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Q: If you don't want to be promoted, does that make you a bad person?
If you just want to teach and not be Head Teacher or some other position, does that mean you are a bad person?
Or is there some unwritten rule that life is a race to earn the most money and prestige?
10 years 19 weeks ago in Money & Banking - China
no, it makes you smart. the little extra money you will earn as a head teacher isn't worth the headache that comes with it. now, if you could get paid extra for curriculum design or something, that's another story.
There's not such rule as "run after more money and prestige/face", just lots of pressure for it. Life is what you make of it 
However, there are also self-delusions that we might make to avoid things we are scared of, responsibilities being the old classic one. Seek for you soul. If you see no points on taking a promotion, whatever, don't take it, from your point of view it might be a trap 
When I was young I had half a year to burn between serving my country's army and starting university. In that half year I worked in a supermarket, manned the cash register, filled stuff on shelves etc.
Then years later, after years of aggressive career development, after some job changes and several promotions, I found myself each morning with longing drive past the local branch of that same supermarket thinking "how nice it would be with a simple job with no responsibility" .... of course that would mean letting go of the car and the apartment. But I can certainly understand those who don't want the pressure. It is not always worth the extra bit of cash it will give.
This is also a thing I dislike about China, that people look down on those in the low paid jobs. What's the problem with good honest work. Maybe if people respected farmers they would be more encouraged to produce quality foods. Farmers and street sweepers rock.
andy74rc:
I look down at people doing low paid jobs not because of the job type itself (been doing them myself in my youth too!) but because here usually they work with no willing, no care, no attention to details, no interests, no dedication, no nothing. They all want to be "managers", unhappy with their inability to achieve the higher level thus not giving a damn about what they're doing. As an example (but it did apply thousand times) I did mount the new furniture in my office myself, only to get rid of 3 complete dumb asses not even able to use a screwdriver.
Only manual workers who do care about their job and build skills rock.
Scandinavian:
Yes, but the shitty attitude as far as I can see has nothing to do with rank, but just because of shitty people. The rank does not qualify for being belittled nor being embiggened, but yeah, the attitude does. People who sweep the street smiling. Awesome. People who sweep the streets looking pissed at the world, well, they get what they ask for.
Building skills rock. A day without learning is a day wasted, a life without learning.......
TMaster:
100% agree with Andy.
I would agree with you Scandinavian I do not disrespect any job either, but let's face it, this is China and, from top-level management to street sweeping, the only goal of an individual is to get as little things to do as possible with the biggest income possible. There are only very few people who actually care for the job they are doing, may it be passion or even simple professionnal dedication. Where hierarchy means a downstream of responsibility rejection, being at the bottom means taking the shit. In this wonderful social setup, you can only want to get promoted, and only need to consider other people's rank as a measure of professionnal satisfaction.
DrMonkey:
I think that that in China, the whole concept of "doing a job because you enjoy it and because it means something to you" is quite a new concept. Some younger folks got it, not sure about those born before the 80's. The worst seems to be those born in the Cultural Revolution era. Also, some people got the concept of "enjoyable work", but they think it's impossible to reach because of their own insecurity.
Scandinavian:
@DrMonkey. I have only met two people who seemed passionate about work. One is our vet the other is a friend of my wife who runs a small business. There are a couple of the people at the local market who seems to be happy with life, but why the fork are they then standing in a puddle of rotting groceries instead of at least sweeping around them, or have one of those highly esteemed street sweepers come and use 30 seconds of sweeping power on fixing the environment.
It's a daily experience to see e.g. a waiter, slap a plate of food on the table as if she couldn't care less about anything, I've seen a doctor in a hospital deliver the message to a 3 month pregnant woman "there is no heartbeat" just to go to her desk and sit down....... aaaaargh the lack of ambition can drive me crazy.
If by "promotion", your employer simply means increasing your pay by 20% while increasing your workload by 100%, then no, you're not bad, just being not easy to manipulate.
Robk:
Yup, and that is exactly what happens.
"Let's promote you to the DoS. You can monitor and train the other teachers. Evalutate the new students... talk and fill out reports with the parents... make sure all the courseware is followed... lecture the foreign teachers on Chinese policy... generally be our tool for manipulating other teachers... and we will pay you 2000 RMB more per month! Exciting!"
"You mean be your slave..."
"Of course not, this is a valuable opportunity!"
"Do I still have to teach classes?"
"Yes..."
"Fork your forking opportunity and stick it up your buttocks... with a fork!"
TMaster:
That's a classic, presenting a pile of BS as a "nice opportunity for whatever". That's so low I don't even need to state the "Sure sure" was a sarcasm answer anymore. I developed just the right face to go along.
I was offered the position of DOS in EF in Guilin and I turned it down flat.
I was offered the position of Madame-in-Chief of a very respectable public house in Shanghai but I refused it.
royceH:
I know what it means. Why'd you turn it down Belle? Sounds like the perfect opportunity to be on top.
Don't do it unless they double the salary too!
The nightmares will haunt you... I have seen many good people fall to the DoS or educational promotion position.
Many good ones!
No, it doesn't. DOS or head teacher, or whatever euphemism they want to use, is, as others said, a hard job. I wouldn't do it.
Declining that position probably mainly indicates that you possess common sense and don't need the extra money, if any.
And who cares what a jerk like me thinks? It's your decision and you need not justify it to anyone.
working for a training school once that offered me a manager job, boost from 6k to 9k, when i told them my private lessons were making 14k a month and i only worked for them to keep a visa and an apartment, they were completely shocked and then were accusing me of stealing their students, it seems they could not believe i could produce that much business with limited chinese linguistic ability, but if your good at what you do and not lazy, the work finds you.
most of the time 4 hours of private lessons a week is better than the slight increase in pay for management and the headaches stay away from your dreams at night.
this was 3 years ago and now the school still calls me begging for help at holidays when teachers are calling in sick or taking vacation time, and now i'm too busy to help them at all.
Negotiate hard, if they asked you, then you must be worth something? How much extra money is worth the extra work to you? If they dont wanna meet that, then negotiate less class time. Find a common ground to get you more money with a fair amount of extra responsability. If its too much trouble for them they will just ask the next dude and your conscience is clear! You didnt turn it down!
