Are You Working in a Chinaman Company?

Okay, you probably know or not sure what is the term Chinaman referring to. Rather than defining what is a Chinaman company in definition or statement method, the list below is the practice of a common Chinaman company.

• You are paid with minimal salary compare to market price
• Your company expect you to work all the time and whenever possible, including at night, lunch time, weekend, and holiday, regardless of your official working time. Best of all, no OT claim for that.
• Your company has high turn over rate. Constantly recruiting people and people usually don't stay too long
• It's quite difficult to advance into higher position because the senior will remain for a long time
• Always stressful and getting angry is normal.
• Usually the higher position people is the family member or releative of the boss
• Applying for leave is harder than rushing project with a deadline. You might feel its really hard to ask for a leave.
• Start work exactly on your actual starting work hour and get off exactly on your actual finishing work hour give a huge bad impression to your boss
• You will be asked to settle all sort of work that has no relation in the company or your job scope, it's just related to the boss personal thing
• If you got late 1 or 2 minutes, that's bad employee that has no self discipline and lack of responsibility; if you work extra hours after working hour won't be consider hardworking & good employee
• They are very strict on the company benefits and usually very stingy in every possible situation
• You eventually be asked to do work from higher position but your job title remain the same, as well as your salary
• Your job scope eventually involve the work task of many departments, and then to all departments
• High office politics and you felt like you are fighting in war sometimes, with the people in your company
• Standard performance appraisal might be used but in the end, it's all goes back to your boss and manager sense of judgement

A so-call chinaman company might no cover all the traits above. No doubt any company out there might intentionally or unintentionally practice on any of the bad practice listed above, but if a company got more than half of the traits above, it's definitely a chinaman company, even if the boss is not from China or is a Chinese. The term is referring more to the mindset rather than practice anyway.

I have seen many good example of people working under chinaman company, also heard lots of complain, dissatisfaction, and grudge according to their experience and what they see & face daily. In the end, it's all comes up to one thing: They are getting really unhappy about their work, and it's directly making their personal life tough because they are not happy at all. Furthermore, what they earn in the end is minimal. Many people work for money, but if you can get find a better company, you can earn more money when the company is not so stingy and you might get more extra benefits.

Understanding this, a lot of people that I know only stay a short while with the chinaman company and they definitely won't consider any good memory when leaving the company. But still, many people choose to continue staying with the chinaman company despite how much complain and dissatisfaction they had. The common reasons I heard are these:

• It's not easy to get another job in this field (Usually apply to business-related job)
• It would be ugly/ashamed for unable to work too long in one company
• I'm a fresh graduate, so I should not make any complaint and do what other people ask me to do
• Work should be just like this, it's all about things that we dislike
• It's my destiny since I chosen this company

​Although I'm strongly disagree on all the given reasons above (especially the last one), and I consider the common reasons that I heard to continue staying in a chinaman company is not considerable and reasonable at all, i would not say that the reasons are not true at all.

​Having said all these, my professional opinion will be - CHANGE. Most often than not, it reflects back to your initial intention of working. If you work for money, and you feel your current pay is more than enough to survive, please go ahead. But if you are a career person, you might want to sight for alternative environment, whereby you will be given opportunity to excel, in terms of monetarily and knowledge expossure. Believe me, you will never know until you make your first step, out of the small tiny well you are currently hiding in.

Reach me, to discuss about job opportunities. I keep good contacts with renowned industry players. The CEO’s or MD’s will be much willing to spend a cup of coffee with me if I am able to introduce a couple of good candidates to them. At SAM Consulting, we are not a bunch of money making machines, we help people at large, in advancing their career and to select what is utmost important for them in business.