Warning: tl;dr
I have been working for almost a couple of months now, and I think it's time to write about a few preliminary observations about the experience. It is very likely that as I forge closer bonds with colleagues here, or face different situations, I will revise these thoughts; but for now, here goes.
The most important thing to note is that either cultural differences and their effects on working habits are overblown (which is very possible - people like to dramatise small differences - e.g. many Westerners love to point out how many Chinese words have no corresponding words in English, and consider this an amazing insight into how different our cultures are, overlooking the many European words that can also not be directly translated - I'd list some here, but it would come across as bragging about my language skills) or P&G has an exceptionally strong culture (which is also very possible - from what I've heard, it tends to dominate that of other companies following M&A / poaching activity - the notable exception being Amazon, whose London office culture has not seen a marked change from what I'm told, in spite of their stealing half of P&G's workforce). Overall, my colleagues' attitudes are very similar to those of P&Gers in Geneva or the UK.
That said, there are some differences. For one, people here do not like to appear vulnerable - well, no one likes to appear vulnerable, but people here seem to have a lower threshold than in Europe. This is a bit challenging with the language barrier - there are times when I will ask a question, and people will answer yes quite enthusiastically, even if they haven't understood it (and I know they haven't understood it, because often my questions are dichotomic, in which case "yes" is either inappropriate or a trite compsci joke).
This is a bit frustrating, but not an issue; it becomes a problem if I accidentally make someone feel uncomfortable. I am used to discussing things with colleagues in an open-space environment (and I am also used to being abused in an open space environment - my former boss would reject my first three drafts on any analysis or recommendation by saying "Aris, this is crap, do it again", and only accept the fourth one with "this is less crap, and we don't have more time to redo it"). Here, I have to be more careful. For instance, in one case I couldn't understand something, so I went by a colleague's desk to ask her to explain it to me. After I said "I don't understand" for the second time, she asked to go to a meeting room to have the discussion instead of in public - and I realised that she felt that our discussion made it seem like she was not explaining things well enough, or that she had made a mistake, and I was therefore embarrassing her in front of our other colleagues. Even though I was the one who wasn't getting it.
There is a significant gender-imbalance here, and in the opposite direction to the Western one. The plant manager, my boss, my boss's boss, my boss's boss's boss, all my finance colleagues in my plant and my counterparts in other plants are women. I am not sure why - it could be that corporate work here is viewed as more feminine, and that men go into banking or politics? I don't know.
Another interesting fact: my plant manager, herself Chinese, told me that I have a huge advantage, because the Chinese people have more respect for me for being foreigner, so they will listen to me more than they would listen to a local hire. I don't know if that's true, but it's definitely the case that my recommendations meet very little, almost no resistance. Whether this is because people genuinely agree with me, or they just say they do and then disregard my suggestions and never implement them remains to be seen.
Re lunch breaks, I'm happy to report that people here take their lunch seriously, and contrary to the sweat shop working environment my mum was picturing when I first told her I will work in a factory in China, people take a good hour to eat. This would be an improvement VS the UK, where I got dyspepsia the first time I went for lunch with colleagues as I was forced to gobble down my food in 10 minutes and where I ended up instituting a swear-jar-except-you-put-money-in-it-when-you-skip-lunch plan with my team (with very little success I'm afraid), if it weren't for the fact that people here don't seem very eager to really socialise over lunch. My finance colleagues and I will sit together, but hardly talk - and it's not because I don't speak Chinese: my colleagues will take out their phones and do their own thing over food. My attempts to coax discussion, in English or Chinese, fall flat ("what did you do over the weekend? - slept. Do you guys celebrate Christmas? - No. It's cold, does it snow here? - Yes." When even the trusted weather discussion fails, there isn't much hope.)
Dress code (this relates to the plant role, not China in general): unfortunately, no suit and tie... we have to wear uniforms, but at least they are okay - orange polo shirts, orange jackets, horrible trousers that I refuse to wear and so far haven't got into any trouble for it. I think I could actually get away with wearing a shirt (and tie) as long as I wore the orange jacket on top, but that would mean washing and ironing shirts at home - too much effort.
So, bottom line: working here is not radically different to working in Europe. People are a bit more image-conscious and shy, they treat foreigners with a bit of awe, are slightly anti-social over lunch... but overall, I can't say that it's a big change. But who knows, maybe there are small, subtle details I haven't yet caught, that will make my work easier or harder going forward. Let's see.
EDIT: I've since come to realise that there are subtle differences that I hadn't really noticed to begin with. These, plus the language barrier, make working here very challenging. Running routine processes is easy; but making bigger changes is very difficult. In short, I am finding my current assignment the toughest yet in my career in P&G.
