Chinese universities all suck. All of them. I'd really be much happier if I never had to work with one, in one, or for one ever again, but.... in the current troubled economic conditions, I can't afford to be too dogmatic in my working policies. Alas.
So, I'm doing a promotional event for a Beijing university today. Saturday. The weekend. That's already annoying enough (particularly when I had two parties to go to last night!). How could they make it more annoying for me? You really want to know? Well, maybe not, but I'll tell you anyway.
1) Late on Wednesday afternoon, they send me an e-mail demanding a summary of my intended lecture that they can put on their website. Well, what they actually asked for was my complete PowerPoint presentation, but I told them - politely but firmly - NO; what they got was a brief outline, a list of topics, no more. Damn, these people always want FREE content.
2) On Thursday afternoon, I get a text message "confirming" the details of the timing. Actually, I find they are trimming the duration from 90 minutes to 60. I'm none too pleased, but I tell them I can compress my planned material into the shorter time, but will still expect to be paid the originally agreed fee. Taken aback, they decide to reinstate the 90-minute schedule. "Oh, and by the way, we did tell you we've moved it to the morning, didn't we? That doesn't matter, does it?" Well, NO, you hadn't told me that. And - given the 'two parties' thing alluded to above - a morning start is considerably less than ideal. But what the hey - I need the money. And I am trying to be nice here.....
3) Late on Friday afternoon, they send me an e-mail asking if they can video my presentation. They claim they only want to use a short clip from it (again, for advertising purposes on their website). However, they are also intending to press a DVD of the entire performance. At least they are asking me in advance this time! And they are very kindly offering me a free copy of the DVD as my recompense!! That's right: no actual fee, just a DVD. As I've said before, if you want to exploit my skills by mass reproduction of my work for your own benefit, well, I might be willing to discuss the possibility of that - but you've really got to be talking about a fee 50 or 100 times larger than I get for just doing a stand-alone lecture. I said NO once again - politely, but very, very FIRMLY.
4) This morning, when I arrive at the venue, my contact is NOT waiting for me at the gate as she had promised. I call her to tell her I've arrived, and she promises to come and pick me up "in 3 minutes". More than 10 minutes later, there's still no sign of her and I'm freezing my nadgers off. I call her again. She claims she didn't realise I'd actually arrived. (I figure she's lying, because we had discussed in detail exactly where I was standing and, you know, she had said she would meet me there in 3 minutes. I am just about ready to jump in a taxi in a righteous huff and go back home to bed again.) "Oh, and do you mind if we start 10 or 15 minutes later, because our director wants to give a long, waffly introductory talk in Chinese?" Yes, I DO mind. In the real world - and I don't mean "outside of China", I basically just mean "outside of Chinese universities" - people do not think they can change a fixed itinerary on the day of the event..... at barely 5 minutes' notice!! (That taxi home is now mighty tempting!) I have timed my material very carefully to fit the scheduled 90-minute slot, but.... oh, what the heck, the director can prattle on as long as he wants to; but understand this - you are only paying for 90 minutes of my time, and at 10.30am precisely I am out of here. So, maybe the director can give his speech at the end??
Deep breaths. Calm, calm, calm. Picture a restful place. Let the anger go. Calm, calm, calm. (And if it's still bugging you, blog about it when you get home.)
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