typical Chinese boss

In my last post, I talked about how easy-going it is to work with the US government. Jase Lee commented that as long as one don't work in a Chinese owned business, he/she will be fine. This brought back memories about my 8 months experience working in a Chinese restaurant in Kalamazoo, where I did my undergraduate studies.

This restaurant is owned by a family from FuZhou, a province somewhere in Southern China, which apparently, is where the root of my family originated from. In fact, it is only three generations back but the language that they speak is almost foreign to me. The big boss is a skinny guy who is in his mid-twenties but is very experienced and speaks English quite fluently although with limited vocabularies. He came to Kalamazoo and bought over Campus Kitchen, a restaurant serving American-Chinese food and limited M'sian food suited for the American taste. As the old owner left to open another restaurant in East Lansing, he brought along most of his staff and the new owner, J, needed people to help out with the restaurant. A friend recommended me to work there and since I was in need of financial support for the last semester of my undergraduate studies, I decided to go for it and I got the job. Initially, it was really hard to communicate with them as they were speaking almost entirely Mandarin and my Mandarin is definitely not the standard of those who originated from China. Thankfully, I was a fast learner and after a few weeks, I picked up all the necessary communication skills I needed to communicate efficiently with them.

The first two months was just blindly following instructions about how to serve customers, taking phone orders and packing food for take-out orders. Then my fellow colleagues and I became close friends with J. He was not only a very caring boss but also a very nice guy. It was very comfortable working around him because he did not treat us like we were his workers. He even told us that we're all equal and we're his friends in Kalamazoo. In fact, he and my ex-bf used to hang out and play pool. His then-gf, now-wife was a total opposite from him. She has this emotional imbalance that range from really nice and friendly to grumpy and everything-pisses-her-off mood. Fortunately, I was her closest friend there. She would tell me about everything that goes on with her and her opinions even though some felt sort-of insulting but we were good friends. It was the guys who had problems with her because whenever they are found standing and talking or joking during non-peak hours, she would go around the kitchen and hunt things for them to do. I was always on the go and working on something even if it's not really important but that was because I was always teased by the guys whenever I join their conversations and I can't stand boredom just standing by the counter looking out the window.

So while all these sounds like a cheerful kind of working environment for me, it was hard work. These Chinese bosses don't need to rest or take a break and they are very money-minded. The restaurant hours are 11am to 12mn on Sundays to Tuesdays and 11am to 4am on Wednesdays to Saturdays. While I was finishing up my last semester, I worked from 5pm-10pm on Fridays and 11am-10pm on Saturdays. This was all during the get-to-know them period and I was still working full-time on my research and having two classes, so I wasn't too involved in the restaurant. After graduation, I took up extra shifts, which became 11am-5pm on Mondays to Saturdays and 5pm-10pm three nights a week. It was tiring at first but I adapted. I still had to go to lab to do the touch-ups to finalize my research. Since the shifts are set, it was fine. The thing that bothered me and my friends were replacement for shifts. Most of us at that time had just graduated or will be graduating and we had the tendency to want to travel but it was impossible because all of us had shifts that took up all our free time. My only free day was Sunday and we could not go very far on one day, especially if we have to work the next day. So we propose to the boss to get one or two extra employees but J's wife calculated all the amount and said that it will be too costly. At the end of every month, we calculate our hours along with J's wife to get our pay in cash. As we calculate, she would complain about how much we worked and earn - 'wah, you work a lot ar' - except for me, which she tend to be bias sometimes. But imagine if you had to listen to this while when you suggested for them to get extra employees, they shove the idea away. My friends were pissed off. Later, there were times when I was called in to work until 4am for some of them. Since I accepted the first few times and said it was okay, the first person J calls whenever someone had to cancel their shift is me. As usual, I go in and work as normal even though I was dead tired, my feet was killing me and my back feels like it has never felt the bed for a thousand years. Towards the end of my experience there, which was the last 3-4 months, I was working almost 200 hours a month. I was dead tired everyday. I learned my lesson...either learn to say no or don't even think about working in a Chinese restaurant despite the free food and good tips.

Till today, J hires only enough people to cover the shifts and J's wife is still emotionally imbalance every once in a while. Oh yeah..they wanted to hire me full time for 2kUSD when I told them that I am quitting and going back to school for my PhD. J's wife told me not to leave and work for them. She even calculated the amount of money I would earn in two years, which was a lot more than I can earn in grad school but it did not tempt me one bit after the experience I had. I'd rather enjoy life and earn enough to live comfortable than earn lots more than I need while living in 'fatigue-ness' all the time.

There are all kinds of stories that I can tell about what happened in the restaurant that had frustrated all of us working there but work gotta come first or I'll be stuck here in the quiet dungeon later than midnight tonight. Maybe I'll reveal them someday when I have the motivation to write about them..kekeke.