I have been working for almost a couple of months now, and I think it's time to write about a few preliminary observations about the experience. It is very likely that as I forge closer bonds with colleagues here, or face different situations, I will revise these thoughts; but for now, here goes.
The most important thing to note is that either cultural differences and their effects on working habits are overblown (which is very possible - people like to dramatise small differences - e.g. many Westerners love to point out how many Chinese words have no corresponding words in English, and consider this an amazing insight into how different our cultures are, overlooking the many European words that can also not be directly translated - I'd list some here, but it would come across as bragging about my language skills) or P&G has an exceptionally strong culture (which is also very possible - from what I've heard, it tends to dominate that of other companies following M&A / poaching activity - the notable exception being Amazon, whose London office culture has not seen a marked change from what I'm told, in spite of their stealing half of P&G's workforce). Overall, my colleagues' attitudes are very similar to those of P&Gers in Geneva or the UK.
That said, there are some differences. For one, people here do not like to appear vulnerable - well, no one likes to appear vulnerable, but people here seem to have a lower threshold than in Europe. This is a bit challenging with the language barrier - there are times when I will ask a question, and people will answer yes quite enthusiastically, even if they haven't understood it (and I know they haven't understood it, because often my questions are dichotomic, in which case "yes" is either inappropriate or a trite compsci joke).
This is a bit frustrating, but not an issue; it becomes a problem if I accidentally make someone feel uncomfortable. I am used to discussing things with colleagues in an open-space environment (and I am also used to being abused in an open space environment - my former boss would reject my first three drafts on any analysis or recommendation by saying "Aris, this is crap, do it again", and only accept the fourth one with "this is less crap, and we don't have more time to redo it"). Here, I have to be more careful. For instance, in one case I couldn't understand something, so I went by a colleague's desk to ask her to explain it to me. After I said "I don't understand" for the second time, she asked to go to a meeting room to have the discussion instead of in public - and I realised that she felt that our discussion made it seem like she was not explaining things well enough, or that she had made a mistake, and I was therefore embarrassing her in front of our other colleagues. Even though I was the one who wasn't getting it.
There is a significant gender-imbalance here, and in the opposite direction to the Western one. The plant manager, my boss, my boss's boss, my boss's boss's boss, all my finance colleagues in my plant and my counterparts in other plants are women. I am not sure why - it could be that corporate work here is viewed as more feminine, and that men go into banking or politics? I don't know.
Another interesting fact: my plant manager, herself Chinese, told me that I have a huge advantage, because the Chinese people have more respect for me for being foreigner, so they will listen to me more than they would listen to a local hire. I don't know if that's true, but it's definitely the case that my recommendations meet very little, almost no resistance. Whether this is because people genuinely agree with me, or they just say they do and then disregard my suggestions and never implement them remains to be seen.
Re lunch breaks, I'm happy to report that people here take their lunch seriously, and contrary to the sweat shop working environment my mum was picturing when I first told her I will work in a factory in China, people take a good hour to eat. This would be an improvement VS the UK, where I got dyspepsia the first time I went for lunch with colleagues as I was forced to gobble down my food in 10 minutes and where I ended up instituting a swear-jar-except-you-put-money-in-it-when-you-skip-lunch plan with my team (with very little success I'm afraid), if it weren't for the fact that people here don't seem very eager to really socialise over lunch. My finance colleagues and I will sit together, but hardly talk - and it's not because I don't speak Chinese: my colleagues will take out their phones and do their own thing over food. My attempts to coax discussion, in English or Chinese, fall flat ("what did you do over the weekend? - slept. Do you guys celebrate Christmas? - No. It's cold, does it snow here? - Yes." When even the trusted weather discussion fails, there isn't much hope.)
Dress code (this relates to the plant role, not China in general): unfortunately, no suit and tie... we have to wear uniforms, but at least they are okay - orange polo shirts, orange jackets, horrible trousers that I refuse to wear and so far haven't got into any trouble for it. I think I could actually get away with wearing a shirt (and tie) as long as I wore the orange jacket on top, but that would mean washing and ironing shirts at home - too much effort.
So, bottom line: working here is not radically different to working in Europe. People are a bit more image-conscious and shy, they treat foreigners with a bit of awe, are slightly anti-social over lunch... but overall, I can't say that it's a big change. But who knows, maybe there are small, subtle details I haven't yet caught, that will make my work easier or harder going forward. Let's see.
EDIT: I've since come to realise that there are subtle differences that I hadn't really noticed to begin with. These, plus the language barrier, make working here very challenging. Running routine processes is easy; but making bigger changes is very difficult. In short, I am finding my current assignment the toughest yet in my career in P&G.
No comments:
Post a Comment