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Q: Receiving emails from Chinese bosses/co-workers in the dead of night?
It doesn't really phase me anymore but my boss and co-workers will frequently email me new assignments at like 3 am on a Saturday. Is this really common here? Do industrious Chinese employees ever sleep or have a concept of a weekend? If it were you, would you email them back or wait until Monday?
Set your email to autoreply in the evenings and on weekends...something like, "Due to the fact that I have a life, I cannot reply to your work-related email until normal business hours." It's all a case of hit-and run...they know what they want you to do, but thinking that you'll balk at it, they serve it up when you cannot feasibly fight back. Also remember that flunkies are just doing their job...they don't like it any more than you do. As for managers that do this, This Is China.
Having worked for a couple of multinationals, where this happens due to time differences and differences in work culture, working hours, holidays etc. I would say, ignore those emails, in fact make sure you are not even aware of these mails until Monday morning, even if you get up at 10am on Saturday, see there is an email and chose not to read it, it will still bug you a little and make your day less enjoyable. Separate email accounts for work and pleasure. I think there are a couple of good email clients for smart phones that can handle different profiles for when to check an account.
Alternatively, you tell your boss that either he stops doing that, or he bumps up your pay by... say 25% which is cheap for buying your weekends.
i always tell them my email was hacked and monitored by the ccp and sometimes i dont receive my emails, they usually have nothing to respond with after this comment.
I guess it depends what industry you work in. All you guys with Monday to Friday 9-5 jobs have it easy.
you remind me of my old boss. and i do mean old. he thought email required an immediate response. he would yell at people for sending him emails at 3am i wanted to laugh every time he said "how do you expect me to reply to this at 3am!!!"
listen old man, you never did some work from home? i send emails anytime i'm up and around my computer. it is completely silly to try and analyze the time it was sent
I receive emails or calls on holidays quite often.For the emails,as Scandinavian said,i just ignore them and wait till i go back to work.For the calls,if they are from my bosses,i will answer them mostly,or else,i ignore them as well.
