As I said in my last post, during my time in
The biggest difference between Chinese work culture and American work culture is found in the work ethic. I think I'm a pretty hard worker, but the Chinese have a different idea of being a hard worker. They work long hours, often shifts of 12 hours or more. I became friends with a couple of entrepreneurs who started a jewelry business. They claimed to work 12-hour days, seven days a week. I spoke to a few executives at CCTV who laughed when I told them most Americans work Monday thru Friday 9am-5pm. Even some Chinese people I met working in the hospitality industry admitted to working 60+ hours a week on average. And their excessive workloads were confirmed in my experiences with the Olympics. I worked 12-hour shifts every other day, and worked less than anyone in the MPC. My supervisors worked as many as 36 hours straight!
And not only do they work a lot of hours, but they work hard. One day I was working with five Chinese volunteers. Our supervisor came over and asked us to do something (first in Chinese and then in English). As I was waiting for the English translation, I was nearly a victim of a stampede as the Chinese volunteers ran by me in a full sprint. I thought maybe the instructions were to prepare for a fire drill, until my supervisor turned to me and gave me the menial task of putting stickers on the workstations. I simply said OK and WALKED (albeit fast) away to perform the task.
3 comments:
I am not really sure what jobs are left in America that are 9-5 anymore. In New York that is certainly not the case, I work an average of 60 hours a week or more, year round and most of my friends do the same. This is not to say the Chinese are not hard workers but rather I mean to say that putting forth the perception that American professionals don't work AT LEAST 50 hours per week would be inaccurate in my opinion.
this may not be obvious to you yet, but entrepreneurs in the US work these kind of hours as well, all too often. i'm not convinced the avg american works 9-5. i think the avg american works two jobs to make ends meet, or works very hard at a higher paying job (salaried) where hours aren't tracked at all, but where results are the only metric.
my first job out of college i moved to a new town, worked about 5000 hours (yes, that's 2.5 "person-years" in my first year), and earned about $8M in revenue for my employer. For which I received a $50k bonus. you can argue whether i was an idiot or a genius, whether the comp reflected the results.
in later years, i achieved bigger results with fewer hours of work, applying the experience of previous years. but here's the thing - if your economic value added depends solely on the # of hours you put your hands to work , you have to work a lot to make ends meet. if your economic value added depends on the hours you put your brain to work, you also work a lot to "get ahead"... but at some point, you can get compensated for the experience and knowledge in your head, not just the hours you put it to work. and THEN you start to get leverage.
when you can get paid for the good judgment / decisions, and paid for your ability to create an effective environment for others to succeed, then you are really moving.
And i have news for you. while some in the US are slacking , there is a "secret" class of worker that is working their asses off and networking and working together and those who aren't part of it have no idea this is going on. they have no idea the opportunities they're missing out on. they have no idea that this other set of people is making the economy really work.
if you think 9-5 is normal, you're on the wrong side of the invisible fence. find the over-achievers and meet their friends who probably don't seem as cool as the friends with the latest LV bag, but they might actually be able to afford the car they're driving :)
wow, only 12 hours a day? My cousin works at a factory seven to 10. That is 7 AM to 10 PM. I don't think many Americans work 105 hours a week, even entrepreneurs. And yet, in China, it is fairly standard
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