Eorthisio:

Hulk:

And that's his right. He earned the money.

expatlife26:

Come on don't make excuses for lame people. That doesn't help them and makes you sound really naive. Sure i make more than a lot of colleagues but I have a track record as a top performer, which I would have in ANY country cause I have a good attitude and i'm smart. There are also TONS of people who make a shitload more than me. What do you think would happen if I tried to say "hey you make more than me so I don't have to try hard"? I'd be out on my ass in 2 seconds. I'm sure YOU would be too. Making less money isn't an excuse for not trying, it's the reason why that person will always not make any money. 

You're throwing out this strawman argument of the callous foreign executive denying the poor local father the right to see his children and that's bunk. First of all demographically 99+% of shit bosses here are going to be locals, second that imaginary strawman asshole executive might be 50 years old and has already put in his time in the trenches. Maybe 25 years ago he was the one making sacrifices and staying late while his boss hit the golf course. I have literally been in that situation and I know the guy who I consider a mentor paid his dues in his mid 20s. Maybe your strawman expat boss was always a jerk who was born into money...but if you aren't born into money than you don't get to be the guy hitting the links by whining and doing the bare minimum.

I mean come on Scots, you said you're an engineer...did you get to be an engineer by being a lazy POS ? I know that being from a developed country gives us certain advantages, but frankly I think the biggest advantages we have is getting exposure to good attitudes and values. I don't think most people here ever got that...its why they see life as being all luck and the ability to cheat over being good at things. Let people make their own excuses, they don't need you to make it easy for them.

Hulk:

expatlife26,

I fucking love your entire face twice over. I love it enough to put lots of bacon inside the main hole.

expatlife26:

well I mean come on that's a real flimsy strawman argument, and i've seen you post these before. That's the type of thing I expect to hear from a HadleyJ type...somebody fresh off the boat that's really naive and wanting really badly to have their be something really special culturally to take away from their entry level ESL job. Hey I was fresh off the boat once too.

I don't want to stereotype engineers or anything, but that really doesn't sound like an argument an expat engineer would make. I'm basically a liberal so don't think i'm some cold-hearted scrooge conservative, but to keep with the dickens metaphor you're making it sound like the interactions between locals and expat managers is like that of scrooge and bob crachit. It's not. If you think any of the broad labor issues in China are the result of arrogant foreign business leadership you're being incredibly naive.

That's the type of statement I expect from a 20 something liberal arts graduate with zero work experience outside of ESL. The type that thinks it's cool to live the "real china experience". You can sympathize with the guy who has to work all weekend instead of seeing his kids...as I certainly do, but it's asinine to say that it's ok for that guy to be lazy and unmotivated, or worse some kind of cultural thing we don't have the moral authority to comment on. Especially because the reason that chinese bob crachit lives so far from his kids may very well be because his family prioritizes saving for a house at all costs (in a terrible market) over properly raising their children with two loving parents around. 

I guess that's my own strawman rebuttal...but do you really think that arrogant expat managers are the cause of ANY of china's labor problems? We're a drop in the bucket.

ilcornalito:

I just gave thumbs up so more people can read expatlife26's reply. 

ScotsAlan:

My post is an observation on something I have seen that is relevant to the question.

I did not actually state an opinion in the post.  I leave that up to the individual.

In my years of working in manufacturing in the UK, the US (for a short time), and now in China, I have seen thousands of people lose their jobs through factory closures and companies moving their operations to low cost China. I know the western people who lost their jobs, and I know the Chinese people who now do those jobs.

That's just the way of the world, and so long as bankers own the companies it will continue.

Anyway, during that time I have seen the interactions of the same managers between western staff and Chinese staff. And, in general, Chinese staff will tend to comply more and do as the boss bids. Western staff would be more inclined to argue if told at 5:30 they had to work the weekend after they had already made plans.

So, the same boss, working in the west with western staff would be likely to think twice about asking the staff to work. If it was really urgent and important,  of course he could state his case and of course the staff would work.

Hey, come on !! Westerners are able to think and speak their own mind yeah?  That's what makes us different !

But Chinese staff?  No problem. They will cancel their plans at the last minute and do exactly as asked. They may grumble between themselves but they won't complain to the boss.

What I notice, in my experience, is that because of this "difference", western managers are much more likely to ask Chinese staff to work long hours. The Chinese don't ask why, they just do. They don't argue back, even if they consider the work required as being pointless.

And the wages?  Yeah that comes into it. Not only are Chinese staff more compliant and willing to work long hours, they are also a lot cheaper.  And if anything, I have seen many foreigners demand much more of their Chinese staff than they ever did of their higher paid western staff, before they made them redundant.

Just my own observations.

Hulk:

Let me guess.

while (!bacon)
{

 printf("RUN FOREVERY\n");
}

Bacon is never set. "I don't know why I can't get this to run! No why."

"Oh wait, let me set bacon to true."

"I DON'T KNOW WHY THIS DOES NOT RUN, MATE."

"Wait... this is easy. Set bacon to false!"

"WHYCOME YOU NOT RESPONDING MATE"

"Okay, let's steal code!"

"HAHAHHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHA WE WILL PASS THIS COURSE IN THE NAME OF MAO ZEDONG, FOR THE GLORY OF THE PARTY."

DrMonkey: Okay, so... you stole the code. You failed the assignment.

Students: But this is China!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Robk:

Hahahaha...

This reminds me of when I tried opening a design firm in China. And I thought I was all set after I hired a few designers with a degree from a decent university... boy was I wrong... I even went further and trained them on design for another 2 weeks.

DO NOT STEAL OTHER PEOPLE'S DESIGNS. I will know. So what do they do?

They give me a design that has like 10000 shapes because they used the trace tool on a complex design about three hours after I gave them the assignment. This would have taken me a week. Did you do this yourself? No. Did you steal it? No. (I am 99% sure they did). I look them in the eye... "Are you positive you didn't copy and paste then trace this?". Hesitation for a second... no. I did it myself!

Fine, thanks. I pull up that magically tool called "Google" couldn't find it... oh wait, I thought... I pull up a crappy tool called "Baidu" and it is on the first page. I call the "designer" back in and ask her.... "yeah so, what is this?".

"Oh I copied it but I changed it..." (they changed like one color)... "oh yea? You're fired. Bye!" The funny thing was her copying was still better than the work from totally useless designers. Had to shut down shop and find designers online.

I totally refuse to do business with Chinese or employ/work with Chinese. Just DON'T DO IT!

Shining_brow:

"Chinese and work hard should not be in the same sentence"

WTF???

Just how bad is your English??

"Many Chinese people are incredibly lazy, and do not understand the concept of 'hard work'." - How would you not make up a sentence like that??

Robk:

Modified it.

I am not an ESL teacher and I don't pick apart people's mistakes I guess? 

Didn't think it would cause a mass wave of hysteria... and apparently a few people still understood regardless.

DrMonkey:

That's kinda true everywhere:

* Dilbert Principle : "Leadership is nature's way of removing morons from the productive flow"

* Peter Principle : "Managers rise to the level of their incompetence"

You get promoted until you reach the level where you are not competent and can't be promoted (Peter). You can also be promoted simply because you are a hazard to be removed from actual work with consequences (Dilbert). China just push that to the next level, with the "face" culture and the lack of accountability.

Shining_brow:

Yeah, we know... still having fun  though :)

xunliang:

Guess again.

ironman510:

No need to guess again. I'm sure the U.K wont lose Scotland.