Under The Knife in China

Want to see an extremely superficial place where billion of people compete with each other in looks? Welcome to China.

That Wang Lei guy is still bad looking even with the surgery.

That Fan Wenting girl? Her face isn't the problem, look at that hair, yikes!

So if you're at work and there's a fat ugly chick in a cubicle near you that pisses you off (there's always one) just realize that if you were in China, she wouldn't be there.

Paper CV no good anymore. Try Video CV

With the recent economic downturn, this year’s 1.2 million Chinese college graduates are struggling to find work, so some are becoming more creative than ever before to stand out from the crowd. This is a video CV posted on Youku by recent Chinese college graduate Ma Wen for a job related to video production


Youtube Link

Jobless China graduates mired in gloom amid slowdown

Big crowds at job fairs!

Source: Reuters

Down-at-heel Xiaojiahe in Beijing's university district seems an unlikely haven for China's aspiring elite, but its reeking alleys and dank rooms offer a low-budget bolthole for graduates battling to find work.

"It's not the best living environment here," said Qi Shaoguang, a 22-year-old law graduate from China's dustbowl province of Henan, as he looked past a row of shabby brick huts. "People who find a good job tend to move out pretty quickly."

Qi shares a 10 square meter (about 100 sq ft) room in Xiaojiahe with an unemployed friend and a grimy public toilet with dozens of other tenants.

He is one of 1.2 million Chinese college graduates seeking work in a labor market that was already limping from years of bungled policy making before being almost crippled by the global financial crisis.

He will jostle for scarce jobs with another 6.1 million students set to graduate in the summer and untold numbers of skilled professionals already laid off in Chinese cities amid slumping growth.

Pretty much the same everywhere now. People getting laid off, people looking for jobs that are not in their field. They say a person in North American changes careers an average of 7 times in their life. In China, people expect to do one thing for a very long time.

Sick Offices

Source: Asiaone

OPEN-plan offices are making people sick, with workers more likely to suffer stress, catch a cold and be less productive, Australian researchers have found.

A review of global studies into the impact of modern office design found the switch to open-plan spaces had been overwhelmingly negative, with 90 per cent reporting adverse health and psychological effects.

High levels of stress and conflict, elevated blood pressure, and rapid staff turnover were associated with open-plan environments, according to review author Vinesh Oommen.

"Employees face a multitude of problems such as the loss of privacy, loss of identity, low work productivity, various health issues, overstimulation and low job satisfaction when working in an open-plan work environment," Oommen wrote in the Asia-Pacific Journal of Health Management.

Workers were plagued by insecurity, he said, ever-conscious of their colleagues' ability to see what they were doing on the computer and eavesdrop on their phone calls.

High noise levels led to impaired concentration and low productivity, he said.

There was a higher incidence of workplace conflict, with people sitting so close to their neighbour that even a ringing phone could irritate.

Ease of germ transmission also meant illnesses such as influenza were more swiftly passed around.

"It is estimated that organisations can save up to 20 per cent in development costs when creating an open-plan work environment," Oommen wrote.

"(But) workplace design must go beyond cost-saving to cater for the multifaceted social and psychological needs of employees."

It's not open office spaces that make people more sick, it's stupid people that make people sick. If you're really sick STAY HOME. And if you are at work, keep quiet and don't go around gossiping and spreading germs!

And I would be stressed out too if some spy kept sneaking up behind me while I'm trying to blog at work!

Did you like working in an Open-Space office?

Group of foreign workers wants chance to stay

Source: chron.com

Thang Hong Luu pledged his parents’ house in Vietnam as collateral to raise enough money to take advantage of a job opportunity in America.

He says he paid a $10,000 fee to be chosen for a 2½ -year stint as a welder that he thought would earn him more than $100,000 — money that seemed out of reach in Vietnam.

But in February, eight months into his work contract, he was told he’d have to go home, he said.

“There is a lot of injustice and deception that I don’t understand,” he said through an interpreter, Tammy Tran, who is also one of his attorneys.

On Tuesday, he was the first of about 20 workers Tran represents to file a lawsuit claiming Coast to Coast Resources, a Port Aransas-based staffing agency for skilled laborers, and ILP Agency, a Louisiana-based labor firm, promised work for 30 months at $15 per hour but reneged months into the contract.

Luu says the companies charged him and his fellow workers a fee of between $6,500 and $15,000 to be chosen for the U.S. jobs; told them not to speak to outsiders because Americans disliked citizens of communist countries; and overcharged them for housing and transportation.

Sad isn't it but making illegal workers pay for the chance at work in America is the oldest scam in the book. Conditions in Vietnam are so poor that men can easily be tricked into paying to take job that promise them $100000 a year.

Luu’s contract with Coast to Coast notes he would earn $15 an hour for the first 40 hours and an additional $22.50 an hour for overtime.

He also agreed to pay Coast to Coast $500 a month in rent, $85 a month for transportation and a management fee of $2 per hour worked, according to a copy of his contract.

He said he didn’t know when he signed the contract that he’d be sharing an apartment with three other workers.

Coast to Coast’s attorney said the management fee was never charged but the various other charges were often lower than the contract allowed.

The charges covered expenses the company incurred for the workers, including assisting them with housing, food, transportation, medical needs, tools, electricity, furniture, a full-time apartment supervisor and a registered nurse, he said.

Luu netted an average $13 an hour, according to Funk.

Yup. $15 is dirt cheap for a welder. A legal unionized welder would make alot more.

Jobless and afraid to return home without the funds to pay off debt he took on to come to America, Luu remains in limbo.

He and the other workers are relying on the local Vietnamese community for help.

On another legal front, immigration attorneys at Foster Quan said they plan to seek visas for the workers that will let them stay in the U.S. as victims of a crime or of human trafficking during an ongoing investigation.

Luu said he wants to stay in America long enough to earn what he needs to pay off the loan on his parents’ home and help educate his six nieces and nephews.

“I’d like to stay here legally for two to three years,” he said. “I am very scared for my family.”

It's tough but one has to think before taking such risks. There are no guarantees that there will be work. Any of us that work can be let go at anytime.

As for getting help from the local Vietnamese community, good luck. Recently people who come from Vietnam to America to work often thumb their noses at the local Vietnamese that have already been established in the US. I don't see the local Vietnamese being able or wanting to help much.