giving the schools their money's worth. It is also partially a naive idea that any white person is better than no white person in the classroom. Due to this slightly misinformed notion, our company sends teachers to sub for sick/skipping/otherwise engaged teachers all the time. However, this only applies to some teachers. Six (used to be nine) teachers have daily schedules at the same school that never change. It's a nine to five-ish job with several English classes throughout the day. These teachers do not technically have the office hours or half-days that I am currently blessed with, though I personally believe our workload and abilities are comparable. They are therefore never called in to substitute if, say, I or one of my similarly-situated colleagues couldn't make it to one of the 20-odd classes we teach each week. Interestingly enough though, they seem to take sick days far more often than any of us...funny how that works.

Knowing that one of my colleagues will have to substitute for me gives me a bit of a different perspective on taking sick leave, though I'm not one to take days off necessarily or unnecessarily. I have never skipped work for "hooky" or for being sick. It's who I am. I also wouldn't want to put my coworkers in that awkward situation of having to cover for me. I am not paid enough to be on-call for every jackass that wants to take a break. Especially if that jackass would never have to sub for me if I freakishly called in sick one day. Which brings me to my next point...

3. Fairness: I get it, life's not fair. Fine, but I'm truly getting sick of the institutionalized unfairness of my situation here. Nobody's situation is the same. Nobody is treated the same way. Everything, everything is arbitrary. Whoever is well-liked gets a bit better treatment, but more importantly, those that are disliked are given noticeably worse treatment (say, in terms of scheduling). The better teachers are worked more and often and worse teachers are given few hours or classes. It's obnoxious and I'm over it. Is this how life is? Perhaps I should calm down. But I do know that other workplaces have systematic protocol for hours, pay and over-time, whereas my company has the aforementioned "fly by the seat of our [office-politicky] pants" mentality.

In this unpredictable and frustrating atmosphere, I find it hard to be the upstanding individual with strong character and moral fibre. When people know you are reliable and good-natured, they use that for their own gain or they use it against you, like when they praise my abilities after asking me to do a hundred extra things. Finding a place where you can be the best person possible without people using you is tough and I hope that I can locate that sweet spot wherever I end up next.

And now, since I just ranted and raved and I bet you're over it...something funny!

 

The cat, I believe, represents Chairman Mao and the character behind him says "cat" which is pronounced "mao". Oh, sorry did I kill the joke? My bad. Lolcatz 4eveerrr....

love,
ellen