Bureaucracy At Its Finest?

I'll preface this by saying that the blog was never meant as a place to go and vent frustrations with China. Living here, there are always going to be certain natural grievances, as well as places to air those grievances, most notably in the company of other foreigners, perhaps over a glass of wine, if you're feeling classy. Anyway, most problems can and should be shrugged off. But I'm writing this post in part to show my continued disbelief at the school administration here and how it can function on a daily basis.

1. During the semester break, my Chinese co-teacher emailed my finalized class schedule to me. On the Monday of the week before I was to begin teaching, I was contacted by someone else at the school and told that I was getting more classes, and that I had to begin teaching that Friday (what they called "week 0," since it was technically before the start of the new semester).

2. My new class was called "Oral English for IELTS." Though they gave me the title, time and place, the actual point of the class must not have seemed to them like pertinent information. I later found out, after asking a Chinese co-teacher, that IELTS is an English-language proficiency test for students who want to go abroad. It would be my job to "train" them.

3. After a couple of weeks of teaching this class, I was told I would suddenly have to start emailing weekly performance evaluations of each student to my boss.

4. The same guy who gave me those classes contacted me again the second week, to tell me that I would get another class that would start "around week 3" (it actually started week 4). This one is called "Oral English for Faculty Members." Again, no real explanation. I tried to tell him that I didn't think I was qualified to teach actual professors, since I would certainly be the youngest, least educated person in the room. This fact didn't seem to matter.

5. On the first day of teaching the faculty, about 5 or 10 minutes in, my boss interrupted class to pull me into the hall, give me a few pointers, and ask, "So, how's it going so far?"

6. About a week ago, I got a call from the Vice-Dean of the English Department, the guy who I believe is responsible for scheduling a lot of these new classes. He was calling to ask if I could teach on weekends. This was late on a Friday afternoon. When he began to plead with me in earnest, I then asked, "When do these classes begin?" Not surprisingly, he said, "Tomorrow."

7. This weekend is a three-day Chinese national holiday, Qingming Jie, or "Tomb Sweeping Day." Like a lot of traditions here, it has to do with ancestor worship, but the important thing is that no one goes to work. I just got an email from my co-teacher informing me that my Saturday classes will go on as scheduled.

8. (Update) When I showed up to teach on Saturday, there were no students. A Chinese professor called me after the class had started, asking if I knew that I was supposed to be at work right then. Apparently, the room assignment had changed. I hadn't been told this, but all the students knew somehow, and I guess one of them must have tipped off the professor to the fact that I wasn't there.

If some of the above seems a little overblown, that's fair, but I think it paints a picture. Others have had similar experiences. What bothers me isn't the increased workload--my job really isn't that hard. It's the way in which they went about it. Last-minute scheduling, weekend hours, pilot programs-- these are things I would expect from a small start-up company, not a state-run university.

And all of it done via email, phone call--even text message--without ever having a single, face-to-face meeting. Just blows my mind.