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In China even the factory walls can talk

Lucy Kippist

by Lucy Kippist

06 Oct 05:55am

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Filed under: Business, China, Lu Qi, Office, Weekend Punch, Work

30 comments

Imagine this.You’ve just finished a long, hard day at the office. You finally get home and settled on the couch before ripping into a book that’s all about dramas and politics of the office you just left.

Rule #89: The broken tweezers suck. Photo: Herald Sun

Sounds like a nightmare, right? But these aptly titled “workplace novels” are hot literary property in China where cutthroat competition in the business world has made everyone desperate for any inside knowledge they can get their hands on.

Lu Qi, usually a martial arts novelist, has just sold one million copies of his book, Hidden in the Office, which contains 23 rules for getting ahead in the workplace.

At worst they read like a bad bunch of fortune cookies - at best they’re like inspired office proverbs and a subversive way of sticking the knife in your employer’s back.

Each rule in Lu Qi’s book is accompanied by an allegorical story surrounding the life of a white collar worker in a multi-national company that illustrates what the rules mean and how to put them into practice.

Here’s a selection:

Rule 8: Those who are just above you in the hierarchy are the most dangerous. Those of similar rank are enemies.
Rule 11: You don’t have to be loyal to your boss. You use him.
Rule 12: You are the dumbest if you think you are the smartest.

But of course most of us don’t work in Chinese multinationals. So we’ve gotta make up our own rules…

Rule 13: Taking reading material into the bathroom does not suggest job dedication.
Rule 14: While there may be no such thing as a dumb question, there is such a thing as a dumb employee.
Rule 15: When the boss says he likes to be challenged, he means he likes ‘yes’ men.

What rules would you add?

Follow me on Twitter: @lucyjk

Comments on this post close at 8pm AEST

Most commented

30 comments

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    • acotrel says:

      06:07am | 06/10/12

      I’d add one rule.
      ‘The system tuns on bullshit’, but you don’t have to be part of it.  If you want to change things, dig your heels in and actually achieve in spite of it. You will shake everybody’s tree !

      Reply

    • Alfie says:

      12:48pm | 07/10/12

      @Acotrel

      Yeah…go try your philosophy in China, see how far you get.

    • acotrel says:

      06:20am | 06/10/12

      The staus quo in many organisations has been set up by idiots, and only idiots would accept it.  Lead by example from the rear !

      Reply

    • Penguin says:

      04:37pm | 06/10/12

      @acotrel ! Do you lead by example..especially in your daily comments??

      Why do we keep rubbishing China in our media?  After all China is our No 1 customer.

      Why not look at India..anything goes there,,,

      There is a caste in India that specializes in catching rates and eating them. I saw this on TV once (maybe SBS). The amazing thing is that some of the faces of these Indians have some features of rats..

    • marley says:

      06:39am | 06/10/12

      Rule 16:  When the boss says he wants to consult, he means he will listen to what the employees want to say and then will do what he intended to do in the first place. When the unions say they want to be consulted, they mean they will raise holy hell if the boss doesn’t do it their way.

      Reply

    • Georgina Goodenough says:

      11:53am | 06/10/12

      Legally speaking, unions (especially white collar ones)are now bound by more rules and restrrictions than ever. The Vic Govt is getting rid of 20% of its administrators. You know, the boring people who process your taxes, licence applications, FOI requests, liability claims,  consumer complaints, call centre staff, sheriffs, fisheries and wildlife Officers, animal inspectors, the list goes on. Victoria your services and assistance is disappearing! The unions are the only ones trying to help. Joe public doesn’t care about public servants, but he will care when all the boring “back office” people who run this state (VPS who are paid on average $50k a year-don’t confuse them with the policy mandarins on $300k)are all gone and the phones ring forlornly in half empty rooms.

    • marley says:

      01:01pm | 06/10/12

      “Legally speaking, unions (especially white collar ones)are now bound by more rules and restrrictions than ever.”

      Tell that to the CFMEU.

    • Mike says:

      09:35am | 06/10/12

      Fantastic, another way for someone to make money….take something existing that has been around for years anyway, plagiarise it and sell it back to the naive populace with the tag of being “secrets of Western business”.

      China at it’s best, copying and selling cheap toot.

