原文:
dear hr
little past 11 o'clock, i slammed my phone down with a stone hard face. i had just finished my second telephone conference of the night. frankly, the conference was futile-too many complications and too much to talk about.
my boss from america had put on his hypocritical face from the very beginning. he said he is sorry to have this meeting in my evening, and further explained this is the pain of globalization. well, f**k that, why don't you take a pain in your ass? why is it always me? and what angers me the most is myself. my response was invariable, "that's ok." what a bitchy response!
actually, i have grown accustomed to these nonsense. what my boss and i discussed today was my team's performance. the phrase i despise the most-he is not aggressive enough. why? because they seldom ever pitch in during a conference; they are never valiant enough to put their thoughts on to the table. lend me a hand. you people are using english to communicate. next time, let's try chinese, and we'll see if my team is aggressive enough; we'll see if you people from hq are courageous enough to express their opinions.
five minutes before the conference concluded, my boss came to me with excitement and told me he plans to return to china next quarter. he is looking forward to his second trip to china. in fact, i really missed the days when he had never been here, completely clueless to china. well, at least he knew he didn't know. but after a single visit, stayed for ten days, had a roasted duck, he felt like mr. china know it all. now, he doesn't know what he doesn't know, much worse than before.
the other meeting was about a project at the hq. managers from china, india, singapore, europe and other countries were in the conference. i will hold my tongue on the matters of my indian colleagues' "perfectly understandable english". it was more than a battle to stay till the end. finally, the moderator asked if we had any question. this is the utter question that upsets me. if i don't ask anything, all the responsibilities are on my shoulders. the weight feels so heavy since i am here to represent the china sector. if i asked something simple, they will return with a seemingly professional answer with the smallest detail. if i say this project cannot be carried out in china, their response will be very simple, "yeah, i understand." then the sympathy drastically shifts, "but, the decision has already been made. so do what you can. thank you." well, why on earth would we have this conference if the decision has already been made. what should i tell my other chinese boss tomorrow morning?
well, this is all fine. it's life, and it's work. when life gives you lemon, you got to make lemon juice out of it. but the lemon my boss gave me couple of meetings ago had the words "financing control on chinese employees' salaries" on it. you ask us to speak two languages. you think it's easy to learn two languages? you know how much time, money and effort we put into tofel,cet 4, and listening? why, we've been waiting for you international corporations to pay! you don't like it? then speak chinese!
nothing much left to say. i think i've had enough. regardless of the time and effort the company had invested in me for the past couple of years, here is my resignation. abiding to the company's regulations, next month today is my last day. but please do not take all this as a personal offense to my boss. he is a good man, his efforts are futile in order to change this massive mechanism. thank you.
亲爱的hr,
放下电话,已经是晚上11点了,这是今晚的第二个电话会议,坦白地说,会议开得并不顺利,有太多的纠结,不得不一吐为快。
我那美国老板在会议一开始,总是假惺惺地表示歉意,在我晚上的时间开会,并说这是pain of globalization ,去你妈的,那你为什么不痛一下呢?每次受伤的总是我。但最让我恼火的是我自己,我的回答居然是, “that is ok. ”,真是犯贱!
其实晚上开会还好了,早就习惯了,今天与老板讨论的是我的团队成员的业绩,我最讨厌他说的一个句子是,“he is not aggressive enough”,为什么呢?因为他们不在会议上争论、不能够勇敢地表达自己的观点,帮帮忙,你们是在用英语讨论,下次我们用中文试试,看看我的团队成员还是不是不够aggressive,再看看你们总部的人能不能够勇敢地表达自己的观点。
在会议结束前五分钟,老板兴奋地告诉我,他计划下个季度再来中国,非常期待对中国的第二次访问,其实,我挺怀念当初他没有来中国的时候,对中国一无所识,但至少,he knows he doesn’t know。但来过一次中国,呆了十天,吃了烤鸭,他就觉得自己是个中国通了,这下he doesn’t know he doesn’t know,比原来更加糟糕。
另一个电话是关于总部的一个项目,参加会议的有从中国、印度、新加坡、欧洲等等国家,我就不吐槽我那印度伙伴的英语了,好不容易到最后,主持人问,“any question?”,这是让我最纠结的问题,如果你不问吧,最后的责任都是我来承担,我是代表中国参加这个会议的,一下子觉得肩膀上的担子好重。如果问吧,简单的、功能性的问题,对方会回答的很仔细,表现得很专业,如果说这个项目在中国行不通,对方的回答很简单,“yeah, i know, i understand” 一定会表现的很有同理心,然后,“the decision has already been made”。他妈的,决定已经做了,还要我们开什么会呀,真不知道明天如何给中国老板汇报。
其实,这些还算好,工作嘛,总有不痛快的时候,但最近我老板几次在会议上与我讨论费用控制的时候,都会问我,“你准备如何控制中国员工的工资”,谁让你要求我们说两种语言,我们学英语容易吗?从小学就开始了,什么四级、toefl、听力,花了多少钱,你知道吗?不就是等着你们跨国公司付钱吗?怎么不乐意了,有本事你们说中文呀!
不说了,我想我受够了,不管怎么样,谢谢公司过去几年对我的培养。这是我的辞职信,按照公司的制度,一个月后的今天就是我的最后工作日,另外,请不要把我对我老板的吐槽当成对他个人的攻击,他是一位好老板,只是无力改变这台大机器,谢谢!