Corporate

Maybe I made it sound like I was really enjoying teaching and my open schedule and coffee with Peter in the morning and all that. And maybe I let most of you know how I never wanted a full-time job again and maybe I complained a lot when I had one about how much my back hurt and how I didn't have time to write and stuff. Well, maybe I misled some of you into thinking that I wasn't going to consider that travel website job, because you may be surprised to find out that I took it. Only 20 hours a week though, so don't worry about my students--they're stuck with me.

I am now an English editor at Ctrip.com, the travel website for Chinese by Chinese, now for foreigners too with help from some foreigners. I work with a team of three other English editors and a handful of Chinese translators. We're trying to bring the insider Chinese travel info to adventurous Westerners and ex-pats living in China. The website sucks right now, so I won't send you to it yet.

Here's what it means for my life, though. Three days a week I ride my bike for 15 minutes (20 with an icy Siberian headwind), cram into a lightrail car for 50 minutes (sometimes it is so packed I can't even get my hands to my mouth to eat my breakfast), switch to the subway at one of Shanghai's busiest stations for my 20 minute subway ride, then I walk to my building, where my fancy e-card gets me in the door. I'm on the sixth floor. My building has six floors and six thousand employees, so I'll let you do the math for how many people that means are in cubicles on my floor. That's right--cubicles. No offices. I had to leave a bread crumb trail to find my desk after going to the bathroom the first time. Luckily, whoever had the desk before me left hello kitty stickers all over the computer and phone, so it's pretty obvious where I'm supposed to be. (This is not uncommon in China--the whole stickering thing. Our refrigerator came covered in cartoon stickers. Super attractive and grown-up.)

I will get into answering your questions of "why" later. But for now, just know that I'm enjoying corporate life again (though this is significantly more corporate than my last job, even though it doesn't have a no popcorn policy). I'm learning a lot about China and what it means to have an office job in Shanghai. The money's good, too, so maybe we can go out for burritos sometime at one of those fancy ex-pat Mexican cantinas everyone is talking about. Pictures of my work environment to come...though I don't think my lens is wide enough to capture 1000 cubicles in one frame. I already have a little regret though, which I'm going to express to you with this image I took in downtown Shanghai last weekend.

This is not an uncommon sight here in Shanghai. When people aren't at work, they want you know they aren't at work, so they wear their pajamas around to prove it. This is one of the better examples I've seen, though.

And yes, of course I'm glad Peter's back.