      Reply

    • Greg in Chengdu says:

      09:35am | 06/10/12

      I work in China and I have to tell you the rules here are definetly different. China can be a great place to live but at work Dishonesty and broken promises are the norm. They work their staff as ahard as they possibly can and do it without fear. Trdae unions are illegal in China as are strikes and most forms of industrial action. I remember sveral years ago there was a problem. A school promised the teachers if they stayed for 10 years then their on Campus housing would become legally theirs. they would own it. Only when that ten year period arrived the school announced they had changed their mind. Understandably the teachers were PISSED and went on strike. They weere informed by the GOVERNMENT that if they did not return to work immediately they would be stripped of their teaching qualifications and blacklisted. I often run business seminars here in Chinese companies and one day I asked my students to write down some management strategies to improve workers performance. Several wroye down ‘A big Cake’ they explianed the cake was just like the carrot in front of the donkey. The management they said always puts a big cake in ront of us and say if we work harder or finish this job on time we willget a holiday or pay rise but they never got the holiday or payrise. A similar thing happened to me last year when I was thrown into a job as acting head of the department, only NO ONE told me I was head of the department. That took a few days and several responses from administration that Julia Gillard would be proud of. When I was finally nailed them down and asked them that due to my added responsibilities could we talk about my contract again. They said “We have decided your not qualified enough to be the head of the department and have hired someone else But would like you to continue doing the great job you have been until she starts.”
      I asked “When does she start?” (NB This was October 2011)
      They said “September next year,”
      So for a year I had all the responsibities of department head without the pay bigger apartment and I wasn’t even allowed to use the title.
      Welcome to China

      Reply

    • Shane From Melbourne says:

      11:05am | 06/10/12

      Sounds like a Liberal Party wet dream…...

    • iansand says:

      12:12pm | 06/10/12

      I was in a meeting once where our Chinese partners were discussing setting up a fibreglass boat factory.  It was northish in China where snow in winter is common and temperatures are often below zero.  The question of heating the factory came up, not to make the workers comfortable but so the resin would cure properly.  Workers’ comfort was just not an issue.

    • Asreal says:

      01:27pm | 06/10/12

      And you stayed there because ...?

    • Greg in Chengdu says:

      04:33pm | 06/10/12

      Asreal like I said living in China can be great. Not sure if you mean the company or the country. The company because my wife is expecting a baby and its the best paying school in Chengdu, I can find another job tomorrow but I’d be losing 3000 a month so baby coming no choice but to suck it up for the time being. if you mean the country well its a good lifestyle, and there are a lot of other opportunities here aside from your normal job.

    • sunny says:

      10:13am | 06/10/12

      Rule 35: Always take a dump at work as it saves on the cost of toilet paper and hand wash soap at home. 35a: When using the toilet at work, make sure it is outside of normal break times. This gains you an extra 15 minute break. 35b: If you want to sing while on the toilet at work, make it an up-tempo song such as It’s The End Of The World As We Know It by R.E.M. or Commando by The Ramones; and not something slow and drawn out like November Rain by Guns N Roses or It’s A Man’s World by James Brown. You don’t want your colleagues to get the impression you’re slacking off in there. 35c: Take a report or other random work document into the toilet with you. When you emerge with this document it will look like you were actually working while on the bog. You’re colleagues will be impressed.

      Reply

    • pa_kelvin says:

      12:25pm | 06/10/12

      35d   Be sure to use the tiolet brush if you leave skid marks on the bowl…... 35e   Be sure to spray the room if you had cabbage or curry the night before gotta love tiolet humour…......

    • sunny says:

      01:46pm | 06/10/12

      on 35e it’s probably best to leave it as stinky as possible, as this will give your toilet break “cred” and may even make it feasible to take 2 long toilet breaks on some days. Your boss or colleagues will be less inclined to call you out on the half hour total that you’re in the crapper if they believe (convinced by their sense of smell) that there’s a genuine need for you to be in there all that time.

    • pa_kelvin says:

      04:16pm | 06/10/12

      Or maybe we can invent “Sh!t in a can"TM aerosol spray and you can sit in there for whatever you want to do, get the spray out and go to town….Notice the TM, might also let you go 50/50 on this one since you made me think of it.. smile

    • sunny says:

      06:07pm | 06/10/12

      haha now that’s a good idea! You’re on - 50/50. You can run the manufacturing dept. I’ll run sales and marketing ..wait til you see some of the ads I come up with for this product !!  smile

    • Shane From Melbourne says:

      01:50pm | 07/10/12

      Timed automatic toilet doors (TM)- After the lapse of the programmed toilet beak period, the door opens whether you are ready or not…....

