Holidays should mean time off, not confusion
Updated: 2010-10-13 09:15
By Stuart Beaton (China Daily)
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The dean cheerfully informed me last week, "Wednesday is a holiday, you'll have to work Saturday instead!"
Given that I already work Saturdays, I wasn't too pleased by this statement. It was only later that the absurdity of it struck me.
Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I thought that the whole point of a holiday was that you didn't have to work, the idea being that you took a break to recharge, and come back refreshed and ready to give your best effort.
Having to work a different day to make up for the one that you had a break on is akin to being given a present, then being asked to pay for it yourself!
So I enjoyed this year's long holiday spending the time doing some reading, and generally basking in the warm autumn sun. Mooncakes were exchanged, and subsequently re-gifted to others who enjoy them far more than I do. Flags were flown patriotically, life was good, and I was happy.
Come the Saturday morning, I got up early, and traveled to the East Campus of Tianjin Medical University, a 20 minute taxi ride tangled up in the snarl that is peak hour traffic here. As the clock, and the meter, ticked on, I thumbed through the notes for the lesson I was giving.
Pulling up to the gates, I paid the driver, grabbed the receipt, and trotted off toward my classroom. When I arrived, it was empty, but I put that down to my being a little earlier than usual. I loaded my files onto the computer, and set up the video projector, calmly waiting for the students to filter in as they usually do.
After a good 10 minutes, the room was still empty, and the bell rang to start class.
I hauled out my phone and rang the dean, who told me that I should go and check to see if the rooms had been changed to accommodate the shift in days. He rattled off a set of instructions as to where I should go to ask, which I quickly followed.
When I arrived at the office in question, it was unmanned.
At that point, my phone rang. It was the dean, who hesitantly told me that Wednesday's classes had been cancelled, and that Saturday's classes were actually Friday's classes.
I don't teach on Fridays, so my trip had been a wasted one.
Hailing a cab, I returned to the university, where I ran into the dean coming out of the apartment block we live in with all the other foreign experts. After apologizing to me, he came out with a very useful piece of wisdom:
"There are three types of people. Those that make things happen, those who have things happen to them, and those who stand by and wonder what happened!"
It seems that we had both been the victim of a misunderstanding, and that the lines of communication between our department and another had become tangled. Sorting that out was now a high priority on his long list of things to do, but at least no teachers had been hurt along the way.
As I rode the elevator up to my apartment, it occurred to me that this sort of mix up could very easily be solved, and that no one would need to be left wondering again.
It's a very simple, very elegant solution, one which has been tried and tested in other countries for years
When it's a holiday, it's a holiday. Don't move the days around, just let people take the time off!