The new CSA office is up and running….
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As I sit here and write this, I can hear staff, students, ex student and friends of CSA trying desperately hard to crack Rock Band in the next room. The next room being the new student lounge. By the sounds of the last celebration, they must be improving. They must be more confident too because now they’re stepping up to sing. At the moment Esteban is taking the reins. he sounds…ok. Uh oh, they must be slipping, I just heard a chorus of ‘boos’ pour out of the room.  I wonder how good they are by now considering it is 5.45pm and four of them have been going since about twelve this afternoon. They show no signs of slowing down either. The thing is is though, they don’t have to. I’m sure there will be at least one CSA staff member playing with them until god knows what time. That staff member may or may not be me but it will most likely be Jaede. He’s the best player at every single Wii game ever invented. Fact.
There are at least three students utilising the study area. Good students. I guess there will be some CSA students who will return home and impress their family and friends with their amazing grasp of the Chinese language, and others that will have succeeded in completing a virtual rock tour.
The office is buzzing now. It’s great. There are students popping in and out to say hello, hangout, study, raid the drinks fridge. I’m very happy as this is the type of of environment we wanted to create and by the looks of it, we’ve achieve what we set out to do. Good work team.
Ok, I’m too distracted by the amazing noise coming from the room next door. I can’t write anymore. I’m of to join the band…..

- Rhia

Rhia Scrimgeour

- Rhia

- Rhia Scrimgeour

It is hard to believe that this beautiful space is situated in one of the world’s biggest city. Call me soppy, but the word I can best used to describe it is ‘romantic’. I would even be willing to compromise my ‘independent-woman-of-the-world’ status to wander the grounds with a sweetheart… I guess the charming Esteban was a good substitute for the day (I only write that because I know he reads these…hi mate!) Summer Palace gets two big thumbs up from me. I will definitely be returning to experience it all again, an afternoon just wasn’t enough.   

Sunday I packed my bags and flew above the smog (it was nice to be reassured the sun is still there) and headed of to see Shanghai. I would love to be able to say I enjoyed the sights from the Bund and experienced a different take on Chinese cuisine, but I didn’t and I’m not even going to lie. I spent a majority of the first day in a German pub drinking steins before stumbling along to watch a live football game, and the second day I only left the couch to venture to the Italian restaurant next door. I didn’t try Shanghais famous dumplings, but I did have the best spaghetti bolognaise of my life. I guess this demonstrates just how increasingly cosmopolitan Shanghai is becoming. Although I was a really lazy tourist, what did manage to see of it, I really enjoyed. It is a really pretty city with its modern architecture and clearer skies. I felt it possessed a certain sense of ‘sophistication’ not present in the gritty, traditional spirit of Beijing. I guess this is why some people prefer one city to the other. Shanghai, you impressed, but I didn’t give you a fair go. I hope to return soon! 

Till next time!

- Rhia Scrimgeour

- Rhia Scrimgeour

P.S.

It just occured to me here in Beijing….

No matter where you are in the world, you can always rely on a few things in life always being consistent…
1. A happy meal is always going to be satisfying.
2. A soccer hooligan will always find a habitat to display their natural behaviour. (Man U v’s Arsenal. 2.30 am. Insulting chants blasting my ears. I could have stayed in bed…or London).
3. There is always an oppertunity to murder a drunken version of ‘Living on A Prayer’. In Australia you’ll find it at the pub. In Beijing you’ll find it at K-TV.

- Rhia Scrimgeour

- Rhia Scrimgeour

We had hoped that we could ameliorate the situation and end things amicably. We served him notice before the Chinese New Year and extended two months severance pay to him, but since then he has been rather unpleasant to everyone on our staff. He has stormed into our office, bad mouthed our employees, and harassed our incoming students. And lastly, he has started spamming our students and slandering our organization.

