Shanghai Tech Writer

At the Shanghai office (and all the other NI offices, I think), normal working hours are from 9am to 6pm with an hour lunch break. It’s great not having to wake up early and rush off to work every morning, especially with my 10 minutes biking commute! My last job was from 7:45am to 4:30pm with a 45 minutes lunch break. While it was nice to get off work early and have the rest of the afternoon and entire evening to do things, I much prefer sleeping in and working later. I’ve never been a morning person. Matter of fact, even with the 9-to-6 working hours, I still have difficulty getting up! (I learned recently that I have this sleeping disorder called “Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome (DSP)” which means that my internal biological clock is hardwired improperly and I can’t sleep/get up when I need/want to.)

Aside from the much improved working hours, I am also very pleased to learn that NI offers flexible working hours. As long as I put in 40-hours of work a week, management doesn’t really care when I work. If I need to to take care of something for half a day, then I make it up later in the week. If I work late due to global conference call, then I take some time off the next day.

I knew about the flexible working hours from the beginning, however I was hesitant to take advantage of the system until today. I needed to open a Bank of China bank account for my payroll but haven’t had the time to go to the bank. Most banks open from 9 to 4:30 but not on weekends. I knew it wouldn’t be a big deal if I took care of that in the morning and be a little late to work, but for some reason, I was really hesitant to do so. I missed last month’s paycheck because I didn’t have a bank account for HR to deposit my first paycheck! I didn’t want to miss this month’s paycheck so yesterday, I gathered the nerve to ask my manager if I could take care of some banking business this morning. I knew her response was going to be positive but I don’t know why I would feel so nervous/hesitant about taking advantage of the flexible working hours. I guess I’m just not used to being in such a laid back working environment.

One quote comes to mind:

Red: [narrating] Forty years I been asking permission to piss. I can’t squeeze a drop without say-so.

Do you know where that’s from?

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