By continuing you agree to eChinacities's Privacy Policy .
Sign up with Google
Sign up with Facebook
Q: Potential job offer from state owned company
I've been approached about a job that sounds really good working for a state owned construction firm. Can anyone tell me what its like to work for one? The only person I know works for one in Beijing and she got her end of year bonus in meat. MEAT. 2 kg to be precise
I would go for it. If you get issued an R visa you get massive bragging rights. Dr M has an R visa, though he does not brag about it of course.....but we all know he has one 
I work now for a state owned company. I can not specify the name.
Working for a state owned company is different than for international company or privately owned Chinese company.
I would say that benefits are good, but the work culture is the same as Chinese writing (complicated for foreigners mind).
I would say go for it, because it is a great experience so far for me.
How did you get this offer though? 
I am a project manager, but not for the product I really like:) If you need a co-worker, let me know because I love construction and have experience in working on construction sites in Russia.
For the end-of-year bonus... When I was working for a public university, I got two buckets of eggs as end-of-year bonus. Sometime, we got gifts like that, once it was a massive amount of tea, an other time, 10 kg of peaches.
About the work experience in a Chinese public institution, from my own experience
* Administration hates risks and troubles. A foreigner is troubles, a hot potato that one want to give to someone else. So expect delays in processing red tape.
* People tend to be isolated islands, it's not very collaborative : everybody does his designated task and will minimize communication with others.
* If you don't make troubles, nobody will make troubles for you. Unless you do something terribly wrong, you won't be fired.
* People get slighted easily, thin skin all around... but it's equally easy to please people, just be polite, efficient.
I don't know anything about working for state owned companies or what your job would entail, but the first thing that came to my mind when I read this post was accountability and scapegoat issues.
Everyone knows about the shoddy construction standards, corner cutting, using less cement / rebar etc and pilfering the money that was supposed to buy it...that sort of thing.
If, for example, you were the architect at a company that built apartments that leaked, not because of poor design but because some manager used different materials than the plan specified,would you be in a position where you could you be blamed for this sort of thing happening? Things that are out of your control but would be easy to blame on the foreign expert?