I’ve always liked Gary. We would play basketball together sometimes, and he seemed like a nice laid back guy. But ultimately, I always felt that he had a sense of entitlement to him, as if serving our students was beneath him in some way. Several times students reported to me that he used office keys to go into students apartments and watch TV, he would slander other students and employees, and quite often he would neglect an assignment in a passive aggressive way. He often would show up late to work, and had trouble understanding very basic essentials of customer service and I had quite a few complaints from students and coworkers alike.

I thought this was my fault. If he felt that he wasn’t being challenged to perform his best, then I wasn’t assigning him work that merited his talent. In a certain sense, it was very difficult because Gary’s English is somewhat rudimentary. It has improved recently as he’s been taking night classes, but in the end it did limit his capabilities. However, I reasoned with myself that I could only do so much, when in essence we are a service based company. Our number one goal is and always will be to offer top notch service, and if Gary didn’t enjoy this aspect of the job then I felt it was best for him to be let go to find more fulfilling work.

One of the things that must be contextualized is that it’s a difficult job market in China right now for recent college graduates. As talented as Gary may be, there aren’t many job openings right now, and tens of thousands of college graduates in China are struggling to find work. In that sense, I can understand why Gary might have waited 3 weeks to begin this onslaught as job prospects have been difficult. It’s certainly frustrating, and I think we’ve all been there.

Ultimately, I’m more saddened by this turn of events. It’s almost ironic that in trying to do what’s best for our students by eliminating an underperforming staff-member, our company is being accused of performing poor customer service. What it comes down to is that Gary was a nice guy, but he didn’t fit the position, and I wish that I had communicated that to him before all of this. In the end, I really should have taken the lead to make him understand the situation. However, I am angry that my personal mistake is causing the rest of the company and my coworkers to be slandered.

Everyone on the CSA staff works tirelessly to please our students. I know for a fact that Laura and Feng-wei stay up late into the night answering emails and phone calls everyday. Moreover, our Beijing staff (where Gary worked) is constantly on call. It’s impossible just to get our office manager Jessica on the phone because she’s always talking with students, helping them with directions, explaining how things work, arranging for services to their apartment. It really is like running a giant hotel where no one speaks the language! The beginning of every semester is especially grueling as we’ve got students arriving everyday and have to pick them up from the airport, drop them off at their apartment, give them an orientation, explain how everything works, show them around, help them buy groceries, etc. It’s not easy! But I think the staff love to do it, which makes everything worth it, because they know deep down that they are truly helping out these students with an essential service.

Thinking about someone insulting my fellow coworkers really angers me. I wish that I could work things out with Gary personally, instead of him degrading his former peers who are constantly working tirelessly on behalf of our customers. The worst part of this is that I know it’s my fault. When he was let go, I was on a business trip in Hong Kong and did not make the time to sit down with him myself and asked our office manager to take care of his severance. Thus, I’ve also performed poorly as a program director.

If you want the truth about China Study Abroad, ask the students that are members of our official facebook page, and they will tell you that our staff work tirelessly to help and assist whenever and however needed. I can think of countless times that our staff have been with students at the hospital, at the police station reporting a stolen passport, or even picked students up in the middle of the night that were lost. The staff of China Study Abroad all truly care about their students, no matter what.

At this point, I hope that if any of you have questions or concerns, you direct them to me or any of our other employees. Please email me directly at Jason@chinastudyabroad.org. If you’d like, we be happy to put you in touch with a number of our previous students. And if any of you have any problems or would like to discuss anything, I’m happy to speak with you.

I’ve been always been of the belief that if you do right by others, then they will do right by you. Yes, I wronged Gary by not giving him as dignified a severance as he may feel that he deserved by speaking with him personally, but that does not mean he should be slandering all of the other employees of CSA who are deeply wounded by his actions. Nonetheless, I have told all of our staff that their continued good service will last longer than anything written on the internet. And I hope that our current and future customers will allow us to continue in such a manner.

Your friend,

Jason Coe

Program Director, Beijing