Chinese Labour Day is a national holiday in the beginning of May. It’s also one of the few days that, according to my work contract, I get off. No make up required.
China does something different than most of the rest of the world. And I consider it very annoying. A lot of holidays, or at least their resulting days off of school and work, need to be made up! For example, if I get a Sunday off, I’d have to make up the missed hours on another day to either work longer hours or work on the weekend.
This year, Chinese Labour Day is on a Saturday. Most school kids get most of the week off as there are also a couple minor holidays this week as well, but I don’t get them off.
To figure out what my actual schedule is, we had to ask. Unfortunately, this is what I got:
If you can read that and understand it, your smarter than me. It took 4 people 15 minutes and 2 calendars to figure out what this actually means for our work schedules and if we’re actually getting a day off or working more hours.
Eventually, we turned it into an actual schedule we could follow to figure out which days had changed, which were the same, and when we should be at work.
We made a few discoveries. First, their arrows are technically wrong, but the hours were what they intended.
Because no one likes getting a day off then having to go back to work for a single day before the weekend, my training center wants to give us Sunday off as well as Saturday. But, I’d have to make up Sunday’s classes on Tuesday and work 6 days in a row! According to one teacher’s contract (they work for a different company) it would be overtime and they refuse to do any overtime.
A couple of other days are being shuffled around – a short day is changing with a long day, but that’s not really important. It’s just going to be a little confusing and I’m going to forget when I have class, again.
Because my schedule isn’t that full just yet (I’m only teaching about half the classes I should be), it doesn’t bother me that much. But for the other foreign teachers, it’s too much work! The other foreigners are saying that they should either be allowed to work the Sunday as normal or just be given the day off with no make up. The Chinese teachers are saying that no kids would show up on Sunday and we need to make it up.
There is no manager or higher authority to go to to sort this mess out. The foreign and Chinese teachers just need to get in a room and agree on something. But that doesn’t solve problems if no one is willing to budge.
After a week with no change, it was decided that each foreigner would talk with their own Chinese teacher and decide on the schedule for their classroom and classes individually. This worked great for the others as there is one foreigner to one Chinese teacher for everyone else. They got their working Sunday.
However, I’m a little special. I don’t have just one classroom and one Chinese teacher. I have 2! One teacher for my 3 little kids classes and one for my big kids class.
I easily worked out the schedule for the little kids as they are the least affected. They have class on the holiday and aren’t having that class, not make up. But they are having class on the days that are switched, but the days are just moved, the working hours are the same as would be normal for that day (their Saturday class is now on Wednesday but at the same time as it would be on Saturday).
Unfortunately, it took a little longer than the other foreign teachers to work out my Sunday schedule as my Sunday Chinese teacher is someone else’s regular Chinese teacher. I didn’t get a chance to talk with her as she was busy with other classes.
I did get it figured out the next day. When we were told there was no option to work on the Sunday and the center would be closed. They said that if we wanted to not make up on Tuesday, we’d have to take Leave (what they call taking a day off here) but it is unpaid.
I would be teaching my Sunday class on Tuesday. And working 6 days in a row! I’m most sure if I’m happy or sad about the 6 days, but I do know that I’m sad there is no extra money and I’m going to be exhausted before the end of the week.
Now, in an ideal, or even normal, world, I’d rather the 3 days off in a row so I could travel somewhere, but, due to the pandemic and the long travel hiatus, everyone and their mother is traveling for every holiday. There are no train tickets or cheap flights to anywhere available. And if I did manage to get somewhere, it would be insanely crowded and unpleasant. I’d rather just stay in Shenzhen.
And, I found out that the schedule I worked out with my main Chinese teacher has changed. Apparently, the students can’t have class two days in a row for some crazy reason.
Once again, I’m finding out that whatever I’m told is likely to change without notice and not for the better.
I’m not regretting my decision to come to China just yet, but I’m not planning on staying past the end of my contract either, unless something drastic happens.
My TEFL Adventure 