If he was my employee I would have fired him on the spot. Of course, if I was Japanese, as was the factory worker’s boss, I would only have created an international incident, as one European friend reminded me (who’s own family once suffered under Nazi occupation – and who’s family got over it generations ago). The local Suzhou news service rushed to the scene of an unhappy twenty-something’s tearful brush with an unhappy boss who shouted at him in Japanese during the morning line-up Asian companies are so fond of organizing at the start of each work day. The line worker, a moon-faced post-adolescent still in his neatly pressed powder-blue work uniform and train-engineer’s cap, recalled the Japanese occupation of China – 70 years ago! – in the boss’es cross excortiation of the employee. Meanwhile, the news station spliced grainy black-and-white film footage of Japanese soldiers at war with headshots of the disgruntled operator.

Frankly, as many of us expat managers can relate with, Chinese employees have a habit at times of stretching the credulity – and the imagination – of their managers with their stunts. What surprised me as much as the report itself was the absolute religiousity with which one young Chinese with whom I’m acquainted took in what the boneless Chinese employee had to say; she believed the news release was warranted precisely because of the Japanese occupation of China.

Anyway, I suppose, if you can’t criticize the real bosses in your own society, always reach for a bogey man.

Related posts:

Are Your Employees Trustworthy?

Service with a Cheer

Return of the Poachers

There’s No Place Like Home: Worker Shortages