Does anyone have information on any legitimate work at home companies?

Does anyone work at a Chinese company in US?

• I am a Japanese living in Tokyo. I was born in Japan, but spent most of my childhood in the US due to my father's business and obtained a degree in business at a university in the Boston area. (very long time ago...) After graduating from a univ., I came back to Tokyo and have worked at some American and British companies (Information Technology - hardware and software) here in Tokyo since then. At the previous company I had worked until fall this year, I got laid off as part of a downsizing, but I could barely get a job at a Chinese company here in Tokyo. I was not interested in working at any Asian company, but since I am no longer that young and Japan’s job market is very bad, I had no choice but to take this job at a Chinese company. So I joined this big Chinese hardware company a month ago, and the whole thing just shocked me! It is a totally different world. I had four interviews before joining this company but no interviewer I had met was part of my department. On the first day, a Chinese guy just gave me a laptop PC. But he was not my manager. 90% of employees at this company are Chinese who only speak very poor Japanese or English. I would not say their Japanese/English are business level. Nobody introduced me to anyone. Nobody shot an email saying that I had joined the company. It has been a month since I joined but there had been no internal meeting held. I am still under a three-month probation period and on the first day an HR staff provided me with a “Probation Development Plan” form which I am supposed to submit to HR soon. This is something I need to work on with my mentor. Now this mentor is a Chinese guy who is very young and has no management or training experience. I tried to initiate a quick one on one meeting to start off with, but I don’t think he does not even know what the “one on one” is. He does not know the necessity to book a meeting room to have a one on one. He is just doing his own job. I don’t think he is conscious of himself being my mentor. For new hires, there are some trainings needed for everything such as how to log in PC, how to log in applications, how to claim expense online, how to book a room. But there was no training. People sitting around me are all Chinese and they are very unfriendly and quiet. Surprisingly I need an approval from my manager to send an email externally, i.e., sending emails to customers. I could not believe this. Chinese people does not seem to know what the management is, what the training is, what the teamwork is, or what the leadership is. People come to the office in the morning without saying anything and go home without anything. No smile on their face. They talk each other only with Chinese staff. At my previous American and British companies here in Tokyo, on the first day, any of my managers introduced me to everyone and shot an intro of me to everyone via email and provided me with a welcome lunch with the team together for me. I think these are pretty normal and average things but at this Chinese company I recently joined turned out to be nothing like that. Those American or British companies I had worked were located in Tokyo, but over 90% of the staff are local Japanese who spoke fluent English having American or British living experiences. But at this Chinese company, 90% are from China and 10% are local Japanese. I got the feeling that they don’t want Japanese to do a thing. Everything is controlled by Chinese staff. And Chinese staff don’t seem to know what the management is, what the training is, what the teamwork is, or what the leadership is. So that is a big problem. It is just so weird that people come to the office in the morning without saying anything and go home without saing anything. They talk each other only with Chinese staff. And wondering… Does anyone out there work at a Chinese company in the US? Or have you ever worked at any Chinese company? Did any of your friend or family tell you anything like this? I am just curious if I would be the only person who is feeling all this and experiencing this plight. Do you think all Chinese companies are like that?

• Answer:

  As a Relationship Manager and Vice President for domestic located US Banks and the subsidiaries of foreign Banks I managed Japanese relationships. The experience communicated by a caucasian jewish Vice President at a US based Japanese Bank was that he was isolated by the staff/mangers who communicated very well both English and Japanese but only spoke Japanese when he was around, invited him to a Christmas party at the last minute but he was informed that he could not partake of the food or beverages, was not allowed to participate in any free learning courses we offered as his custodian bank which was after 5:00 PM five blocks from his job to enhance his knowledge of the system we provided, not authorized to make decisions however sr. management after he documented the pros and cons would not provide any input or guidance, no response, not invited to manager's meetings etc. I asked him why he stayed at this abusive company and his reply was the salary was excellent. The purpose of communicating the above story is to let you know that anyone can be the victim of abuse specifically if the employee works in an environment where the majority of the staff is the same i.e. nationality, religion, age group etc. It is sad but true.