    • pa_kelvin says:

      04:41pm | 07/10/12

      Shane….....Still wont lessen the effect of “Sh!t in a can"TM, cause no-one knows what you really been doing in there….... smile Nice try tho’.....Ol sunny and me onto a good thing….

    • sunny says:

      04:43pm | 07/10/12

      Shane - when the dunny doors fling open don’t be surprised to find me asleep in there ..with my Shit-in-a-Can(TM) in one hand and the world’s most boring 42 page audit in the other. The snoring might have already given it away.

    • St. Michael says:

      11:07am | 06/10/12

      There are only two rules to remember when working in a large organisation of any kind: Western, Eastern, private, public, charitable, church, or government:

      1.  You can only be as honest as your own boss.
      2.  All large organisations are de facto dishonest.

      It particularly applies to government, but you will see this everywhere - anywhere where job performance cannot be objectively measured.

      You must never enter any job with a large organisation believing will be able to retain your integrity and the job.  Eventually, your boss will ask you to do something unethical or dishonest, at which point you will have a choice: do the dishonest thing, or become a marked man who eventually will be “performance managed” out of a job because of a “defective attitude” or because you “do not work as part of the team”.

      Note that the implications of this rule are that you must not only hope your boss is honest, but that every single boss above him in the chain of command is similarly honest.  Because all your bosses will have to make a choice of integrity if asked, and the consequences of that choice will come down to you as well.

      The proof is in the word “whistleblower” and the almost infallible life path for said whistleblower: a chat in an office; an allegation of harassment; a skewed discipline process and dismissal, followed by several years of court cases which usually don’t wind up achieving anything.  Oh, and in some cases, the collapse of the employer leaving all those dishonest employees and public investors out of pocket.

      The pattern repeats itself across virtually every form of large organisation in Western and Eastern civilisation.  I would bet that most if not all of the ‘23 Rules’, going by the ones already given to us, flow from the mentioned one rule.  The rules described certainly seem to fit career advancement in the US Army.

      Ironically, I would argue the sweatshop in the article’s image is probably more resistant to the ‘One Rule’ I’ve given than the office Lu Wi writes about, since performance there is basically tied directly to your wage: do 100 widgets, get paid $100.  It’s only where you can’t objectively measure performance—as in, most office environments—that the bullshit starts.  G.K. Chesterton was the one who said “An employee owes his employer nothing but performance”, and where you can link it objectively so, it’s a better world all round.

      Reply

    • David V. says:

      11:51am | 06/10/12

      Fake products, dangerous foods, forced abortion, lack of shame… I’d stay well away from China.

      Reply

    • pa_kelvin says:

      01:23pm | 06/10/12

      You forgot ...Asbestos free cars..or should that be….Free asbestos with every car.??

    • David V. says:

      01:49pm | 06/10/12

      Which are coffins on four wheels. The problem is that China never recovered from the Cultural Revolution, the lack of morals and spirituality has created a society where insanity and abnormality is the new normality. Look at the little girl run over last year, or even the late-term abortions of baby girls leaving China with an agieng population and gender imbalance. It will blow up very soon.

    • LuckyCountry says:

      01:10pm | 06/10/12

      Just returned from Vietnam. Visited an Aussie company manufacturing there. They have just as many corruption problems dealing with all local & Government authorities. all decisions are influenced by backhanders 7 backsheesh payments so they can get approvals & permits.

      Reply

    • Selfish says:

      05:31pm | 06/10/12

      I live in China and I HAVE TO put up with people backstabbing me everyday, it’s a ME,ME,ME society, massively complex, no one cares about anyone else unless that person has a use (more money, power). Laws and regulations are just ‘guidelines’.
      I’ve been here for 6 years and I still cannot adapt to their ways.

      Reply

    • Last Man Sranding says:

      06:11pm | 06/10/12

      Companies in Australia are now embedding psychologists to root out the psychopaths etc that are acting in their own interests instead of the companies.

      The management that undermines staff performance is not only holding back profits, there is mutli-million dollar bullying cases manifesting in the ranks.

      Essentially the strategy is to ensure the everyone is reaching their potential, not held back.

      Reply

    • TrueOz says:

      06:22pm | 06/10/12

      Rule 17: Secretary not part of furniture until screwed on desk. grin

      Reply

    • chuck says:

      10:21am | 07/10/12

      LMS pity the embedded psychologists can’t do anything about the preponderance of psychopaths acting either on the board or in managerial positions. I’m sure they get their rocks off in improving the company by making large sections of their work forces redundant.

      Anyone who does business in China or India deserves whatever they get.

      Reply
 
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