The Boss

My boss is a typical Chinese boss. Except that she’s a woman. Maybe it goes a bit far to generalize her behavior to all Chinese bosses, but she’s the only one I’ve met so far, so it’s not possible for me to compare her with another Chinese boss. Apart from that her position in our office is definitely similar to those of other Chinese bosses. Because it’s absolutely clear who is the boss in our office if she’s there. If you would walk into our office you would immediately point her out, there is just no mistake about her authority. I’ve seen this at other places in China as well, most of the time you can just see it by the clothes. In restaurants you have to be blind not to be able to point out the man in charge. Although he’s not always present, happily enough for the staff.

In our office my boss stands out by her clothes, and its obviously that she has the highest salary. But that’s not all, apart from her clothes her authority is extremely visible. Chinese people don’t bow for their boss, but me colleagues seem to do everything for her without asking any questions whatsoever. Asking questions to people who have a higher position than you is just not done here. The boss doesn’t inform me or my colleagues on most things, and changes in class schedules are usually told to me the evening before. I complained about this to my assistant, but well she’s not able to do anything about this because, the boss is the boss and she is the one who changes the schedule. Happily enough she does not change my schedule that often and it are always minor changes, but she could inform me a bit earlier.

Meanwhile everyone in the office seems to hate her. Ok they don’t hate her, they just don’t like her; “She’s a good person, but you know we just don’t like her.” The first week I was a bit surprised about how disrespectful they talked behind her back. Of course I couldn’t really understand everything because it was in Chinese, but they translated some things for me, and well some things are just easy to guess even if they are said in Chinese. Small jokes about her husband, her business contacts and finally her age. “How old do you think she looks like?” Maybe I’ve never been in a office with almost only woman (except two other guys sometimes) but I haven’t heard this kind of gossips in Holland. Of course in Holland we also talk and sometimes laugh at our boss, but we do this in a much more respectful way, and not really behind his/her back either. It could be that she’s just a special boss, but I think this is quite common in China. I got this idea mainly because I see this strict hierarchy at almost every restaurants I eat.

Finally my boss does not speak English whatsoever, and I can honestly say that my Chinese is already a lot better than her English. (Most of the other colleagues do speak some English.) So if I really need to talk about something seriously I’ll always need my assistant to translate for me, which is not the most ideal situation. Apart from my boss my own position in the office is a bit strange as well. I’m the special teacher in our office because I’m a foreigner and this means that I get a special treatment, which includes half the hours my colleagues work for at least double the salary. Which I’m very glad to receive although this does place me in a rather strange position…

Me with the boss.