Updated July 29, 2020
Sup readers!
Is there anything you hate about your colleagues?
Well, my Chinese colleagues are generally very nice, friendly and easygoing. I do have a good relationship with them and I thoroughly enjoy my time with them. However, there are still some issues that pisses me off.
It’s fair to say that I kind of strongly dislike those issues.
I do dislike a few personality traits of my colleagues, and here goes a quick list of top five things I dislike about my Chinese colleagues.
Gossip
They’d gossip anything and everything about each other. There is hardly anything private among my colleagues. If you share something with one person in your office, the news would spread like a wildfire. For example, if you are an expat who just happened to find a girlfriend, you’d better not share this information with your colleagues. They’ll gossip about your personal life and you’ll be asked many personal questions. Moreover, you’ll be expected to answer those unnecessary questions.
As an expat, I try my best to maintain a professional relationship with my colleagues. However, I’m not a Chinese, and often depend on their support in order to render my professional obligations. That’s why, I must share a good amount of personal information with them, and then you know, everyone in my office would know those personal details. For example, all my colleagues know my age, salary, relationship status and they’ll gossip about it every now and then.
Jealous
My Chinese colleagues are quite jealous of me. Why? Because my salary is one of the highest in my office, and they are jealous of it. I remember once I asked one of my colleagues about the average expense of primary school education in China, and she said: “your salary is very high, it’s not expensive for you”.
This sentence, “your salary is VERY high”, has been repeated so many times in front of me.
By the way, how do they know my salary in the first place? Well, there are lots of official paper works that are primarily in Chinese. I just can’t understand them, so I need someone from my office to help me (we don’t have a dedicated HR as well). The secretary to my boss initially helped me. However, she was a friend to all my colleagues (they’d often have lunch and dinner together). The secretary went on to share my share. That’s how everyone in my office knows my fucking salary.
Also, my Chinese job contract was initially written in Mandarin Chinese and someone from my office helped to get it translated into English.
As such, my salary has never been a secret to my colleagues.
Repeating the same dress
I don’t know how to explain my frustration. It’s very common for my colleagues to come office in the same dress on a stretch of consecutive days. Now it’s summer (June), the daytime temperature in the eastern part of China is about 30’C. However, they still don’t regularly change the dress.
In particular, just a few weeks ago, one of my female colleagues, who is 30 and earn more than RMB 300,000/years, came in the same dress from Monday to Friday. Btw, she is pregnant as well. Imagine, in the summer season, a pregnant women should be more hygienic and clean. However, she doesn’t care about the dress. How can you go to office in the same dress for 5 consecutive days? Yukkkk
Noisy
My Chinese colleagues, in general, are quite noisy; at least that’s what I see in my office. They’d laugh out loud in the office. Quite often, they’d bring their kids to the office and the kids would make noise as well.
I mean, there is a meeting room, why don’t you just sit in the meeting room for a while and discuss your issues, than to shout in the office? Man!
They don’t like the job
Most of my colleagues seem to have no real attachment with their jobs (I asked them in person).
“So why do you still do this job”, I’d ask. “For living”, they’d reply.
Well, if you are not happy with your job, why don’t you just change it?
Because in China, life revolves around marriage and family system. Most of my colleagues have family in the city. They live with family. Their kids are going schools. They have already bought houses (on a 30 year loan). Changing job often involves changing job location as well. It’d be difficult for my colleagues to change job and job location.
Thoughts?
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